Team Marine

Team Marine, Heal the Bay Surfrider Club, Malibu’s Eco Team, and Samohi’s Solar Alliance proposed a student-created sustainable policy for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District to two board members, Ben Allen and Ralph Mechur. All of these great groups realize that SMMUSD is a bit behind the City of Santa Monica in sustainability, and are ready to help the district catch up.

In our draft of a sustainable policy we hope to achieve the following:

• Bring sustainable products to our school

• Change the behavior of our students and teachers to be more sustainable

• Educate those involved with the district on sustainability

• Improve sustainable water and power practices in the district

The board was very impressed with our dedication, and ensured us that they would try meeting our requests depending on the topic. We’d like to thank the Mr. Allen and Mr. Mechur for taking time out of their busy schedule to listen to our long and detailed presentations. We are looking forward to future meetings with the board.

Left to Right: Marcus Erikson, Patricio, Nhi, Talia, Aidan.

Yesterday, February 18th, 2011, Dr. Marcus Eriksen of 5 Gyres came to Team Marine to assist him with one of his newest projects. He walked in the classroom with a huge box full of over 1000 lighters. We have previously helped Dr. Eriksen in building a pontoon, named JUNK, to sail in the rough oceans. This time he wants a paddle-board!

Dead Laysan Albatross with Stomach Contents. Note the Lighter!

Every lighter came from the Midway Atoll, many from the stomachs of the Laysan Albatross birds. The Midway Atoll is known for having huge problems with marine debris. 1.5 million dead Laysan Albatross have been found dead on the Midway Atoll; almost every bird has died from starvation because their stomachs are full of plastic marine debris that washes up on shore. We spent over three hours hammering, plying, and smashing these lighters’ caps of.We are working to Dr. Eriksen to figure out how to transform these lighters into a paddle-board. Thank you Dr. Eriksen for allowing us to help you in this awareness-invoking creative project.

The LA group with Jean-Michel Cousteau

While in DC, Team Marine members were able to meet with Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who spent much of his life exploring the oceans with his father. TM and the Captain’s son congregated at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History on February 15th, 2011 where Cousteau was giving a presentation entitled “The Great Ocean Adventure.” He spoke about his continued efforts in protecting our world’s oceans. Sounds good to us! It was an honor to spend time with the legendary explorer, and again thank Alicia and the Aquarium of The Pacific for this opportunity.

Smiling faces going to far away places

Team Marine members Kou, Sandra Jay, Aidan, and Jesse are in Washington, D.C. repping Team Marine!

They were able to relax their first night in the capital, settling in their hotel rooms and eating pizza. On their first morning they visited famous monuments of D.C. such as the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Albert Einstein Memorial, and The American History Museum. Later the members met with other delegates and attended an ice breaker for networking. On their second day they visited the Natural History Museum and presented our Team Marine projects to the audience of delegates. Throughout the event, they were lucky enough to have panelists providing feedback on our project and their presentation. We are so proud of our members in D.C. and hope they are able to influence other Eco-Beasts to follow in our foot steps. We’d like to thank Ms. Catherine Baxter for accompanying our members to DC as a school official, as well as Alicia and the whole Aquarium of the Pacific family for this great opportunity.