Happy World Ocean Day!

Please join OceanHealth.Org as we team up with the San Francisco Chapter of Surfrider for our annual World Ocean Day beach cleanup in San Francisco at Ocean Beach.

We will be meeting at the Judah Street entrance to Ocean Beach along the Great Highway. There will be gloves and bags. Just bring yourself and dress for variable weather.

You can reach the spot by taking MUNI on the N Judah Line. Please carpool or take public transportation in the spirit of the day.

This is our 3rd annual World Ocean Day in the Bay Area. Please check out: http://www.oceandaysf.org

Co-sponsors:
California Academy of Sciences
The Aquarium of the Bay

I'll be there picking up trash with hundreds of others. Together we can all make a difference! Hope to see you all there!

Cheers,

Lotti

Algalita's Education kit

Algalita Marine Research Foundation's own Sara Cummins and Dr. Marcus Eriksen recently stopped by San Francisco on their JUNK Ride 2009. They came to speak on May 27th to an event held at SF's Aquarium of The Bay put on by our own Kathleen Egan, the Sub-committee head for Rise Above Plastics (http://www.sfsurfrider.org/programs/rap.htm), and Leslie Moyer.

They among several others came to speak about plastic pollution, specifically in the North Pacific Ocean. Dr. Eriksen with a navigation buddy ventured out on the JUNK raft last summer to research and collect samples of the North Pacific Gyre, the large mass of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean. Currently, their JUNK Ride consists of two Algalita staff (Eriksen & Cummins) bicycling from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico to share 100’s of samples of the mid-Pacific Plastic soup with educators, organizations and legislators along the west coast of North America. Their talk was so inspiring and informative. They were able update all of us with plastic pollution data and stats.

One of Algalita's missions is to educate about the plastic-invasion, and do so through public outreach and their unique educational literature - the Education Kit! When they presented this during their talk, I thought, we've GOT to get ourselves one of those! It would be such a wonderful and priceless addition to our presentations. It consists of your own sample of the North Pacific Gyre, the DVD “Our Synthetic Sea Story”, Free Membership, a list of online resources for educators, a reusable produce bag from “Bring Your Own”, and a reusable steel bottle from “Ecousable” - Wow!

So I moseyed myself up to the front, post-presentation, to approach Anna. She was great and super helpful. She said we could get one free of charge because we're Surfrider and we've helped set this whole thing up! How cool is that?! So she gave me the contact info and we now have graciously received an Education Kit from Algalita! Thank you!! Surfrider's education presentations will now be even more updated and powerful.

Will update how the next education presentation goes with the new material.

Cheers!
- Lotti

Lick-Wilmerding

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of presenting to a class at SF's Lick-Wilmerding High School. It is a very progressive and forward thinking high school that teaches through kinetic learning. They have a Center for Civic Engagement that has the whole student body get involved in some sort of civic duty. For Mr. Don Rozzi's Chemistry class, they had chosen the ocean/watersheds, beach clean-ups and surfing - which fits perfectly with Surfrider Foundation!

The presentation was held for a small but interactive audience of 6 students and Mr. Rozzi. It was a nice size since we had more time for questions and real one-on-one interaction. For example, Brendan was a very inquisitive student and had some great questions. The presentation consisted of a short introduction to what Surfrider Foundation is and what we do both locally and globally, the Surfrider Foundation's 'From Sea to Summit' educational video and last but not least a short PowerPoint presentation on Plastic - which can be found on the right below the picture slide show.

They were going to follow the presentation with a 2 day venture out surfing south of SF. Not a bad way to spend 2 days in school... kinda wish I would've gone to school there! :) I hope that they had fun, were safe and able to use the information given to use! Would love to continue to present either annually or every semester to L-W HS. Thank you Mr. Rozzi and students!

Cheers and happy learning plus surfing!

- Lotti