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