Urban School Beach Clean-up

On Wednesday morning, June 10th Dan Robinson from SF Surfrider and I, along with the assistance of the National Park Services educator Lynn; presented, educated and guided a beach clean up for a Marine Science class from the Urban School of San Francisco. The Urban School is a progressive private school that emphasizes the passion for learning, inspiring its students to become self-motivated and active participants in their education. One of their teachers, Ms. Emily Goodwin, took her Marine Science students out to Ocean Beach as a final lesson of their semester. Such a wonderful way to cement and finish a topic been taught all semester.

The morning started with Dan speaking about what Surfrider Foundation is as a whole and the different campaigns active in San Francisco’s community – including education and beach cleanups. Thanks to the Algalita Foundation Education Kit, I was able to pass around our sample of the North Pacific Gyre sending home the message of why we do beach cleanups. With every piece of plastic/trash that we pick up off the beach, we decrease the amount of trash that will be entering the marine ecosystem. This over time; will hopefully decrease the size of the Pacific Garbage Patch. Lynn, an excellent guide and educator from NPS showed Ms. Goodwin’s class where to go and what to look for, as well as what not to pick up, i.e. organic material.

There are several photos of the trip that can be found in the slideshow – feel free to check them out!

Thank you Urban School and Ms. Goodwin for bringing your amazing and bright students out for such an interactive, educational and meaningful trip!

World Oceans Day beach clean-up

World Oceans Day took place at Ocean Beach at Judah on Sunday, June 7th. It was run by Eli Saddler (pictured at the dumpster), the creator of Ocean Health.org (http://www.oceanhealth.org/) and co sponsored by SF chapter of Surfrider Foundation, California Academy of Sciences, and Aquarium of the Bay.

It was a huge turnout with around 300 people. It was a beautiful day with excellent weather which certainly helped draw out a lot of people to the beach. There was a sign-up table and a great table of lots of goodies and coffee donated by Java Beach Cafe - thank you!

With the big turn out there was a prize given to the person who found the weirdest item during the clean-up. The winning item was a stuffed animal/dog-princess, certainly the most bizarre item by far found on the beach. There was a total of 1,160 pounds of trash found that day. Wow! That is a lot, and keep in mind that was only in 2 hours. This is a reminder that we must continue to take care of beaches by: recycling, not littering, reusing cups, using less plastic on a daily basis, and last but not least picking up after yourself and others!

This beach-clean up was a successful one, lets make all of them this great! Come out and support SF Surfrider, the beach and our great Pacific Ocean!