Team Marine Wins Ocean Hero Award

Team Marine wins Ocean Hero Award

On April 5th Team Marine traveled by van to Sacramento to be part of Ocean Day at the California State Capitol Building on March 6. Representing the youth, the students met with various assembly members, senators, and staff to support bills AB1998 and AB925 that would reduce plastic marine debris and curb carbon dioxide emissions. They also encouraged state officials to establish a comprehensive network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) that follow the scientific guidelines and draft new legislation that would make environmental sustainability a core subject in k-12 grade levels. The students also had a chance to lobby alongside various environmental organizations, including Heal the Bay. That evening, Team Marine attended a formal reception and sustainable seafood banquet with numerous state officials and ocean advocates and was given an Ocean Hero Award by a California steering committee composed of CalCoast, Environment California, Heal the Bay, the NRDC, Ocean Conservancy, San Diego Coastkeeper, and Surfrider Foundation. Lester Snow, Secretary for Natural Resources welcomed the students that evening, and Mike Chrisman, a director for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and former Secretary for Natural Resources presented the award to the students for their many contributions toward protecting the marine environment. Returning home along the coast, Team Marine visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium and camped in beautiful Big Sur.


Team Marine with Senator Julia Brownly who authored AB1998 which would ban all single-use paper and plastic bags in California

Team Marine Wins Big in Environmental Science Competitions

Team Marine won 2nd Place in the Quikscience Challenge 2010. Team Marine was awarded 2nd place for all their extremely hard work this year including the creation of an original curriculum and documentary about Team Marines 10 R's, advocating for MPAs, cleaning up and spreading awareness about plastic pollution in the ocean, performing in depth research about storm drain pollution and fouling organisms on plastic, their work to ban single-use plastic bags in Santa Monica, presenting all over California, building a solar powered boat for Solar Cup 2010 and reaching over 9 million people.


Team Marine "Lab Coats" win 1st Place in the Edison Challenge 2010. Team Marine "Lab Coats" were awarded 1st place for their work with the Teach and Test Program monitoring water quality in Santa Monica Bay and Collecting thousands of bottles to Recycle for LifeStraws.

TEAM MARINE 10 R's DOCUMENTARY

Tapped Screening a Huge Success

On March 24th Team Marine held a special free screening of the award wining documentary Tapped. Tapped is an incredible film all about the harmful effects of single-use plastic water bottles on our environment and ourselves. Over 125 students and members of the community attended.

TEAM MARINE HOSTS SCREENING OF THE MOVIE TAPPED.

EVERYONE CAN COME! ITS COMPLETELY FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!!!!!


Click on the picture if you cant read it.

When: March 24th @ 4pm
Where: Santa Monica High School Barnum Hall
601 Pico Blvd.
Santa Monica California 90405
Cost: FREE
Sponsored by Team Marine and The Daily Ocean.

Wanna know more about the movie? visit. www.tappedthemovie.com

LabCoats present:LifeStraws at your school!

For the Edison Challange Team LabCoats made an original video on 10 steps to setting up a LifeStraws recycling program at your school!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl0luR-jnlc

Team Marine Submits To The QuikSCience Challenge

Pictured above: Team Marine jumps for joy after submitting their project


This is Team Marine's 3rd year participating in the QuickSCience Challenge. The QuickScience Challenge is sponsored by The USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies and Quiksilver, Inc. The Challenge is a multi-faceted competition where teams must create and present environmental lesson plans, develop a multimedia project, write a research proposal, come up with a new solution for an environmental problem and do community outreach. We submitted their project on February 19th but we are far from being done helping the environment!


Pictured above: Team Marine at USC submitting their project


Pictured Above: Team Marine celebrates by going out for some thai food.

Check out the QuikSCience Challenge Website

Team Marine Teaches The Youth

Pictured above: Team Marine teaches Mr. Guthrie's 8th grade science class at Culver City Middle School

We carpooled to Lincoln Middle School, Animo Leadership Charter High School, Culver City Middle School, and Santa Monica Alternative School House to give a presentation on our 10 R’s Curriculum. Each school varied with the age group we presented to, but overall we presented to grades 7 to 12. For each group we modified our lesson plan depending on the age group we were presenting to along with the language of our content. We first introduced ourselves and the documentary we had created concerning the negative impacts of single-use plastics and our Ten R’s solutions to the problem. As the video we presented ours Ten R’s power point which had content based on problems of single-use plastics, global warming, ocean acidification and our solutions. Then when we were done presenting we assigned students to four different stations the first one was based on the carbon cycle and explained to them the difference between a source and a sink. The second demo station was on ocean acidification which included dropping eggshells and chalk in vinegar to demonstrate how coral bleaching occurs. In addition to that demo we used a universal indicator to show how carbon dioxide makes the ocean acidic by blowing bubbles with a straw in distilled water. The third station involved two beakers filled halfway with the same amount of water, one beaker covered with a small net and an ice cube placed on both. Then we melted the ice cube on top of the beaker with the net with a hair dryer to show that glacial ice being melted by global warming can cause a higher sea level rise than sea ice melting. The last station included a club soda, a stopper with a tube, and tilted it towards the beaker with distilled water to show ocean acidification to show how carbon transfers to fresh water and makes the ocean acidic by verifying it with the universal indicator. Then after everybody had been to each demo station we played the carbon cycle game to see how much content they retained with station that pertained to it and handed out organic lollipops to those who guessed correctly.


Pictured above: Team Marine members Daniel Franco and Valerie Wacker do a lab on ocean acidification with 8th grade students at Culver City Middle School