From 6th grade:

I recently found an old assignment I'd written last year about the environment. Reading through it, I figured it was relevant as a "greenerdream," considering it includes information about creating a cleaner earth. I wrote it in my P.E. class, in a lesson about "Bottled water." It's called: 

"Saving the Earth, and Helping the Environment"

Saving the earth, helping the environment; it's a hard thing to do. People can do it, we all can help, but the big question is "Do we try?" All I know is we definitely should. Last month, in our phisical education class, our two teachers showed us an article that relates to this topic, about the problem, and how we could solve it. 

Bottled water. This article described our use of bottled water in the world, and what a problem it is. Our teachers gave us time to read this article so that we could learn important facts, for example: less than a quarter of plastic water bottles in the U.S. are recycled each year, or the biggest trash dump in the world is 90% plastic. It's horrible, yet what I've realized is that plastic water bottles are only one of the billions of problems in the world. There is recycling, much more waste falling under the category of POLLUTION, problems such as war and peace, poverty, and many more.

Still, in this world, many are trying to make a difference, and many have. We have made a mess, and now we have to clean it up, for Mother Nature. For the ocean, for living animals and plants, and for ourselves. 

What can you do?

-recycle

-conserve

-buy glass

-preserve

-reuse

-care

-plant

-help

-love.

Life Science

This year has been busy, but I'm soon planning on creating a new presentation for my life science class on conservation, which I'll put put on "greenerdream" as well. 

Meanwhile, I've been making a small "card business" with my friend for the holidays. The cards will include many inspired ocean-related designs. Speaking of the holidays, I think that it's a great idea to create home-made presents, especially if wanting to save money. One way to be very "eco" is to paint or make your presents out of recycled or reusable materials, for example:

-use paper grocery bags to make rapping paper or canvas a painting.

-use a glass bottle to paint a vase or flower pot.

-make "bottle cap" magnets.

It's a great way to save money while helping the earth! Happy Holidays!

Bioneers 2008

Bioneers '08 is coming up! On October 18th, people come to San Rafael to educate people on what they believe in! Be sure to come!

2008 Beach Cleanup

On July 5, my mom and I joined a beach cleanup at Davenport Beach. It was a complete mess! There were spent fireworks, clothes, Styrofoam coolers, plastic bags, and more. The beach was filled with garbage and junk that could soon become deadly marine debris.

As many people now know, there is a huge pile of garbage found in the Pacific Ocean. In the last five years, its size has doubled, and now has said to have become two times the size of Texas and 300 feet in height. For years, the current has brought food to this area for the local ocean life. Many animals still visit the site and are unfortunately killed by the "food" that they eat.
Together we must solve this problem by preventing our trash to get there in the first place. We must not litter, and restore our beaches. One way to help is easily by joining beach cleanups or bringing a bag to pack your trash in on a day at the beach. There our so many ways to help the environment, only if we try!

SEE Turtles Trip

On June 8th, I left for an expedition in Baja, California to catch and monitor sea turtles! Stay tuned for a complete post!

A Poster Contest

On March 21st, J. Nichols told me about a poster contest held through the 15th of May. I had plenty of time, so I decided to visit the website "urban revison" to be aware of the rules and guidelines. I would soon be starting on my poster.

The contest asked for your vision of the future: "What would our cities and environment look like in the day of tomorrow? What would our cities and environment look like in the year 2050?" When I first read about the poster, I had no idea about what to paint. Still, I knew for a fact that I wouldn't want our world to be polluted, with littered plastic bags and suffocating fuels, but very "eco" and natural, with an image that provided a beautiful clean world with fresh air, trees, and wildlife.

Another suggestion the website asked was to try to create your poster from any recycled objects. Therefore, I decided to make a canvas of brown paper "Safeway" bags that I know would've never been as useful.

I researched about energy that could be our solutions, deciding that that would be a clear part of the poster: "wind power, solar power, hydro power." The poster that I would create would include blue skies, and happy people, with new architecture and transportation, such as solar powered scooters, buildings made of solar panels, and wind power on roofs of houses. When framing my ideas, I finished my poster.

It was a great experience and fortunately, I won! I could've never expected it. Many thanks to J. Nichols who encouraged me, and who recommended this contest to me! Never would've I have thought of what I wanted our earth to look like in the future, but now I can imagine. This has really inspired me and has raised my hopes for a new and "eco" world.

My Trip to Baja, California

As my first trip to Mexico, I already knew that it would be an experience of a lifetime. It would be "An Expedition" to monitor Sea Turtles in Magdelena Bay, as well as a timeless adventure in Mexico– meeting new people, and exploring the beautiful culture.

At first, I traveled only with the company of my mom, J.(marine biologist), his three-year old daughter Julia, and Elena(a student from Duke College), but once we arrived in the city of San Carlos, we met many more people, for example Julio, who we would soon be traveling with for a couple days, and a couple nights.
We left on two fishing boats out onto a beautiful island made of shells, then started setting up camp. We had everything: food, shelter, water, space. You could go looking for shells or swim in the clean water of Magdelena Bay. It was great!
Time passed, and soon it was time to put up the Sea Turtle monitoring nets. There would be two of them, side by side. After we set them up, all we could do is wait for the Sea Turtles to arrive. While waiting, we sat around the camp fire, had dinner, and set up a schedule of when you wanted to go check the nets. The Turtles would come every two hours, and mostly in the night time. That night, you had the choice of going at 8:00, 10:00, or 12:00. My mom and I chose to go at 10:00, with no one else except for the captain who would drive us and the fisherman would help untangle the Turtles from the nets.
Nobody had caught any at 8:00, so a couple hours later, we would try again. When it was time, my mom and I got our warm clothes on, and headed towards the boat. It wasn't a cold night, but on the boat, the speed would make it chillier. We got in the boat, and were soon off into the black night water. The Bay Breeze ran through our hair until we arrived at the nets. The fisherman worked together pulling the net out of the water while I held a flashlight that shined through the net watching for turtles.
Getting closer to the end of the net, the fisherman spotted something. "Is it a turtle????!!!" we asked him. It was! It came closer and closer until it was time to pull it into the boat. It was a Black Sea Turtle, big, already tagged, and strong. The fisherman fought its strength while untangling it from the net, then put it at the bottom of the boat. Throwing the net back into the bay, we continued our search. I stared at it on the way to the other net. What an experience: my first time seeing a Sea Turtle in the beauty of Magdelena Bay.
We caught another that night: untagged, and not as large as the other. We made our way back to the island, with two Black Turtles. When we got there the campfire still burned, as we told the other fisherman. In the next few days we would tag the turtles we caught, find information such as weight and size, then set them free back into the waters of Magdelena. That night became late, and soon time to rest after the long day, only our first day, of adventuring in Baja.

Ocean Preservation and Sea Turtles

Presentation Outline


First Slide of Ocean:

This is the Ocean. This is our Ocean, our Mother, or Father. We talk about Global Warming and Pollution on this planet. What we don’t think about much is that our planet, our earth, is mostly Ocean. To be more clear, this planet is almost 70% Ocean, and by polluting our planet, we are very much polluting our Oceans and the animals in them. We humans are 71% saltwater, we are 71% OCEAN, and not only must we save the Ocean, we must save ourselves!

I. Introduction (name) I will be talking about Ocean Preservation and SeaTurtles.
II. Her is our first slide (The Ocean)
III. Quotes
IV. Again, today I will be talking about Ocean preservation problems and Sea Turtles.
V. First of all, one of our big environmental problems that we all know about is Global Warming.

(Explain greenhouse gases trap heat naturally, more heat is coming in and increasing our degrees. Fossil fuels and pollution is burning our Ozone layer. Glaciers melting by 75%)

Why is Global Warming happening? I might have told you, but the reason is pollution. Our pollution on Earth.

• Pollution

We in the United States especially should think about this problem.
One really huge problem is plastic. To be more specific, we have 7 kinds of plastic, 5 out of those 7 types of plastic are not recycleable. The other 2 that are, are often not even recycled! Take a look at our plastic.

• Air Pollution
• Gas
• Cows
Creating gas: Methane
• Not only is this pollution causing Global Warming, it’s also causing animals to die.
• Our Trash kills
• Animals like seals, and dolphins and fish.
• This bird was found by scientists dead. They found that they died from all this plastic. (slide of plastics inside bird).
• Sea Turtles
Of of the animals that is also dying from our pollution that I would like to focus on is Sea Turtles.
Types of Sea Turtle:

Olive Ridley: smallest, dives to 500 feet, lives in Tropical places, eats crab, shrimp, rock lobsters and jellyfish.
Hawksbill: 100-200 pounds, lives in all Oceans in Tropical areas.
Green Sea Turtle: found in Tropical and subtropival areas, eats grass, algae, sponges, mollusks, jellyfish.
Kemp’s Ridley: Smallest, lives in North Atlantic Oceans from North America to Europe. Eats crabs, mollusks, fish.
Loggerhead: large head, lives in all Oceans and Mediterranean Sea, eats sponges, mollusks, crustaceans, and plants.
Leatherback: largest sea turtle, lives in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans and also up North, eats mostly jellyfish.
Flatback: Found off the North and Northeastern Coasts of Australia. Eats things like sea cucumbers and prawns.

Many things happen to Sea Turtles besides our pollution.
-Poaching
-Some countries make turtle soup (show slide)
-decoration and jewelry
-exploitation of eggs
-caught in Tuna and Swordfish Fisheries and Shrimp nets
-Shrimpsuck.org (slide)
-Go Green (slide)

Still there are very few restaurants that have “turtle safe” shrimp.
If you want to learn more about shrimp nets and our ocean sea life, I highly recommend that your visit SHRIMPSUCK.ORG.

• Let’s Go Green
So as White Hill Wildcats, I think that we should Go Green!
And I can tell you that there are so many ways to accomplish this:
-Recycle
-Protect
-Conserve
-You can go to the beach and have a picnic, and surf, and while you’re there, you can clean up!
-Buy Nalgene
Buying Nalgene bottles are a very big part of conservation. Another thing you can try to help Go Green is to not buy or drink from disposable plastic water bottles, if only for a week.
-Buy glass and reuse your containers
-Learn more about the planet and our Oceans by going to Oceanrevolution.org, and getting involved, and helping the Ocean Revolution.
-Let’s Imagine a Greener Dream!

Slide Show: Ocean Preservation and Sea Turtles

Mohawken Sea Turtle

Christmas 2007