Students and teachers - are you involved in finding solutions to plastic pollution? We'd like to hear from you - let us know what you are doing to raise awareness of PLASTIC POLLUTION! ;xNLx;Visit us at www.algalita.org;xNLx;Email katie@algalita.org;xNLx;
Tiana Masnaghetti joins the Algalita research team and creates "What About The Sea?", a short film outlining the horrific issue of plastic pollution.
The Newport Harbor High School class that rallied the Newport Beach City Council into banning Styrofoam products in restaurants in 2008 expanded its aim and moved its focus inland - starting with Costa Mesa. The environmental surfing class is on a mission to get restaurants to ditch Styrofoam take-out containers and is asking cities to take the lead by banning the product that fills up landfills, kills wildlife and creates a mess at the beach, students said at a press conference Wednesday morning at the Newport Pier.
Over 100 students from Pegasus School in Huntington Beach took to the beach to work on their scientific experiment with a goal to get local officials to notice and do something about plastic on the beaches and in the Santa Ana River. Their hypothesis is that the trash is coming from up-river, flowing to the ocean and landing on the beach. The students plan to present their findings to the Huntington Beach City Council and get it to ban Styrofoam products and single-use plastic.
During the inaugural 2011 Summit, more than 100 students, 30 academic advisors, and 50 speakers and guests gathered in Long Beach, California. Student teams and their advisors represented 12 countries, including the Bahamas, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Guam, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zambia. From the U.S., students and teachers traveled from throughout California, as well as Illinois, Indiana, New York, Oregon, Rhode...
Algalita Summit team from the Pegasus School presented their project on local styrofoam® pollution to the Huntington Beach City Council! The council members were so impressed with the findings that they moved to ban Styrofoam® products from council chambers and asked the team to come back for a commendation for their efforts to reduce plastic waste.
Another team from the Algalita Youth Summit, Plasti-Gone in Buffalo New York, just launched an amazing website for their project. They are eliminating disposable plastics from Great Lakes schools.
The song and video caught the attention of influential leaders in their country and has brought the topic of plastic pollution to the forefront of environmental conversations.
Over 50 local students gathered in Long Beach to join the Algalita Castaway Easter Egg Hunt. We found over 30 PLASTIC EGGS that had traveled down our local watershed systems. The purpose of this event was to raise awareness of unique plastic items that enter our environment. Students discussed how these eggs mimic nature and came up with inventive ways to reuse them after Easter. Special thanks to Surfrider Long Beach for such a successful clean up!
The impromptu performance, commonly known as a "Flash-Mob" was staged in their school cafeteria. The purpose was to inform and educate their classmates about plastic pollution using the posters and signs they had created during the Summit.
New Ocean Blue was started by high schoolers Kimberly and Megan after realizing how large the issue was. They saw that so much focus was being placed on issues that are too far away for people to fully grasp and not enough was being placed on issues that are in plain sight. Kimberly and Megan saw the tangible connection with the ocean and its influence in their lives as well as others around them. The organization is here to educate the future generations about the dangers of a plastic ocean. This education proves to be important and crucial in preventing the dangers that are posed to the ocean’s ecosystems, as well as our own.
Team Global Awareness worked with administrators in our school district, and as a direct result, all the cafeterias in the district have made the switch from single use disposable utensils to silverware
17 year old, PAF 2011 attendee, Lauren Gibson who will be receiving Dr. Jane Goodall's Global Youth Leadership Award in Hollywood, CA Saturday, September 24 for her environmental work with Roots & Shoots and the Carmel Green Teen Micro-Grant Program.
The Rakefish Project is a national marine litter awareness initiative, implemented through an interdisciplinary, collaborative research project for grade 4 students in elementary schools across America. This project is made possible by a grant from the Guilford Fund for Education, Guilford, CT.
Team Chile developed a story about microplastics for their national outreach project. Although the story is written in spanish, you can get the main idea without the need to understand the language.
Algalita was the happy host of ten students and two teachers from the Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in South Carolina. The group traveled all the way to Redondo Beach to spend a week learning about plastic pollution in the ocean. They made an amazing video sharing the experience!
Sandy Patterson and her students from Lanai Elementary School, organized a trip to clean up all the sea debris at Mauna Lei Beach. They collected SEVEN TRUCK LOADS of tires, batteries, plastic bottles, and other debris. Some of it they saved and made into art. A fourth grade student, Brooke Belista, was inspired to write a song about cleaning up the earth and Mr. Matt Glickstein, a very talented teacher’s aide, composed the music, recorded the kids singing, and made a video of their beach clean up.
The Algalita Youth Summit team from Italy bought some water analysis kits and tested tap water in three different buildings of our school. They asked their Health Department to verify some data in order to obtain the authorization to eliminate mineral water in plastic bottles. Last week, at last, they achieved their goal: no more plastic bottles at the canteen! School councillors sent jugs for tap water and all the money spared will be used to buy teaching materials.
Jamie Ostmann is an inspiring youth leader in the "rethink plastic pollution" movement. Her up close and personal experience with plastic pollution started at a young age. Her hometown of Seal Beach, CA is an accumulation area for debris that exits the San Gabriel River. Jamie recently created this fantastic awareness video that captures the elusiveness of this complex issue. Great approach Jamie!! We're right behind you :)
Ann Garth quickly gained our attention last year when she and her fellow student presented their research on plastic pollution to the Huntington Beach City Council (See May 1, 2011). Algalita welcomed Ann to 2012 POPS Summit as one of our panelist, and her words inspired students, educators, and advisors alike. She is the voice of the next generation...and we hear you loud and clear Ann!!
Over 25 Youth Leaders and their Advisors gathered at the Google Offices in Venice Beach, CA for the 2012 POPS Speaker Training Summit. During this event, attendees gained helpful public speaking and leadership skills to help them share solutions with their communities.
POPS Youth Leaders Lauren Fishman and Jamie Ostmann shared their passion for protecting the oceans and beaches with 100 third graders at Village View Elementary School. The team’s goal was to educate, excite, and bring awareness about the importance of preserving the world’s oceans and beaches.
Raegan Owen, a 6th grade student at Davis Middle School in Conyers, GA, contacted us over winter break with questions about the North Pacific Gyre. Her curiosity quickly turned into an award winning research project that won FIRST place in the school science fair! She then went on to compete at the County fair and was awarded 3rd! We could not be more proud of this young scientist!
You may remember 2011 POPS Summit attendee Prashanth Ramakrishna from the The Bottle Boat Initiative. Now, he has moved to China and is running the BBI as a Unheard Voice program that combats plastic pollution through legislation. The team works to empower and equip youth to fight for the sustainable future that they deserve. The UV team works to connect and activate youth to be change catalysts and use their voices to make sure that the whole world is listening. Their largest program at this time is Awareness x 10. They started the program in order to educate the international community about plastic pollution. The team has created an extremely flexible presentation template that we have started to pawn off to as many organizations as possible in order to make the resource universally accessible. They have partnered with the International Youth Council USA and One More Generation to make this happen. Here is the link: http://unheardvoices.virb.com/awareness-x-10 Also, be check out their recent work on the Detroit Bag Ban!! link: http://unheardvoices.virb.com/bottleboat-initiative
The Generation Green club members worked with the Art Department, specifically Ann Clark, to create a sculpture and a message. Attempting to bring awareness to how much plastic the school and surrounding community uses, the club up-cycled used plastic bottles to create a large sculpture of a plastic foot crushing the earth. The 12 foot by 12 foot by 10 foot sculpture is meant to represent how our plastic usage is destroying the planet; and the message has been widely received. The Plastic Footprint has been in Incline High School’s homecoming day parade, to burning man, at a reading of Beth Terry’s revolutionary book, Plastic Free, and many more community events.
The South Pasadena City Council presented a certificate of recognition to a South Pasadena High School student Wednesday night in recognition of her exemplary leadership in completing an environmental education project that won her the highest honor in girl scouting. Anneliese Sloss received the certificate from Mayor Richard D. Schneider at the City Council’s Sept. 5 meeting, seven months after she first appeared before the council and gave a speech to its board members as well as the city’s Natural Resources and Environmental Commission about her project. Sloss was given girl scouting’s top honor, the Gold Award, at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on June 9. The award was given in appreciation for two of her outstanding achievements. The first was a project titled “The People’s Plastic Pollution Problem,” which made elementary school children aware of the hazards of plastic pollution. Sloss’s second achievement was to create a public service announcement in the form of a coloring book for children, titled “A Day in the Life of a Plastic Bag.”
Ryan Germann, is in fourth grade in Kingwood, Texas and had to choose an environmental topic for a g/t research project and chose The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. After reading The Plastiki last spring, Ryan was compelled to conduct scientific research of his own so him and his family collected plastic off Pirates Beach in Galveston. He presented his data to his class of 25 students and then at the high school where approximately 100 people will visit his display and ask him questions. People were stunned to learn about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and left the event more aware of the problems we face with plastic pollution and also learned about what they can do to reduce plastic waste in their own lives.
Pegasus School’s bright, articulate students Amanda Miskell, Anushka Bhaskar and Jenna Dyer are spreading knowledge in their community about the dangers of styrofoam. On November 18, they rocked the Huntington Beach City Hall with incredible speeches that ignited the entire auditorium in applause. "It is easier to defend our ways rather than change them." —Anushka Bhaskar, middle school student from Pegasus School, Huntington Beach. See the video of the Huntington Beach City Council meeting Nov. 18 at 1:17:22
Students from Porter-Gaud School from Charleston, SC visit Long Beach California to conduct plastic pollution research with Algalita and Captain Charles Moore.
This exhibit represents a Level 7 collaboration between Integrated Arts and Environmental Studies. The project was inspired by the documentary film Wasteland, in which artist Vic Muniz travels to Brazil to create art with the “pickers” at the largest landfill in South America. Through his work Muniz attempts to give a voice to the individuals who work in the landfill. Our project is a culmination of our studies of the issues caused by plastics and other trash that has ended up in our oceans. Level 7 has worked with two local organizations, Heal the Bay and the Algalita Marine Research Foundation to learn about this issue. The art pieces in this exhibit are made from debris that we gathered during a beach clean-up in February. Their goal was to give a voice to the various living organisms that make their homes in our oceans and on our beaches.
Bryce St. Amand is an eco-journalist in the making! His eye-opening PSA not only won his school contest, but he also came in first place in the county competition against 40 other participants. He is now heading to the state contest in Tallahassee and if he wins there will present his project at the national competition held in Baltimore. (more to come)
Check out these highlights from the Algalita 2015 POPS International Youth Summit held at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, CA. Visit www.algalitayouthsummit.org to see what's happening now!
A total of 18 teams, representing 4 countries, will be arriving in Dana Point, CA on March 22 to refine and launch action-oriented solutions to reduce plastic waste in their home communities at the POPS International Youth Summit. The winning entries were chosen from among a group of 28 teams representing 7 countries. . Among the 18 proposed ambitious and exciting projects are: installing water bottle refilling stations in schools; promoting municipal legislation to ban plastics; creating a mobile app that helps enforce plastic bans in local restaurants; conducting coastal trash survey; creating artwork out of collected plastic debris; writing and producing music videos; and developing plastic pollution curriculum for schools through their communities.
A day after attending the 2014 Algalita POPS Youth Summit, members of Team Marine drove from Dana Point to Sacramento for Ocean Day to lobby for SB 270 (California statewide bag ban), SB 1132 (moratorium on tracking), and AB 1699 (ban on polyethylene micro-beads in personal hygiene products). They divided our overall message amongst team members so each person could contribute their own elevator pitch concerning economic benefits, environmental impacts and effects, and supporting evidence. In the end, they learned that sound science and arguments centered on economics and human and environmental health are what resonate with politicians.
Four student representatives from Intellectual Virtues Academy attended the POPS International Youth Summit during March. They were so inspired by the information received, that they felt empowered to make a change on their own campus. On Friday, April 4th, they conducted an assembly for the entire school, plus parents and teachers. In this assembly, they showed a power point slide show and shared information they learned at the POPS Summit about plastic pollution. At the end of the assembly, they kicked off their idea - a Trash-Free Lunch Contest. More details coming soon!! (SEE STORY 5/31)
Woohoo - they did it! Single use plastic is now banned from Deep Creek Middle School! All of the students bring their snacks/ lunches in reusable containers. Way to go POPS Leaders!!
POPS Team Evergreen from Intellectual Virtues Academy kicked off their Trash-Free Lunch Contest in May 2014. They broke the whole student body into four teams: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Refuse. The four POPS Summit students each acted as a team captain for their team. They described the program before kick-off and sold reusable items after school to get everyone ready. The students checked lunches for four weeks (!) and gave students a score of 0 (if they had primarily disposable items), 1 (if they had only one or two pieces of trash) and 2 (if they had a totally trash-free lunch). Then then tallied the scores, and the winning team was awarded an ice-cream party and a Klean Kanteen bottle (in IVA colors)!
Three students from Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale, CA launched a project on the effect of Great Pacific Garbage Patch on the Phoebastria immutabilis. They wanted to understand the short term and long term effects of the debris on the birds. They hypothesized that if the amount of trash is not contained and minimized, then the Phoebastria immmutabilis population will become extinct. The research they collected displays how future generations of the Phoebastria immmutabilis population will contain several birth defects due to the toxins and carcinogens found in the debris. They took their project to the Los Angeles County Science Fair in Pasadena. They then placed third at the county fair and went on to the California State Science Fair (CSSF) at the California State Science Center (CSSC). The students will be gathering more data from Captain Moore after he returns from his 2014 North Pacific Gyre Expedition.
After attending the 2014 POPS International Youth Summit, Team Hungarian Green Ants flew home and developed a weeklong Awareness Curriculum to teach their fellow students how to be the solution to plastic pollution. First, the team conducted a campus trash audit to determine approximately how much of their waste consisted of plastic disposables. Then they conducted a series of informational presentations and workshops on topics related to plastic marine debris. At the end of the week, the team engaged their community in a clean-up event. They removed over 19 bags of debris from their local waterways!
Four Granada Hills teens representing Team ROBODOX designed an underwater ROV that will be used to take video evidence of plastic pollution during Captain Charles Moore’s expedition through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in July 2014. “As a team, our primary goal is to become better student engineers and to learn to apply our new skills to solving relevant problems in our society. Clearly, plastic pollution is a challenging problem and requires innovative solutions. With our ROV, we hope to be of assistance to ORV Alguita in their mission to study the oceanic environment by capturing HD video images during their July Expedition, which would bring awareness to the plastic pollution issue,” said a representative of Team ROBODOX.
“Warning Whale” made from plastic debris is currently displayed in Intellectual Virtue Academy’s lunchroom and will be traveling around the local elementary schools and NPOs to raise the awareness.
The POPS team from Intellectual Virtues Academy in Long Beach, CA that attended our 2014 Summit conducted an awesome assembly at Los Cerritos Elementary School. More than 500 students attended!
5th grade students at McGaugh Elementary in Seal Beach participated in Algalita's first trash audit! With the help of Assistant Principal Tanya Deleon and parent volunteers, students collected all the trash at lunchtime. Using safety goggles, gloves, and protective aprons, students sorted a total of 288 lbs of trash into garbage, recycling, and compost. After an hour of sorting, students weighed their separated piles which consisted of 47.2 lbs of garbage, 17.4 lbs of recycling, and 179.7 lbs of compost, which was taken to Captain Moore's garden. The trash audit really helped everyone visualize all the plastic waste from one day at lunch. Stay tuned to hear about the students' discussion to create an action plan for a waste-free day at McGaugh...
Four students from the Guam team Marine Mania went to the first POPS Youth Summit in 2011. This is an update on the $12.00 challenge. The Maniacs have a puppet show called Protect Your Watershed. Since they already had the puppet theater, the kids decided to write another show called Plastic Isn’t Fantastic. The $12 towards the purchase of an albatross puppet and her chick. The Plastic Isn’t Fantastic puppet show is geared for 4th grade students, but everyone enjoys it from little kids to adults. We take both puppet shows to elementary schools and generally perform for about 100 students at each school for each grade level. For the last two years, they have reached an incredible total of 2,400 students with their message about the problems of plastic. Marine Mania also performs at many public events including environmental festivals, conferences, sporting events and service learning demonstrations. They partner with the largest grocery store chain in Guam and have performed in their stores as they try to convince people to say no to plastic bags. They have even been asked to perform at birthday parties! Maniacs from the past and new recruits are excitedly gearing up for this year’s presentations. Today they performed the Plastic Isn't Fantastic puppet for for the Kid's Club at a local hotel who contributed to help pay for bussing to various venues.
In January, Algalita partnered with McGaugh Elementary to conduct a trash audit for the school. 30 students worked diligently to come up with accurate calculations with regards to the waste generated by the school. They calculated that the students create approximately 288 pounds of waste every day! In terms of plastic pollution, the trash audit brought to the light the fact that the students throw away over 3,000 pieces of single-use plastics on a DAILY BASIS. That means that every year, the school uses half a million pieces of plastic! Of course, these findings warranted some much needed change. Algalita worked with the students to create a PSA to encourage their classmates to reduce their use of single use plastics. The PSA was aired on Earth Day, and when a trash audit was conducted the following Friday, it was concluded that McGaugh Elementary students were able to reduce their lunch waste by 40%! Check out the PSA here www.algalita.org/video/save-our-seas-mcgaugh-elementary/. So inspiring! We at Algalita, along with the students at McGaugh, challenge you to take a look at the ways that you can reduce the use of single use plastics in your own lunch. May the plastic (never) be with you, McGaugh!
IVA continues to be the face of youth leaders against plastic pollution, with their own sculptures being featured at all sorts of venues. On April 3rd, team StyNOfoam from IVA Evergreens in Long Beach, California, presented their “StyNOfoam” cup at the Gallery EXPO portion of First Friday. The sculpture is a four foot high cup made entirely of polystyrene beach debris collected by the students at local beaches. As the team explained at the 2015 POPS Youth Summit, “[they’re] creating this cup to illustrate to the public and civic decision makers the dangers of polystyrene to oceans and public health.” In addition, the Warning Whale, the first in IVA’s eco-sculpture scene, was also featured at the First Friday, and following that, at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center for their Whale of a Day Celebration. Keep up the hard work, IVA!
It's never too late to start working to eradicate plastic pollution, and for that matter, it's never too early, either. Sofia, a five year old kindergartener at Edison Elementary in Torrance, CA, presented her scientific research in regards to plastic pollution in our storm drains. At such a young age, Sofia is able to recognize that plastic pollution in our shores starts on land. She participated and won her school's science fair, and went on to present her findings at the T.U.S.D. district science fair! In her free time, Sofia enjoys picking up litter during recess and whale watching. Watch out world! Watch out plastic! Sofia's coming for you!
Girl Scout Stephanie O'Brien of New Jersey recently completed her Girl Scout Gold Award! She created a mini-organization/program called H.A.N.G.10 with the help of program director Katie Allen. The program educates children of all ages and their families about the harms of plastic pollution in the environment and how to become more conscious about their daily decisions so that they can navigate away from the use of plastic. Through a series of interactive workshops, Stephanie preached the ways of anti-plastic living to perfection. She even made the program kid-friendly, combining education with arts and crafts and a variety of initiatives. Thank you Stephanie! You are a true plastic warrior!
So far, the Plastic Free Mermaids have hosted two water way clean ups. The first waterway clean up was at the Loxahatchee River Center in Jupiter, Florida. There they had a kayaking cleanup among the mangroves area on the water. They collected bucketfuls of just plastic trash. Instead of using regular garbage bags, they used buckets and instead of using plastic hand gloves, they were able to use grabbing sticks provided by the Jupiter Nature Center. During the kayaking cleanup, the Plastic Free Mermaids were able to study sea urchins and conchs found in the water. They found them by using their feet to feel the organisms at the bottom of the river. The urchins and conchs collected were immediately put back into the water, but the girls were able to learn about their skeleton structures and what makes them unique creatures, augmenting their appreciation for their devotion to anti-plastic ideologies. Their second event was an education/waterway cleanup at Anne Kolb Nature Center in Hollywood, FL. There they educated the participants about the plastic in our environment and taught them all about how plastic affects our oceans and marine organisms. Then they applied what they had learned by picking up the plastic in the water around them. Also, the Plastic Free Mermaids collected an invasive plant that surrounds the facility and threw away the plant and its seeds. They had a very big turnout! This summer in June the Plastic Free Mermaids were able to work with all of the incoming freshman in the Summer OSTEM Program at South Broward High School. There all of the kids were separated into four different groups and they worked with each of the group individually. Their project with all of the groups was to create a film about bringing plastic pollution awareness to their community and for their community to be educated on what plastic does to our marine environment. They also have a challenge that you can see in the film about living a plastic free lifestyle. On the website plasticfreemermaids.weebly.com, you will be able to see their film and participate in the challenge. It will teach you on how to live a plastic free lifestyle that will not only benefit you, but will also benefit our planet. If you go on youtube, https://youtu.be/QvfUCpnH5eA, you will be able to see their film there as well. They challenge you to live a plastic free lifestyle!
After #POPS2016, Team RUHS drastically reduced the amount of single-use plastic water bottles at Redondo Union High School by distributing over 1000 reusable water bottles to fellow students! They spent the remainder of this year restoring our ocean friendly garden and rain garden, and event hosted their first annual ewaste drive on campus!
Since the Algalita 2016 POPS Youth Summit, team HUMAN hosted a Green Week in April at their school, during which they held an E-Waste drive, encouraged their peers to think more thoughtfully about the environment, and had a grunion run at the beach. In May, HUMAN attended a conference on gender and the environment by the Sierra Club in Washington D.C. It was a great experience that examined how social justice and environmental justice can overlap and why you need to be socially and environmentally conscious. It was very inspiring and empowering. The Sierra Club also offered free resources to help us financially. Also in May, the group presented on Take Back the Tap, the team’s campaign to mitigate the use of single-use plastic water bottles. After presenting to students, HUMAN encouraged them to pledge to never use single-use plastic water bottles again.
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