Friday, May 25, 2012

Hi my name is Miriam Delgado and I am a student in Mrs. Ximena Hernandez class English 101. I attended the L.A river clean up where I experience something new in my life. As I clean up the L.A river I noticed that as a society all we are doing is damaging are planet by throwing trash down in the streets and the trash ends up in the river. As I clean up the river some of the stuff that I pick up were plastic bottles, cans, cabinet doors, sticks and even underware. I had a great experiece cleaning up the L.A river and made me realize that it is important for one to clean up the place that we live in. Nature is something that as a society we suppose to take care of and not trash it. We need to teach are next generation of kids that nature is something important that we need to take care of. Nature gives us beautiful stuff and because of that we suppose to give something back to it by planting trees or flowers.  

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Hello, my name is Ashley Cruz and I am a student in Professor Ximena Hernandez's English 101 class. One of our assignments was to go to Dockweiler Beach or the LA River to help clean up. I never knew how much trash the LA River had until i got there. As i was cleaning I picked up alot of interesting things. I found a soccer shoe tied up to a branch, a shirt, boxers, headphones, beer cans, metal bars, and a sleeping bag. I noticed that there were alot of plastic bags everywhere. Seeing all this trash in the LA River made me realize that not many people care for the environment.This goes back to the Environment readings i read in my English 101 class because as years go by people are slowly forgetting about Nature and are more interested in technology. I do not understand why some people rather trash our environment and not help keep it cleen.

LA River Clean Up

Hello, My name is Skarlet J. Castro. I am part of  Mrs. Ximena Hernandez's English 101class. I was able to have the opportunity to serve the LA community and clean the LA River. Most of us who attended came across an immense amount of trash that was shocking. It revealed the reason why the oceans are so polluted, and how global warming is being created. It became clear that all of us have contributed to the littering, and careless behavior  leading our environment to where it is now.
                       Giving back and serving our community showed us how we can change the way things are in our environment. Also how little by little we can better our world. Having the experience of seeing what our world is coming to opened up alot of eyes, and changed most of our decision making. Imagine taking out tons of bags with filthy trash from the LA river, which is just a small portion of the world. Now imagine the trash all over your city and the world? Most of which is plastic. There were plastic tubes, metal, plastic bottles, cans, a great amount of plastic bags stuck on plants, old clothing, shopping carts, glass, aluminum. All of these things can be recycled, but we all need to contribute to the change.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012




The purpose of my classmates and I going to the L.A River was to clean. As I walked around, I have seen a lot of trash that made me wonder how it got there. Obviously most people have no idea that the trash they throw out from their car window or on the streets somehow end on the L.A River. Therefore, day after day, trash after trash, collapse into more and more trash. I experience a connection with nature, something I have not done before. I was one of the persons that will never mind nature because I believed nature will always remain as nature. However, at this point that thought has vanished and I realize how much damage has been cause to nature, overall. This activity relates to the readings of the environment we have read in class and to the prompt of our essay. Indeed, this experience has made me realized the important of nature and why we should care and be careful we the threats we construct in our life.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Clean Up, Clean Up, Everybody Clean Up! :)

Hi everyone, my name is Ruth Tesfai and I am one of Professor Jenny Hicks' students. This is my community service project. Unfortunately I was not able to attend Dockweiler Beach and the LA River clean up, however, in order to give back to the community I decided to go on campus and do a clean up. While I was doing this duty, I had a few of my friends help me. We came across so much trash that is was quite shocking. We had bags for cans/bottles so that we can recycle afterwards and another bag for trash to throw away. I feel like this experience has taught me a lot and it showed me how important it is to keep our environment clean. The most common trash I came across was paper, candy rappers, and empty bags of chips. Once my group and I made it down to the dorm area, we started coming across little pieces of water balloons, hangers, and even more plastic bottles.Not only are those things bad for the environment, but it can also harm animals. I feel like I have learned a lot and this experience has taught me that it is very important to keep our surroundings clean for our health and planet. 

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Neighborhood Clean-up


Hi, my name is Desiree Silva and I am currently a student at Cal State LA. My English 101 class had an assignment for all the students to attend a service learning community event. With the permission of my teacher Jenny Hicks I decided to clean up around my neighborhood. I took this chance to do my part in my community to make it a better cleaner place. On a Saturday morning a couple of my friends, some students, two teachers, and I went to help around my high school and neighborhood. We all were paired up so we can help to clean up all around the school and community more. It was sad when I saw candy wrappers, bottles, glass, cigarettes, cardboard, and carpets just thrown around my neighborhood. I am glad that some of the students from the high school, my friends, the two teachers, and I went to clean that day because we were all doing our part in making our community a better place for everyone. It took us two hours to clean up around my neighborhood and high school. We also made sure to recycle the bottles and after we were all done we were proud that we made a difference that day. My friends, students, teachers and I will continue to do my part in my community to make it a better place.  

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Hands On

Hello my name is Magali Caro. I am currently taking an environmental section for my taking English 101 at Cal-State LA. In order to do a little of my part to help out nature I went to Los Cerritos Wetlands where I was able to do land restoration and have a live learning experiences. At Los Cerritos Wetlalnds they help protect the wildlife that is still seen there. Some of the wildlife is in danger of getting extinct like the Savanna Sparrow. In the section where this wet land is located there are highways surrounding it which is why they are constantly trying to keep it clean as well as cleaning up the harmful toxins left by past companies which have made the soil hard and not appropriate for plant growth. What i had to do while at Los Cerritos Wetlands was make little mountain rings to help keep the water in certain section to penetrate the dirt since the soil as i mentioned before is very unmanageable because of toxins left behind. One of the other activity i did was make holes in the dirt in other to implant crops that have been grown specially for the sight since the wildlife here require these plants. After a hard days work it feels good to know you did a little of your part to save the environment and learned something new that will help you feel more engaged to be natures helping hand. There are many activities you can do to help Los Cerritos Wetlands, if you guys are interested in doing your part for nature and maybe getting a dirty visit "www.lcwlandtrust.org" to get details on their next workshop.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Show You Care, & Go Green!


      Hello, my name is Sierra Sharpe; I am in Professor Jenny Hicks English 101 class. For the environmental activity I was not able to attend neither the Dockweiler Beach cleanup nor the LA River. However I was able to go help out with a go green activity at Memorial Heights elementary where my aunt works. They needed extra help with watching over the kids, so I volunteered to help.
       We went around to a park near the elementary school, broke into groups, and began to clean the park. This had not been my first time participating in this kind of activity, but this time around it was a different learning experience especially dealing with the younger kids. It was fun, and also cool to see how interested the kids actually were to be cleaning the park. We not only cleaned the park, but we also collected anything we saw that could be recycled. As  I think back on the experience, these kids were in second and third grade and although they don’t know and understand the importance of going green just yet; it was great to expose them of such a positive activity at a young age.

       People should definitely realize how important recycling and cleaning not only parks, but you’re neighborhoods as well as the beach is. Every little bit counts, and if everyone one takes a little bit of time to go green, and get others as well as kids to understand the importance, the world won’t change right away; but as time goes on we’ll be able to see a difference. 

Reuse or lose!

Hello, my name is Alexa Sevillano and I am a student from Professor Jenny Hicks' English 101 class. I was unable to attend the beach clean-up or LA river clean-up but I was still able to help clean up a part of Manhattan beach with my fraternity I am currently pledging in. This fraternity is a service one so this service of cleaning the beach was a service to the community. When we reached the beach, it was pretty busy since summer is coming soon! We all honestly thought that it would not be as dirty since it is a pretty nice beach but we were wrong. We immediately started cleaning from where the sand started all the way to where the waves hit. It was pretty disappointing to not see many trash cans or recycling bins around so it makes it difficult for people to throw or recycle their trash. We came to the conclusion that maybe that's why there was so much trash lying around. The beach is supposed to be a place where people can relax and have fun but instead there is a lot of trash. The beach is right next to the water so everyone's trash can go straight to the water to where many living creatures are. The trash can harm them and can possibly kill them so having a lot of trash at the beach can be dangerous to them. This service learning project relates to the readings by teaching us that the trash laying around does affect the environment. Just like from the reading, "The End of Nature", all this trash shows that it can affect nature and can make us experience what true nature is. Everyone should clean up after themselves and recycle to help our planet! We all can make a difference one step at a time!

Monday, May 14, 2012

Lets Go Green!


Hi my name is Kiana Denmore I am a student in Professor Jenny Hicks Class . I was not able to attend the Dockweiler Beach or the La River Event; so instead I cleaned a park near my house called Ladera Park. I enjoyed cleaning the park I also got my family involved and we made it a family fun day by helping the environment. Although, I was disgusted by how filthy the eating area was filled with trash and plastic bottles that could have been recycled. So my family and I had two different bags one for the trash and the other for the plastic bottles and cans. The tables in the eating area had left over food and birthday confetti on top. I didn’t understand how there was so much trash cans at every end of the tables but trash all over the ground. The park was so huge but the eating area was the filthiest at the park. I felt really good after cleaning the park, I felt like I really helped the environment and learned what it takes to go green. This can help a lot in my next essay about how to save the environment and I am so glad I participated  :)








                         

"Reduce,Reuse,Recycle"

Hello my name is Breanna Zuniga and I am a student from Professor Jenny Hicks English 101 class. I was not able to attend the beach clean up or the L.A. river clean up however I cleaned up a park that is a couple of blocks away from my house.Sadly,from cleaning the park I found so much trash near the bushes and trees.There was recycling bins and trashcans located everywhere but visitors don't care about about the park. The park is supposed to be a relaxing place to enjoy the outdoors,however the waterbottles on the ground,candy wrappers laying around was a bit surprising because the trashcans are nearby and yet people still chose to throw stuff on the ground rather than walking a couple of steps and putting the trash where it belongs.The Service Learning project  relate to our class/readings because we are learning about authors and the way the feel about the Earth.Little by little if everyone contributes and gets other people to contribute to become eqo-friendly there is a possibility that this type of cycle will make a major difference for future generations.And remember the simplest things can make a difference in improving our earth.It is up to you to make a difference!







Keep the World Clean makes the World go Round :)

Hi my name is Jenny Sanasinh and I am a student from Jenny Hicks English 101 class. I didn't get a chance to clean the beach or the LA River with CSULA students, but I did end up cleaning Lynwood Park. Cleaning Lynwood Park made me realize that people are getting lazy cleaning after themselves. There are trashcans at every corner and even by every table. How could they be that lazy to not want to walk two or three steps away to throw away their trash? Cleaning after ourselves is one thing but after another person, it is pretty gross. I don't even like cleaning after customers when they are done eating and that's my job. Helping out my city by cleaning one park made me feel great to know that I tried to make our city cleaner than before. Hopefully the park stays clean because I wouldn't want any kids to run around and trip on trash. Just remember always clean after yourself and never toss trash out of your car window, think of it as your room or house because I would be one angry person if someone trashed my house.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

The Cleaner The Better :)



Hello fellow bloggers, my name is Melissa Garcia. I am a freshman in Cal State LA , and I'm taking English 101 with Professor Ximena Hernandez. On April 28, 2012 I volunteered the LA river clean up day. It was a great experience to experienced, and I got the opportunity to see how unsafe the environment we are living in. As I looked everywhere around my surroundings there was trash everywhere, little and big. I felt happy to be able to do this project because knowing that I did a great achievement with my classmates by cleaning the trash. Many people does not know what they are doing to environment when they litter their trash. Trash in the ground as the wind blows it away to potholes, then to the river and eventually to the ocean. Although as I was sad that I had to return home, my heart was rejoice to see other people cleaning up the river because LA is my home. LA is everyone home, well people who lives in LA that is. After my day cleaning the river, it got me thinking not to litter. So now I'm going to think twice when I don't throw away my trash in its rightful place, the trash can. 

Cleaning LA River


Hi my name is Carmen Del Villar I’m a student from Cal State LA. On April 27, 2012 my English 101 class took part in cleaning the LA River. I personally believe that I will never forget that day because it was a day in which each and everyone one of us tried to make a difference. The LA River is a beautiful place which just needs a little cleaning up. People should try to take care of our plant so it can stay clean. While cleaning there were many different types of things that could be found like fast food trash, plastic bags, clothing, shopping cars, and so many more things. That day I learned a lot and one things I learn was that I like helping make a difference no matter how small it was. I would like to tell people to please take part in making a difference so we can restore the natural beauty to place like the LA River.   

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Our Environment





 My name is Jennifer Catalan. I volunteered and helped cleaned the LA River on April 28, 2012. When my professor told the class we had the option to go and clean the LA River, my reaction was, "why are we going to go and clean a river. I am sure that the river is already clean." I was wrong. The river wasn't clean. Everywhere I looked there was trash. For example, there was plastic bags, clothes, cans, plastic bottles, shoes, and etc. Seeing all the trash at the river made me feel disappointed because how did we allow the river to get that dirty? Although I was disappointed to see a part of my home look so unwelcoming,  it also made me feel happy to see children, parents, students, and other people cleaning the river with their buckets, plastic bags, and gloves ready to help.  Also seeing that there are people that care and want to make a change in our environment. My experience there was different. I got to see a part of LA I didn't know. Now I know better not to liter because the LA river is my home too.

Time to Clean the LA River

My name is Maron Azanaw,I go to Cal State La. I volunteered at the La River on a saturday.Cleaning La River was a very good experience but it was really hot that day. I felt proud of myself that I came out there and did a good deed. Cleaning LA River made me realize that I should do more stuff like this. It was pretty fun cleaning up but at times I felt kind of grossed out, when I saw this white stuff in the air and it was getting close to me I started getting freaked out a little. By me doing this,makes me want to do some more volunteer work like every weekends if possible. But overall I had fun and felt like I did something good without it being for me.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Make a Change :)



Hello my name is Jessica Alcala. I am a student at Cal State LA and I'm taking English 101 with Professor Ximena Hernandez. On April 28, 2012 I attended the LA River clean-up day. It was a wonderful experience knowing that you help your environment and you get the opportunity to see how unsafe is the surrounding where you live. Sometimes you don’t really understand on how a plastic wrapper you throw on the floor could affect your environment until you actually see it. While cleaning the river I notice that everywhere I turn I would see plastic bags. Plastic bags is a big issue because plastic is not that easy to dissolve so it would last for a long period of time. We found many types of objects throughout our day cans, shirts, sweaters, shoes, blankets, a shopping cart, metal signs, water hoses, and a tea pot. I would never have thought I was going to find these objects at a river.

               

It might have been difficult waking up early in the morning getting muddy, sweaty, and going up the hill carrying the trash to the trash can (which was a work out) but it was all for a good cause. We made a little change, but there is still many more places we need to change and take care of. So now when you see someone throw something to the floor you can tell them where can it end up and the danger it can cause. We made a difference, but anyone else can make a difference too. We can all work together.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Hello my name is Lupe Marin. I'm a student from Ms. Hicks English 101 class and my service community project was to clean the LA River. Cleaning the LA River was a great experience and made me realize theirs so many people out their that are very dirty and don't respect our planet. I believe if we all get together as a team and actually clean the LA River little by little we can get this filthy place looking into a beautiful place. If the river were to be clean and being in a good condition I will guarantee that families will actually go their on the weekends for a picnic, as they watch the flow of the water go by. I realize that if we don't do anything about helping out and cleaning all the trash it will eventually continue to go to the sea where all the fishes out their will die:(. Now i will think twice about throwing a piece of trash on the ground:)
Hello, my name is Jose Reyes. Im a student from Mrs. Hicks English 101 class and as my assignment I had the option of cleaning Dockwelier beach or the LA river and I choose the LA river. :) Cleaning the LA river was a great experince for me beause it opened my eyes to many things and it changed the way I now look at the enviorment. Now I make sure I throw away my trash and pick up trash on the floors as well as inspiring others to do the same because it was not fun cleaning the river and it needs alot of help. :/ Seeing the LA river so dirty sadden me becuase the river should be a place where families can go on sudays afternoons and have a good time.Unfortunately, the river is not in those conditions but we can achieve it if we put our hearts into it and inspire others to help clean the enviornment. So remember to throw away your trash and inform others because you can make a difference by simply throwing away a piece of trash. Thank You for reading my post. :D 
Hello my name is Cindy Estrada. I am a student from Jenny Hick's English class.The Los Angeles River was a great experience, I was able to see how trashed a beautiful place could be and how inconsiderate we humans are sometimes,but I was glad to be able to participate in this event. Cleaning the River made me realize that if we work together we can make any filthy place a beautiful place once again. The River flows beautifully currents and when the sun rays hit the water, it shines brighter then a piece of jewlery.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Elysian Park, Los Angeles River

Hello my name is Kassandra Martinez. I am a student from Ximena Hernandez English class. Cleaning the Los Angeles River was a great experience I was able to see dry animals and I was also able to touch the water. The river is beautiful the only problem there is, is that each individual trashes the river without thinking about the animals that need the enviornment clean. Cleaning the River and the outside made me realize that we need to keep the environment clean in order for people to be able to have fun and actually be able to adventure the beauty of nature. The trees, the water and the sunshine makes the River a calming place by sitting there and listening to the currents.