Dockweiler beach

Hello, my name is Ramon Herman. I attend Cal State Los Angeles as a freshman. For my English 101 class my professor and part of my class gathered at Dockweiler Beach on January 24, 2016 to help participate with the Heal The Bay Foundation. The class and professors met up at 9:00 A.M. and immediately we were handed gloves , trash bags, and a card in which we tally what we find on the beach and started picking up trash . We were paired in groups of 5 or so and walked up and down the beach trying to find any trash on the sand . We found straws, candy wrappers, cigarette butts, pieces of stryofoam and much more. The experience was great because we got an opportunity to help clean the beach  and make it nice. Our readings in class relate to what we did cleaning the beach because we are learning about how beautiful the beaches are and that its very important to keep them clean as possible. Seeing how dirty the beach was made me realize that we need to start caring more about the beautiful beaches that we have and maintain them as clan as possible so we can keep our beaches looking as best as possible

Dockweiler beach

a picture of some of the trash that we picked up

Beach Clean Up

Hello, my name is Damian Ruiz and currently enrolled in Winter Quarter 2016 English 101.  I am a freshman at CSULA majoring in mechanical engineering.  On January 24, 2016, the majority of my class and I came together to participate in an event known as Heal the Bay at Dockweiler Beach.  As I joined a group to clean up the beach, I met some pretty chill people.  It was pretty cool picking up trash with people who want to make an impact to the world.  As we picked up trash on the shore, I noticed the amount of cigarette butts and straws that were found was insane.  I never seen that many cigarette butts and straws in a small portion of the area.  Meanwhile putting up the trash on the shore, the water would come close to the shore and take trash back to the ocean.  After seeing this is a major problem for the animals living in the ocean, I figure how people are lazy to walk up to the trashcan and toss their trash.  As I passed by a trashcan, I notice a lot of trash near the trashcan on the ground which showed me that some people are just lazy to pick it up and put it where it belongs.  Well it felt pretty great to make a small impact to the environment even though it was on a Sunday morning which was the worse part of the event.  This activity impact my life because I wanted to major in mechanical engineering to go in the field of automotive or aerospace and I feel like I can also make an impact to the environment not only by picking up trash, but going in the field of conserving energy and building machines to help the environment.

This is me just chilling at the beach after picking up trash on the shore.(seagull squad photobombing me)

The beautiful ocean view.

Done for the day and just waiting to go home.

Docweiler beach

Hello, my name is Alexis Juarez. I go to Cal State Los Angeles. For my English clads my professor and the entire class gathered at Docweiler Beach on January 24, 2016 to help in participating with the Heal The Bay Foundation. The day consisted on walking at the beach and picking up every piece of trash that was on the sand. We picked up burned wood, straws, bottle cups, plastic cups, and so much more.when we arrived at the beach I noticed that it was going to take a while because the beach was very dirty. The experience was amazing because I got the chance to try and improve the beauty of our beach. It only took two hours to make the beach look a lot more beautiful, two hours of helping the environment. Our day at the beach with the Heal The Bay Foundation relates to our class readings because we are learning about how we take something beautiful like nature and turn it into something ugly. The day at the beach was realy helpful because it made me open my eyes and see that we are the ones destroying the environment and if we do not do something about it then we will be living in a waste land. What I gained from this experience is that we need to help the environment my recycling more and not throwing away trash just anywhere because it ends up in the ocean which causes nature to look like a huge trash can. My lesson was learned if we keep throwing away things then it will end up in the ocean and sea life will start to die out, so it is up to us to help keep nature in its natural beauty.   

Dockweiler Beach Clean-Up

Hi, my name is Melanie Hernandez. I'm a freshman at CSULA and am enrolled in English 101. With my English class, I went to Dockweiler Beach on January 25th. To start off, it was nice to go to the beach again. It's the end of January, so it was a little cold but it was nice to see the ocean and waves again, because I haven't gone since summer. But, when I arrived to the beach, I noticed quite a bit of trash hidden in the sand. The things that were most common were plastic wrappers, bottle caps, and cigarette butts. The weirdest thing I saw was a Forever 21 bag, which was wet so the ocean must have brought it to the shore, so who knows how long that bag must've been floating around in the ocean? All these little pieces of trash may seem insignificant, but they take decades to decompose. I found some pieces of styrofoam cups, which unfortunately takes 500 years (or even never) to decompose. Same goes for plastic. Luckily, we were able to pick up a few scraps making at least a small change to the ocean's cleanliness. Lately I've been learning about the environment and things we can to do make a change so this activity tied in nicely with the topics we're discussing in class. I had never heard of Dockweiler Beach, but for my first time being there it seemed very nice. Often times we can take advantage of things like this, thinking if we throw a little piece of trash on the ground it won't make any difference. Chances are many many other people are thinking the same thing and in result leave a big impact of littering on the planet.  Overall I liked the experience because I was able to interact with people from class and go to the beach. I feel thankful to have had the chance to do something for the greater good of the environment, and hope I have the chance to participate in more things like this.

Cleaning makes a Difference

Hello, my name is Jennifer Arias, I am a Freshman at CSULA and I am currently enrolled in Winter Quarter English 101. On January 24th, 2016, my fellow classmates and myself participated in an activity known as Heal the Bay at Dockweiler Beach. Not only was it a fun activity to participate in but it was an eye opener that helped me realize that it is important to take care of our environment as well as our beaches. This activity relates to our class as well as our readings because we are learning about the environment and how to make the world a better place to live in. We are learning how there is air pollution due to the fact of a high use of vehicles, and how our rivers, lakes, oceans, etc, become contaminated because so much trash is being thrown in them which also puts a creatures life at risk. I learned the reason as to why many fish and other creatures die because of the trash that goes into the ocean such as plastic, bottle caps, and even wood. I learned that cleaning does make a difference, not only does it save an innocent creature's life but it helps us see the beauty of nature, and who doesn't like to go for a swim on a nice sunny day at a clean beach? Lend a hand and help keep the environment clean!

Heal the Bay

 

Hello, my name is Maria Barrera and I am currently enrolled in Winter Quarter English 101. I am currently a freshman attending CSULA. On January 24, 2016 we gathered at Dockweiler Beach to participate with Heal the Bay to help keep our beach clean. This experience was life changing because it made me aware of how much effect our trash can have on our beaches. The day consisted of cleaning up trash that was left behind by people on the beach. What I notice when I got to Dockweiler Beach was the amount of trash that was lying around. It was mostly plastic, straws, and bottle caps. Also, the water looked dirty in comparison to other beaches I have gone too. It’s a beautiful beach, especially because it has a lot of fire pits to do bonfires, you can also get a closer look at the airplanes departing from LAX, and parking is close. So, cleaning up the beach will just improve its beauty.  This activity relates to our class readings because we are learning about our environment, so what better way of learning this than at the beach.  Also, it just proved that we have to take care of our environment, because if we don’t we will have consequences throughout time. This activity was very helpful to me because it helped me get a better understanding of the readings we read about the environment during class, and also about the effect that will happen if we don’t take care of it. What I gain from this experience is that is important to keep our beaches clean because if we don’t clean up after ourselves the trash will end up in the ocean and the marine animals will eat it, and then it will affect us because we will no longer be able to eat seafood. So, this is just one example because this can also happen to other nature beauties like lakes, rivers etc… The life lesson I learned is that it’s important that we take care of our environment.

Dockweiler Beach clean up

Hi, my name is Alondra Estrella and I am currently a freshman at Cal State Los Angeles, which I am in the English Class 101. I participated to help clean up the Dockweiler Beach on the 24th of January 2016. On the day my friends and I arrived at the beach, we noticed there was small pieces of trash and the waves were big. We helped clean up as much as could because we did not want other animals to die or get injured because someone else was too selfish to clean up after themselves. For an hour, we found about 230 pieces of plastic and of items. What stood out to me the most was when I found many straws and several cigarette butts. I also found a dead bird which made me a little upset because it died of probably eating a piece of trash. I learned that all the small pieces of trash do add up and that we should clean up after ourselves because it really does make a difference. We also had fun especially when the man in the background photo bombed our picture.