My name is April Meza Sanchez and I participated in Heal The Bay event in Santa Monica Beach on September 17, 2016. I am currently enrolled in English 1010. Arriving to the event quickly i got signed in and was assigned into small groups, went through all the procedures on what to look out for. We then got materials such as buckets gloves and for some people, sunscreen. It was an eye opening to see how many people smoke at the beach and do not properly throw away their cigarette buds. Our group in total collected around 70 cigarette buds in an hour. Besides all the buds, there were many little different types of plastic pieces that the birds might confused it for food. The beach is dirtier than you might imagine, you really have to pay close attention to see how much trash there is on the beach. Taking back our bucked to the station where the trash was being sorted was very surprising to see how much trash was being collected in just an hour. Overall In the end it was a great experience to help clean the beach, it is something I would like to participate in the near future.

Heal the Bay

My name is Marco Gonzalez and I participated in the Heal the Bay event in Santa Monica beach with my ENGL 2030 class. It was both fun and interesting to see different types of organizations and people collaborating to bring this event forward. It is not easy to consistently maintain a clean environment, especially one that is frequently visited by a lot of people. If everybody made the effort to contribute to a clean environment more than we pollute it, we would with out a doubt receive even more benefits from said environment. When I first arrived at Santa Monica beach, there were people already picking up trash along the shoreline and areas that also seemed to have been previously inhabited by beach goers. We also began our cleaning by walking along the shoreline and then made our way to the center where it seemed less populated. Most of what we ended finding that day were small pieces of plastics that included a small bag of chips, cigarette cartridges and other small decree that may have seemed harmful. It is important to keep these areas clean because of the organisms that interact with it. Over time, these pollutants integrate with the environment causing harmful effects to the animals that consume and live around it. Sometimes people do not realize it a lot easier to properly dispose of trash rather than to letting it disintegrate in the environment. At the end of the day, I ended picking up near a pound of trash that may have easily caused harm. A much more serious problem may arise if we do not take the proper measures to keep our environments clean. It was a great experience to participate in an event like Heal the Bay that implements and promotes cleaning and sanitizing awareness. Everyone involved in the process is benefited making the world an overall better place to live in. 

Heal the Bay

Hi my name is Denise Melgar. I am a freshman college student at Cal State L.A. On September 17, 2016, Saturday morning,  I went with my English 1005A class to Santa Monica to clean the beach and pick up trash that can harm our ocean and animals. This relates to our readings because in Jenny Price's article, she explains how nature is being harmed by us. When the two class speakers came by for a visit to explain to us what happens with the trash that careless people throw around the beach, it encouraged me to go to the beach cleaning because it made me sad seeing all those beautiful animals dying because of them mistaking the trash for food. I learned that plastic and trash is very deadly to animals and everyday an animal is dying from eating plastic or any type of trash.

9/17/2016 Beach Clean Up with Heal the Bay

This is my group.

This is my professor.

Good morning/afternoon you all! My name is Chan In Kou but you could call me Michael. Right now, I am currently taking English 2030-09 with my wonderful professor Hernandez at Cal State LA. 

At the Heal the Bay station,
they gave us a glove and a bucket
to pick up any trash on the beach.

I noticed that there weren't
that many trashcan at the beach.
And most of them were probably full.

The beach may look nice, but
in reality there are tons of
plastic pieces on the sand.

After we finished picking up
trash from 9-11am, we had to go
back to the station and return the
gloves and bucket of trash.

Cal State LA SHESS were giving hours
to those who helped out at the

As you can see, there were many people
who help out cleaning the beach.

There were cigarette butts on
the ground even when the ashtray
was next to it. This proves that
people are too lazy to talk an
extra step to throw away trash.

It as shocking to see how much
cigarette butts we found. This was the
only ashtray we found on the way
to the beach.

They also gave us a trash
collected sheet for my group
to write down any data
about what we picked up.

The trash we found the most
were cigarette butts. Total
of 100 cigarette buttswere found.

The weather was hot, but it
was worth it because we got
to helped out our community.

One of my friend got too close
to the wave while picking up
trash, so his shoe got wet.

We found some plastic bottle caps
and food wrappers resemeble food
for sea animals in the ocean.

We didn't notice that the beach
that we always goes to were
that dirty.

We found a computer wire at
the beach when it didn't
belong there.

My group was getting tired,
but we didn't give up searching
for trash.

I think the news should tells
people to throw away their trash.

We have collected this much
trash by the end of the day.

If we all take the chance
to change the world, we
could do it just like the picture.
We used teamwork to get the bottle
cap that was stuck between the wood.

I think we need more garbage collectors
at the beach because there are trashcans that
were full, but no one cleans it up.

Overall, I had fun volunteering at the beach
with my group and I would love to do it again.

PLASTIC BAG MONSTER!

         

          Hi my name is Wendy Joya. I'm currently enrolled in 2030 with Professor Hernandez. On the 17th of November we participated in the coastal clean-up at Santa Monica Beach with the organization, Heal the Bay. It wasn't my first time going because I have gone before but the difference from this time was that there were way more participants. There were even small children accompanying their parents to clean the beach. There was a lot of small pieces of plastics and foam that were buried in the sand. During the scavenger hunt of small pieces, I was able to see people scuba diving to try to clean the ocean floor. They were closer to the pier because most of the trash would come from there because of the vast shops. There was a man dressed in plastic bags and when he saw me taking a picture of him he stated "Don't forget to dump your trash in the ocean". At first I was confused at what he said but then I put myself in his shoes. He was impersonating plastic trash bags that end up in the oceans. He explained that all the trash bags that he was wearing was the average amount of plastic bags that an individual can use in a year. Through my experience in helping out our environment is that if we don't protect the nature around us who will. If there is a greater challenge than cleaning after ourselves then how is it an easier task for others to pick up after us?

The average amount of plastic bags used in a year!

Heal the Bay

              My name is Jose Rea. I am currently enrolled in English 2030 with professor Hernandez. On September 17, 2016, I participated in Heal the Bay event in Santa Monica Beach. I had to wake up earlier than usual since the event started at 9am. I had to wake up a few hours before that to try an avoid traffic.  Apparently not many people go to the beach that early, so I had to wait there for like an hour and a half. When it finally did start we got into small groups, went through all the procedures on what to look out for. We then got materials such as buckets gloves and for some people, sunscreen. It is surprising to see how many people smoke at the beach and do not properly throw away their cigarette buds. Our group in total collected around 105 cigarette buds in an hour. Besides all the buds, there were many little plastic pieces that the birds might confused it for food. The beach is dirtier than you might imagine, you really have to pay close attention to see how much trash there is on the beach.  In the end it was a great experience to help clean the beach, but it is sad to see that people cannot help clean up after themselves and help protect the earth by keeping it clean.

Heal the bay event

Hi everyone, my name is Chan Chen Pin. I am currently taking english 2030 with professor Hernandez. On September 17, 2015, I participated in Heal the Bay event in Santa Monica Beach. In this event, we were asked to pick up the trash that was underneath the sand in a group of four. Before we began our clean up, we got our supplies, such as bucket, gloves and a tally sheet. As me and my partners began to walk along the beach, we noticed that there were a lot of small pieces trash which were mostly cigarette buds, bottle caps, plastic pieces and candy wrappers. I wasn’t expecting so many trach, because the beach looked clean by our bare eyes. After we finished the pick up, we discovered that were mostly cigarette buds and plastic pieces. It sent us a very important message, was that our environment were polluted by man made product. People simply just don’t care about the environment. Even though they set up a lot of recycle and reuse program, it can only recycle very least percent of the trash. It made me feel very sad that people were actually careless about the environment that we live in. It is very important that people need to start realize a lot of they act were actually hurting the environment. Overall, it was a very fun and memorable experience. As it is the first time I go to beach and picking up so many trash. I felt very good because did my best in helping the beach clean-up. It was a very great experience seeing all the trash on the beach were picked up.

  

The Bay is my Bae - Javier Gutierrez

Hello everyone, my name is Javier Gutierrez  I am currently enrolled in English 2030 with Dr. Hernandez. I have recently participated in Heal the Bay at Santa Monica this past weekend. I have never really participated in a beach clean up, or any environmental clean up. This whole Heal the Bay experience has really opened my eyes to the realization of what a huge problem pollution has become. Keeping in mind that this is just one of the many forms of pollution that exists, it just blows my mind how horrible pollution has become. I found something extremely strange , an Ethernet cable under the pier. I do not know how it even got there . As my group and I began to clean we all realized something, it was extremely hot and I was wearing a jacket so I got the worst of the heat. But we also realized that every footstep we took there was at least a couple of cigarette butts and plastics. I Have personally never paid any attention to how much trash is on the beach. Any other day I would go to the beach and I would not even notice the amount of plastics and cigarette butts. this has certainly changed my views on how I see the beach, from now I will always notice all the trash in the sand and ocean. This activity relates in complicated way to my English class, well the way I see the relation is. I see this activity as an incentive put on by Dr. Hernandez to either motivate the students in my class to become environmental engineers or use our current engineering major to somehow help the cut down pollution.

 

Our Beaches are much more beautiful when they're clean.

          Hello my name is Usiel Ulloa and I'm part of Mrs.Hernandez's awesome 1005 class. I am a freshmen
 who loves learning and helping around. I came to this even so I can help our beaches be safer and more
 enjoyable by cleaning them. I (like many others) was ignorant of the dangerous affects of plastic trash
 and only though it was a mere myth. I soon learned that plastic actually has a great negative affect on
nature and the facts behind it. The two wonderful speakers Dave and Katie help me understand the
background information about their organization, pointing out why they do what they do. They also
 show me the negative effect of plastic on our nature with slides and presentations. Our class and I
 appreciate there time and patients for presenting the cause to us. I loved Dave's passion for the wildlife
 and Kathie's explanation from a scientific standpoint which really hits home. This project also relates
back to our class because our class has a natural theme to it. The experience was great because I and now
 more informed and simply did something I don't do everyday. I would like to Thank my teacher, the
 presenters, the organizers, and really just everyone for helping out and spreading positivity.    

       

Early Clean Up. Early Fun.

My name is Eduardo Pelayo and I am in English 2030 taught by Ximena Hernandez. On Saturday, September 17, I volunteered for the Heal The Bay event at the Santa Monica Beach. At first I was not happy that professor Ximena kind of made us get up early on a Saturday. However when I got there, I ended up having some fun. It was interesting to see all the trash that people let blow into the beach sand. The main piece of trash that my partner and I found were cigarette butts. We found a total of 107 and 50 of them were literally in one spot. Going through the beach to clean was a good experience to see how much people really care for our planet and their own health.