Team Marine: Focusing the Nation

Vital Stats

Yassaman S

Santa Monica, CA

  • people helped20000
  • People Doing It 20

The Problem

I have lived in Santa Monica all my life, and like every Santa Monica native, my favorite thing to do is to go to the beach. Santa Monica is world renound for its beautiful surf, beaches and the relaxing vibe that causes tourists to flock towards Santa Monica. While this may be a good source of income, the effects of year round tourism and over consumption are causing our beaches to look like dumping sites rather than picture perfect beaches. Nothing romantic about that! I started to take a good look at this problem in 11th grade when I was in my Marine Biology class. Since my school is walking distance from the beach, I was able to see everyday the accumulation of trash that would flow from storm drains out into the ocean. I soon realized that the main product that ended up in the ocean and on the shores was plastic. Statistic show that 380 billion plastic bags are thrown away in the United States every year, 17 cents per bag is the price many cities pay in disposal costs, wasting millions of tax paying dollars and the petroleum used to make 14 plastic bags is enough to drive a car one mile. Although many think that recycling is the answer, it isn’t. World class recycling programs won’t do it, throwing them away definitely wont do it, but replacing them with reusable bags WILL.

Plan of Action

After my experiences with Team Marine, I decided to branch out and get the school involved with the green phase. As a class representative for the Associated Student Body at my high school in 11th grade, I decide to reapply with a new position, as Commissioner of Environmental Affairs. After getting the position, I decided on the first day of school to plan an event called Focus the Nation. Focus the Nation is a nation-wide day devoted to promoting environmental awareness and the dangers of climate change and global warming. I had heard about the nation-wide organization during my time with Team Marine and I decided to bring the event to Santa Monica High (Samohi). With my contacts I had met last year, I single handedly began planning the event to be on January 29th, 2009. I invited five speakers to come present during period classes 1 through 4 and then have a lunchtime event with different tables with different organizations. My goal of the event was to provide a wide variety of speakers who were environmental activists, but were different in their own way. After 3 months of planning, my presenters for Focus the Nation were Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Mark Gold President of Heal the Bay, Alec Loorz founder of Kids vs. Global Warming, and Paul Scott Co- Founder of Plug In America and a part of the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” For the lunchtime event, I had the Big Blue Bus (Santa Monica’s public transportation company), One Bag At A Time, TreePeople (an organization that is with Generation Earth), the current Team Marine, and a face-painting booth. Over 700 people came to each presentation, which were twice as many that came the year before and to only one period presentation. As a result, Focus the Nation was a huge success. People at Samohi now know the importance of global warming and are inspired to do their part in becoming environmentally aware. Now that Focus the Nation has ended, I am now in the process of planning an Earth Day event. On April 22, 2009 Samohi will be celebrating the Earth, and I will be having events similar to Focus the Nation gong on. I am planning on having assemblies in our auditorium where I will show the film, “Story of Stuff” and have a lunchtime event where the students can test their knowledge on what is green and what is not. With these events I hope to spread awareness about climate change and help students break their one-time-use habits and become environmentally friendly and environmentally conscious.
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Environment

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