Filed under: Community Service/Volunteer, Spring 2009, Student Projects, UCLA Sustainability | Tags: Student Action Research Teams, student research
Leanna Rodriguez
This past Wednesday, May 27, the Action Research Team at UCLA held group presentations about eco-friendly experiments and suggestions for improving human activities and the environment. Unfortunately I could not stay the entire two hours so I only saw four of the eight presentations. The four groups whose presentations I was able to see each conducted their own studies here at UCLA in order to estimate exactly how much energy, water, and garbage is wasted and/or not properly taken care of on this campus, and to see how many students here are actually interested in doing something to address this issue.
The theme I saw in each presentation was that most people around the world who are so wasteful, are this way unknowingly. Therefore, I realized that as a student attending these presentations, my role was to learn these facts, understand what I can do to help the environment, and spread the word around in order to educate others of the facts.
The first presenters who went up called themselves Team Turf, as their goal was to figure out the pros and cons of replacing the natural grass in the IM Field here at UCLA with artificial grass. One major pro they discovered was that the cost of maintaining natural grass was approximately $8-9 million while the cost of maintaining artificial grass was about half that at $3-4 million. Therefore, not only is the turf less expensive to maintain, it would also cut down on water usage. Natural grass requires 6.4 million gallons of water per year while turf only requires under a million gallons a year. As good as these pros sound, there are a few cons that have held this school back from this option. One con is that, with the weather we are used to in Southern California, turf would require a heating system during the winter and a cooling system during the summer to keep it at a steady temperature. The downside of this fact is indeed that this heating/cooling system would use energy and we are trying to help the environment not hurt it further. Also, UCLA, especially the IM field, is host to a myriad of events each year, and so many events cause little harm to natural grass, but are very damaging to artificial grass. One possible solution Team Turf concluded was that the field remain half natural and the other half be replaced with artificial.
The next three teams, through their research, found that UCLA students are very much interested in helping the environment and do not need to be bribed to do so. The team who conducted the “Zero-Waste Floor” Experiment and the group who called themselves the “Waste Division and Diversion” both conducted almost entirely the same experiment, with the small difference in where the experiment was conducted. The first of the two studied where students who live in the dorms throw what kind of trash away, while the other group did the same on campus, mainly in Ackerman. Both groups went about their studies by routinely grabbing a bag of trash from a certain spot and weighing it, then sorting through the trash, and weighing it again. What they found was that after sorting and separating recyclables, composts, and actual trash that can go nowhere else but a landfill, much less trash is thrown into landfills than if not sorted out.
The last of the presentation that i saw was by the Energy Group. Their objective was to look at targets in which they can conserve energy by using two methods: 1)monitoring where energy is being wasted, and 2) surveying UCLA students to see who was willing to help. Some steps being taken at UCLA include possibly installing motion sensitive lights in the restrooms in the dorms, otherwise they may stay on all night though no one is using them.
In conclusion, with the wonderful research these great people have done, we have so many options available so that we can already take action in saving the environment, or at least slowing down its depletion. The next step that needs to be taken is educating others and encouraging the community to take action.
Filed under: Community Service/Volunteer, Earth Day and Associated Activities, Spring 2009 | Tags: Earth Day, SEA Lab
Community Service Event:
Earth Day at the SEA Lab, Redondo Beach, CA
Briana Fodor, April 25th, 2009
The SEA Lab is a coastal science education center and aquarium in Redondo Beach, CA. Every year they host an Earth Day celebration, where the public can come and learn more about coastal environmental issues and about what they can do to help our local environment. The SEA Lab teaches the public both about our ocean and terrestrial environments. They host bluff restoration projects at which they are replacing invasive plant species with native ones. At Earth Day, the SEA Lab sells native plants, as seen to the right, and encourages people to plant these, since they use less water and help support native animals species. People are also able to visit the aquarium’s many sea life exhibits, where volunteers can teach the public about the local animals. Local environmental organizations participate in the Earth Day celebration through having booths where they can teach people about what their organization does and about what the public can do.
I volunteered at the SEA Lab when I was in high school and for a year while I was at UCLA. This is the fifth Earth Day that I have participated in at the SEA Lab. This year I spent most of the time working at the animal exhibits, such as the Halibut tank to the left, where I taught guests about the animals in that tank and about the SEA Lab itself. Most of the animals at the SEA Lab are rescued animals that are saved from the local power plants. These companies will take sea water from the ocean to cool down their machines, and with the sea water comes many animals. The SEA Lab takes these animals, lets them recover, and then releases them again. The most common animals brought in from the intake systems are lobsters and crabs. The exhibits I worked at were the lobster, horn shark, sea star, and giant black sea bass exhibits. The black sea bass is a very endangered animal, so the SEA Lab is very lucky to have one right now that can be shown to the public. Their sea bass is still small, about a foot and a half long, but they can grow to be up to 8 feet long! Other activities that volunteers can help out with are children’s games, fish feedings, or even dressing up as EGBAR (as seen to the right), the mascot for Simple Green, which is a major sponsor of the SEA Lab.
The Earth Day at the SEA Lab does a great job at teaching the public about local environmental issues and about what they can do to help. When people are able to see the local animals that are affected by what we do, they seem to take a greater interest in being more environmentally conscious. Also many of the booths gave great advice on how to be more environmentally friendly. In all I feel like I helped the environment, even a little, by participating at this Earth Day Celebration.
Alisan Amrhein
This quarter, I was involved in the UCLA Event Sustainability Volunteer Program where I volunteered to help out with UCLA events. My job was to watch over the trash areas during UCLA Day, an event on campus for alumni. I was there to instruct people on the appropriate container to place their trash, whether it was to go in the landfill container, the composting bin, or the recycling bin. My presence there also acted as a reminder for people that they need to be careful when throwing away their garbage so that it can be recycled or composted properly if able. UCLA hopes to one day be a waste-free campus, meaning that all of the food waste and food-based products can be used as compost and all other materials used or sold could be recycled. Therefore, no items would be diverted to any landfills! At past events, volunteers were able to divert 60% of the waste into the appropriate composting and recycling bins. Without me and other fellow volunteers, we would risk losing most of the compost and recycling bins to contamination.
At this event, the food that was being served was given out on compostable plates and was wrapped in compostable paper. The napkins, utensils, cups, and of course, all of the leftover food, were also compostable. My duty was to inform people that most of their trash could go in the composting bin. Composting bins are made to collect food and/or plant waste that can be turned into garden soil. When products are food-based, they are easily compostable. At this event, the products were made from either corn or potatoes. During the event, I had to be careful that no glass ended up in the composting bin because even just one piece of glass would contaminate the entire compost. Most of the people attending the event were surprised that their food packaging could be compostable and did not have to be thrown away where it would end up in a landfill in the future.
At the event, there were also individually wrapped, brand name, ice cream and chip bags offered. These, unfortunately, were not recyclable or compostable and thus had to be individually removed from the rest of the litter and thrown in the general “trash” bin, the one that would be going into a landfill. The packaging of these ice cream cones and chip bags are indeed made from plastic, giving most people the false idea that they can go into the recycling container. However, they are made from a varying of mixed materials that cannot be easily broken up to be made into other things. In addition, some food wrappers seen at the event were made from paper, yet are lined with wax so they too, could not be thrown either in the compost or recycling bin.
Those that hosted the event were not serving drinks in plastic or glass bottles, but I did still have to be on the lookout for them in case attendees brought their own. There was a specific recycling bin for these items that was fitted with a special top containing circular openings that would only be able to accommodate cylindrical bottles and cans. These items that would go in the recycling bin are either made from plastic or aluminum which is easy to break down and reuse to make other items. However, not all plastic is recyclable. Every item made with plastic should have a special code either labeled 1 through 7 on it. The kind of plastic that is allowed to go into the recycling bins depends on the local recycling agency that collects these items and if they have the means to recycle them. Luckily at this event, most of the plastic items, if any, were standard beverage containers that could be thrown into the bins for future, easier, recycling.
I hope to volunteer at more events on campus to make them more green and mostly waste-free!
UCLA Triathlon Team Beach Cleanup @ Will Rogers State Beach
On Sunday, May 17, 2009, the UCLA Triathlon Team went to Will Rogers State Beach to hold their own beach cleanup. We worked on an approximately 500 cubic meter stretch of the beach, around the main storm drain leading out to the water. Our main purpose was to remove any trash that could be safely removed from that stretch of beach. Pieces of trash picked up ranged in size from used cigarette butts, to a pair of size 34 khakis. The team combed this section of beach for nearly 3 hours, until every piece of trash we could find had been removed.
Will Rogers State Beach is a relatively safe beach in the LA County area in terms of water quality, according to recent reports released by Heal the Bay. The water quality in this area can be greatly affected by stormwater runoff, however. Will Rogers State Beach is situated just at the bottom of Temescal Canyon, meaning that it is the main recipient of stormwater runoff coming from the Pacific Palisades. Due to high levels of development in the area, a great deal of stormwater during rainstorms makes its way out to the ocean. This water will pick up any trash or pollutants that it meets on its way to the ocean. Our goal in cleaning this stretch of beach surrounding the storm drain was to reduce the amount of trash and pollutants that the stormwater runoff would encounter during the next storm. Large pieces of trash, such as plastic bags or soda can holders can injure and even kill marine life. We picked up an alarming number of cigarettes off of the beach, which contain nicotine and arsenic. Nicotine can affect the metabolic rates of fish, and arsenic is a poison that in high enough concentrations can kill marine life.
The purpose of this beach cleanup was not simply to make the beach more aesthetically pleasing, but was also to preserve the water quality of one of the safer beaches in Southern California. Heal the Bay’s latest report named 9 Southern California beaches among the 10 dirtiest in all of California, so it is extremely important to protect the beaches in the area that are still clean.
-Steven Kontz
UCLA Undergraduate, IOE
UCLA Triathlon Team Member
Environment 180 Student Research Program, Presentations
Topics include:
- Bird Diversity in Tropical Forests: Plantations, Native forests
- The Wine Industry: Cost/Benefit of Organic Wines
- The Baldwin Hills: Odors and Distribution in and around the Baldwin Hills
- The Baldwin Hills: Edges – between Natural Vegetation and Passive Recreation
Also included on Week 10
Course evaluation
Program wrap-up, Environmental Science and IoE End of the Academic Year Social
Filed under: 11505682, Community Service/Volunteer, Los Angeles, Santa Monica Bay, Spring 2009, Student Projects, UCLA Sustainability | Tags: IOE, Santa Monica Baykeepers, stone caynon creek, volunteer
Related Links
Restoration and Community Service,
UCLA’s Natural History : a PDF file that identifies the past and present Nature — Biology and Land use at UCLA.
Santa Monica Baykeepers Organization: Facilitators’ blog of the Stone Canyon Creek restoration project.
Bird of Westwood. See what activities birds are up to in Westwood
Filed under: Beach Clean-ups, Community Service/Volunteer, Santa Monica Bay, Spring 2009
A warm, sunny day, plus a beach, equals BEACH CLEAN-UP! On Saturday, May 16, 2009, I participated in Heal the Bay’s monthly beach clean up day. More specifically, the event took place at Toe’s Beach, in Playa del Rey. I woke up excited this day, because I had never participated in such an event. The thought was truly thrilling, for I knew I was going to do my part in helping our beach become a little cleaner. Once we arrived to Toe’s Beach, we found ourselves surrounded by a large amount of people who were willing to engage in the same activity. Young and old, we all managed to get past the sea of people and register for the event. The cleanup started promptly at 10 a.m.. A small group of us gathered and listened, as an official volunteer spoke about where our trash goes, why it is important to clean our beaches, as well as discuss the safety measures behind the beach cleanup. It is interesting, yet sad to see that most of the trash we leave behind ends up in a storm drain and into the oceans. This little lecture took about 10 minutes. Once we were done listening to the official volunteer, I collected my trash bag and gloves, and began my journey to PICK UP SOME TRASH!
As I began to walk around, I noticed right away the trash that lurked within the sand. Styrofoam here, Styrofoam there, Styrofoam EVERYWHERE! It was as if a Styrofoam bomb went off at the beach. Luckily, we were there to clean up most of it. As I continued my quest, I came across other items such as cigarette butts, cigarette filters, wrappers (candy), straws (mind you: Starbuck’s straws), corks, beads, bottle tops, and a Cup of Noodles Styrofoam cup. I went as far as to go through the seaweed, because more often than non, trash gets caught within these ocean plants.
As I was picking up trash, I managed to grab a black, sticky substance called TAR. I was so disgusted by this, because everything was just sticking to my gloves. As a result, I had a hard time getting the tar off my gloves. In the midst of all of this, I conjured a device: A Poking Stick. I made it my mission to retrieve as much tar as a could with the Poking Stick. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be tar. The more tar I collected, the more I began to think about what animals could get caught in this icky substance. But amongst all my thinking, I saw a fiddler crab emerge from the sand. I managed to take a picture of this little guy before we left to continue our work. Its almost ironic that despite my endless efforts to collect tar from the beach, I still managed to get pieces of it all over my flip flops.
After two hours and walking three-fourths of a mile, it was time to turn around and head back towards our group. I finished filling out the tally cards, and handed them in as well as our trash bag. At the end of this event, there was a raffle taking place in which all participants had the opportunity to win random prizes. I did not win at the raffle, but I did win the satisfaction of helping make this beach just a little cleaner.
The principle issue here is CONSERVATION. What we did at Toe’s Beach on the 16th, was just way of helping to restore and conserve the beach and its wildlife. The overall goal of this program is to preserve/conserve the natural habitats of the animals so that they may continue to flourish in a safe and clean environment. Preservation/conservation is key to understanding habitats as well the organisms that reside within. If they are destroyed, then we, as a society,will lose this valuable information in the long run. Heal the Bay offers individuals, young and old, the opportunity to see the trash that surrounds these beaches. By giving the young crowd the hands on experience of picking up the trash, they may later on continue the quest of keeping our beaches clean. Lastly, they also get the opportunity to understand that it is because of humans that trash gets out to the beach and its environment in the first place, and it is our job to clean up what we have started.
Filed under: Beach Clean-ups, Santa Monica Bay, Spring 2009 | Tags: Heal the Bay
A warm, sunny day, plus a beach, equals BEACH CLEAN-UP! On Saturday, May 16, 2009, I participated in Heal the Bay’s monthly beach clean up day. More specifically, the event took place at Toe’s Beach, in Playa del Rey. I woke up excited this day, because I had never participated in such an event. The thought was truly thrilling, for I knew I was going to do my part in helping our beach become a little cleaner. Once we arrived to Toe’s Beach, we found ourselves surrounded by a large amount of people who were willing to engage in the same activity. Young and old, we all managed to get past the sea of people and register for the event.
The cleanup started promptly at 10 a.m.. A small group of us gathered and listened, as an official volunteer spoke about where our trash goes, why it is important to clean our beaches, as well as discuss the safety measures behind the beach cleanup.
It is interesting, yet sad to see that most of the trash we leave behind ends up in a storm drain
and into the oceans. This little lecture took about 10 minutes. Once we were done listening to the official volunteer, I collected my trash bag and gloves, and began my journey to PICK UP SOME TRASH!
As I began to walk around, I noticed right away the trash that lurked within the sand. Styrofoam here, Styrofoam there, Styrofoam EVERYWHERE! It was as if a Styrofoam bomb went off at the beach. Luckily, we were there to clean up most of it. As I continued my quest, I came across other items such as cigarette butts, cigarette filters, wrappers (candy), straws (mind you: Starbuck’s straws), corks, beads, bottle tops, and a Cup of Noodles Styrofoam cup. I went as far as to go through the seaweed, because more often than non, trash gets caught within these ocean plants.
As I was picking up trash, I managed to grab a black, sticky substance called TAR. I was so disgusted by this, because everything was just sticking to my gloves. As a result, I had a hard time getting the tar off my gloves. In the midst of all of this, I conjured a device: A Poking Stick. I made it my mission to retrieve as much tar as a could with the Poking Stick. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be tar. The more tar I collected, the more I began to think about what animals could get caught in this icky substance. But amongst all my thinking, I saw a fiddler crab emerge from the sand. I managed to take a picture of this little guy before we left to continue our work. Its almost ironic that despite my endless efforts to collect tar from the beach, I still managed to get pieces of it all over my flip flops.
After two hours and walking three-fourths of a mile, it was time to turn around and head back towards our group. I finished filling out the tally cards, and handed them in as well as our trash bag.
At the end of this event, there was a raffle taking place in which all participants had the opportunity to win random prizes. I did not win at the raffle, but I did win the satisfaction of helping make this beach just a little cleaner.
The principle issue here is CONSERVATION. What we did at Toe’s Beach on the 16th, was just way of helping to restore and conserve the beach and its wildlife. The overall goal of this program is to preserve/conserve the natural habitats of the animals so that they may continue to flourish in a safe and clean environment. Preservation/conservation is key to understanding habitats as well the organisms that reside within. If they are destroyed, then we, as a society,will lose this valuable information in the long run. Heal the Bay offers individuals, young and old, the opportunity to see the trash that surrounds these beaches. By giving the young crowd the hands on experience of picking up the trash, they may later on continue the quest of keeping our beaches clean. Lastly, they also get the opportunity to understand that it is because of humans that trash gets out to the beach and its environment in the first place, and it is our job to clean up what we have started.
UCLA Triathlon Team Beach Cleanup @ Will Rogers State Beach
On Sunday, May 17, 2009, the UCLA Triathlon Team went to Will Rogers State Beach to hold their own beach cleanup. We worked on an approximately 500 cubic meter stretch of the beach, around the main storm drain leading out to the water. Our main purpose was to remove any trash that could be safely removed from that stretch of beach. Pieces of trash picked up ranged in size from used cigarette butts, to a pair of size 34 khakis. The team combed this section of beach for nearly 3 hours, until every piece of trash we could find had been removed.
Will Rogers State Beach is a relatively safe beach in the LA County area in terms of water quality, according to recent reports released by Heal the Bay. The water quality in this area can be greatly affected by stormwater runoff, however. Will Rogers State Beach is situated just at the bottom of Temescal Canyon, meaning that it is the main recipient of stormwater runoff coming from the Pacific Palisades. Due to high levels of development in the area, a great deal of stormwater during rainstorms makes its way out to the ocean. This water will pick up any trash or pollutants that it meets on its way to the ocean. Our goal in cleaning this stretch of beach surrounding the storm drain was to reduce the amount of trash and pollutants that the stormwater runoff would encounter during the next storm. Large pieces of trash, such as plastic bags or soda can holders can injure and even kill marine life. We picked up an alarming number of cigarettes off of the beach, which contain nicotine and arsenic. Nicotine can affect the metabolic rates of fish, and arsenic is a poison that in high enough concentrations can kill marine life.
The purpose of this beach cleanup was not simply to make the beach more aesthetically pleasing, but was also to preserve the water quality of one of the safer beaches in Southern California. Heal the Bay’s latest report named 9 Southern California beaches among the 10 dirtiest in all of California, so it is extremely important to protect the beaches in the area that are still clean.
-Steven Kontz
UCLA Undergraduate, IOE
UCLA Triathlon Team Member
Filed under: 11505682
Title: Green Chemistry
Presenter: Martha Dina Arguello, Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles
Martha will discuss how CHANGE has been involved in the chemical policy reform debate and promoting Green Chemistry at the California legislature. PSR-LA is the co-founder and co-convener of CHANGE, Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy, which works to serve all Californians by reducing their exposures to chemicals that can impact their health. Through the passing of AB 1879 (The Green Chemistry Initiative) during the last legislative cycle, the landscape for chemical reform in California has changed significantly. Martha will discuss the how this bill and other policy efforts that are shaping the future of chemicals policy.
For the past 32 years, Martha has served in the non-profit sector as an advocate, community organizer, and coalition builder. She joined PSR-LA in 1998 to launch the environmental health programs, and became Executive Director in November 2007. She is committed to making the credible voice of physicians a powerful instrument for transforming California and our planet into a more peaceful and healthy place. Martha grew up in the Pico-Union area of Los Angeles and she has worked as a health educator since the 1990s, with a dedication to work for environmental justice.
Environment 170
Monday, May 18, 2009
La Kretz 110
4 – 5:15 p.m.
Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles (PSR-LA) is working to bring together health professionals and the diverse communities of Southern California to reduce threats to public health related to nuclear weapons and energy, and environmental toxins.
