This past Saturday, Skyline and Berkeley teams were able to participate in the annual coastal cleanup at the Berkeley Marina. Bright and early at the Shorebird Nature Center, interns arrived to help the center’s staff set up. We began to set up games and activities to engage the public, and prepare for the loads of trash people would be bringing to us by setting up a tarp at the Earth Team booth.
Setting Up and Getting Started
When members of the public started arriving, we divided and conquered to help staff the various booths. Some interns lead a relay game on trash sorting. This game was a race between two participants, where they had to sort food items, paper, and plastics into a trash, recycling, and compost bins. This fun game allowed interns to teach members of the public about how to responsibly sort their trash, and reduce negative environmental impacts.
Other interns helped with a watershed education activity, with a realistic model of our local watershed, including houses, creeks, and streets. Interns applied paint to different areas of the model, to represent things like oil, pesticides, or trash. Then, the interns would take a spray bottle, and simulate rain in the environment. Participants could see the paint trickling into the watershed, mixing with the clean creek and bay water. Then interns explained how pollution can enter our watershed, if we do not clean up after ourselves. This dirties the local waterways, and can negatively impact the local ecosystems, and even human health. This activity was an engaging way for our interns to educate the public on the importance of keeping our watershed clean, and how we can do better as a society to reduce pollution.
The remaining interns participated in our trash cleanup and litter sort. Some interns headed all the way down to Brickyard Cove to pickup trash on the beach, while others ventured out to the fishing areas, walkways, and parks that fill the Berkeley Marina. Upon piling up buckets full of miscellaneous trash items, interns and volunteers were encouraged to bring the trash back to our site at Shorebird Park. There, we had a large tarp ready to take any trash that would be sent our way.
Trash Count and Sort
Once the trash started piling up, our interns got to work on the Survey123 app, performing a sort and count of all the litter collected. Whether it was a cigarette butt, a paper cup, or a piece of styrofoam (which anecdotally seemed like the most common item), the interns got it counted on their survey! The trash kept building up as the event continued, so interns tried to count as quickly as possible, but soon the trash-collection interns were pulled in to start a second survey, so we could finish on time. Many new interns learned how to complete the online ArcGIS survey for the very first time, providing them with exposure to a new form of data collection that can help us understand what litter may end up in our watershed. Overall, the event lead to over 800lbs of trash being removed from the Berkeley Marina! Great job everyone, it takes a village!
Besides our sort and count, the Shorebird Nature Center had a contest for the most unusual item that was found in the trash pickup. Some entries included a plastic foot, a toy car, and a real pager. However, the item that won was a little live shrimp that was found living in a glass jar! The shrimp was eventually returned to the bay, but unfortunately we did not have a trophy small enough for him to bring back home.
Overall, interns left this event with a new understanding of the importance of keeping our watershed clean. They learned about ocean pollutants and watershed health and gained experience in data collection in ArcGIS Survey123. Earth Team is incredibly grateful to the staff at the Shorebird Nature Center and the CA Coastal Commission for all their hard work in putting on this event. Special thank you to our funders Whale Tail and EPABIL for funding this opportunity for our interns.
