A Crash Course in Local Water Issues

Today, we share our last blog post from Environmental Educator, Monica Rosquillas, who will be setting out on a new path in 2015. A member of the ILACSD team for more than two years, Monica just completed the Citizen Water Academy program and provides a brief rundown of what she learned below. You can even test your local water knowledge in a quiz she created!

Last October, I had the privilege of being part of the inaugural class of the San Diego County Water Authority’s Citizens Water Academy.

The Citizens Water Academy is open to future and emerging leaders in the San Diego region that desire to learn about critical water issues in the region.

Fall 2014 Citizens Water Academy participants
Fall 2014 Citizens Water Academy participants

It was a four session program the included presentations from local water experts and tours to local water facilities.

Here’s a short run-through of the academy and some interesting information I learned along the way.

Session 1 was held at the San Diego History Center in beautiful Balboa Park.
During this session, local water experts presented on San Diego’s water history and its future.
Within the last 24 years, San Diego has increased its water reliability through supply diversification.

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Did you know where our tap water comes from?

 

Here’s Michael Page, ILACSD board member who also participated in the Citizens Water Academy. On the right is Mark Weston, Water Authority Board Chair. On the left is Ramesses Surban, Citizens Water Academy student
Here’s Michael Page, ILACSD board member who also participated in the Citizens Water Academy. On the right is Mark Weston, Water Authority Board Chair. On the left is Ramesses Surban, Citizens Water Academy student

Session 2 was held at the Escondido Operations and Maintenance Center. We learned about Regional Water Infrastructure, Water Authority Operations, and the Water Authority’s Emergency Preparedness Efforts.

Did you know that San Diego uses enough water every day to fill Qualcomm Stadium twice?

During session two I learned all about what goes into importing water to San Diego, storing it, treating it, and delivering that water to our homes. I have always been conscious of my water use but I now have a new appreciation of San Diego’s clean and reliable tap water.

Ever wonder what happens to our water supply in case of an emergency? Watch this video  to find out.

 

Session 3 was at the North City Water Reclamation Plant.

There, we took a tour of San Diego’s Advanced Water Purification Facility, where wastewater is treated and recycled.

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Session 4 was a busy day!

After breakfast and check in at the Escondido office, we got on a bus and headed over to the Carlsbad Desalination Plant.

The Desalination plant is a $ 1 Billion project expected to produce drinking water for the San Diego region as soon as fall 2015. The plant will meet about 7% of the county’s water demands in 2020.

Here’s how it works.

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We then headed over to Olivenhain Reservoir.  This is the region’s first major new dam and reservoir in 50 years. The Olivenhain Reservoir can store 24,000 Acre Feet of Water.

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Here I am at the Olivenhain Reservoir

 

Afterwards, we took a trip over to Stone Brewery in Escondido and were able to tour their water recycling facility.

Here I am at Stone.
Here I am at Stone.

Finally, we headed back to the Escondido office for our Graduation Ceremony.

Here I am with Mark Weston, Board Chair, and Maureen A. Stapleton, General Manager of the San Diego County Water Authority
Here I am with Mark Weston, Board Chair, and Maureen A. Stapleton, General Manager of the San Diego County Water Authority

 

The Citizens Water Academy provided me with the opportunity to learn firsthand from local water experts about the region’s water supply that I have shared with hundreds of students in San Diego County, hopefully inspiring them to conserve this precious natural resource.  If you’re interested in participating in the Citizens Water Academy, a project of the San Diego County Water Authority, they are currently accepting applications for their Spring 2015 class. Learn more information online.

Think you’re a water expert? Test your local water knowledge in a quiz that Monica created based on what she learned in the Citizens Water Academy!

The Totals are In! 2013 By The Numbers…

Today’s post comes from I Love A Clean San Diego’s Director of Development & Marketing, Morgan Justice-Black, who thinks that annual program totals are pretty much the cats pajamas!HPIM1703_cropped

As someone who spends most of my days fundraising, there is no more exciting time of the year than the end of the year. Seeing those last few donations come in before the new year rolls around and crossing my fingers that we meet our projected revenue goals has become an annual tradition for me. But I also love the end of the year for another reason…the opportunity to compile our program totals for the year!

My coworkers run their programs pretty much up until the last week of the year. This year, we had two cleanups in December, as well as education presentations in schools through December 19th! Shout out to Mission Estancia Elementary in Carlsbad for being our last presentations of 2013! Naturally, the holiday “break” was spent doing some serious math, adding up the total number of volunteers we mobilized, the number of education sessions that we hosted, and much more.

Well, I’m happy to report that the results are in! And once again, I’m in awe of how much an organization of just 12 staff can get done!

COMMUNITY EVENTS:

30,510 volunteers

440,953 pounds of debris collected

79,689 cigarette butts

5,334 straws

and a whole lot more!

EDUCATION:

28,220 youth educated

600 environmental education presentations

RECYCLING:

15,555 requests for recycling information

1 brand new repair database, www.RepairSD.org

All in all, 2013 was a great year for I Love A Clean San Diego. But I’m confident that 2014 will be even better. Why? Because we are turning 60! Not me personally of course, but I Love A Clean San Diego! Since 1954, we’ve been working to prevent pollution in San Diego County, giving us a BIG reason to celebrate! So stay tuned for how we are going to make 2014 a year to remember. Oh, and if you didn’t get your donation in before the end of the year, our mailbox is always open 😉

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Nearby Nature: Connecting Underserved Kids with the Environment

Today’s post comes from our Education Coordinator, Erika Bjorkquist Erika-team

One great thing about San Diego is the access to nature. Scattered throughout its urban areas are canyons, preserves, and open space, so no matter where you live, nature is at your fingertips. While the natural world is within our reach, many people are not aware of the benefits of spending time in nature or even its proximity to their communities. Through our Nearby Nature program, ILACSD hopes that students become more familiar with their surroundings and enjoy their local environment.

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Literally reaching new heights in environmental education!
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Getting a closer look at the natural world

Research is showing that children need connections with nature as part of their healthy growth and development. Though nature is beneficial, children are spending less time outdoors. This disconnection can add to health problems like obesity or event result in a fear of the outdoors.  ILACSD hopes to reconnect students in under-served schools to the natural environment. This two-step program first introduces students to what they can find in nature and the importance of protecting these natural places, and then leads students on an educational hike through a nearby natural area. By helping students experience the nature in their own neighborhood, this program allows them to better understand and value the nature surrounding them every day.

This program is a favorite of ILACSD staff, as shown through our education staff:

“My favorite thing about NN is spending time outside, enjoying and appreciating San Diego’s canyons with San Diego’s kids.” Monica Rosquillas, ILACSD Environment Educator

“I learn as much as the students we lead, they have a curiosity that is contagious!” Erika Bjorkquist, ILACSD Education Coordinator

If you are interested in learning more about our Nearby Nature Program, please contact Erika Bjorkquist at ebjorkquist@cleansd.org.

Students today, future environmentalists tomorrow!
Students today, future environmentalists tomorrow!

We Talk Trash- Sign Your School Up for an ILACSD Education Presentation!

Today’s blog post comes from our Education Coordinator, Erika Bjorkquist.  Erika, whose pencils have been sharpened for weeks, is super excited for school to start and to begin education presentations for a new batch of kids!Erika-team

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Sharpen your pencils, gather your books, it’s back to school time! This year, as you prepare your lessons, consider incorporating a presentation from I Love A Clean San Diego. Our local, environmental nonprofit has been around for almost 60 years! With that kind of history, we have vast knowledge of San Diego and its local environment, so we know the issues important to the community.

San Diego is known for beautiful weather and breathtaking beaches. Unfortunately, along with sea shells and sand crabs, litter is ‘litter’ally harming our environment. Trash makes its way through rivers, creeks, storm drains, to beaches and ultimately, to the ocean. Once in the ocean, little can be done to reverse the detrimental effects of trash. But…there is something you can do! ILACSD is up for the task to help our beaches and water ways through our education programs and cleanups.  In our presentations, we talk trash, introducing students to the harms of pollution in the environment, and then we provide easy, everyday actions students can take to combat pollution in our watershed and provide dates in which students can get involved.

Letter from a student at Dingeman Elementary
Letter from a student at Dingeman Elementary

What is great about our education programs is that:

  1. We deliver programs county wide. Whether your school is in San Diego, Jacumba, Fallbrook, Oceanside, or Julian, we have a presentation for you!
  2. Every presentation is standards-based and interactive.
  3. We incorporate visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning in classroom presentations.
  4. We emphasize community service as a way to help make a difference and provide dates and locations where students can receive community service hours.
  5. Best of all, these programs are fun and engaging!

Our presentations cater to the grade level of the audience, and best of all, the majority of our presentations are FREE! Certain restrictions apply, so please call for details. For more information, please contact the education department at 619-291-0103 or education@cleansd.org. You can also learn more on our education website.

Know what would make this student happy? A fun education presentation from ILACSD!
Know what would make this student happy? A fun education presentation from ILACSD!

Meet our new Marketing Intern, Christina!

christinaToday’s post comes from ILACSD’s newest Marketing Intern, Christina Etchebarren!

Hey there readers of this blog and fans of I Love A Clean San Diego! My name is Christina, I’m the new Marketing Intern here at ILACSD and I’m so excited to be joining the team and learning from the wonderful staff and volunteers. I am a fourth year Environmental Systems major at UC San Diego, originally from a small town outside of Portland, Oregon. Growing up I’ve always been surrounded by environmentally conscientious communities, so it was no surprise that learning about and protecting our environment has turned in to a passion of mine. Letting people know about what we’re up to at ILACSD is a part of my job description and my first assignment was to attend one of our education presentations at University City High School on Tuesday, Feb. 12th.

monica_educationArriving at the high school brought back a strange wave of nostalgia for my carefree, hormone charged, rebellious teenage days and I kind of felt like never leaving. I sat myself in the back row of a marine science classroom trying to blend in inconspicuously as the students noisily settled into their seats. Monica Rosquillas, who is one of our lovely educators, introduced herself and took control of the students attention with a quickness and ease that would impress the pants off of any HS teacher I’m sure; high schoolers can be some of the most difficult crowds to reign in and she did so with confidence that can only come from plenty of experience.

monica_watershedThe presentation began with a lesson on the importance of water, which may seem obvious but sometimes all of us need a reminder about just how vital clean water is to not only our health, but the health of every living thing around us. The rest of the lesson plan was focused on watersheds, water quality and marine ecosystem health. Talking about environmental issues can be an extremely difficult task because you don’t want to come across as threatening or pessimistic and you don’t want present the problem  as overwhelmingly large or beyond help, but you do want to make it seem important and urgent enough to motivate people to care and to take action. The presentation that I Love A Clean San Diego has put together walks the line quite gracefully, and I noticed that even from the back of the classroom, all of the students seemed to stay engaged throughout the entire duration of the talk.

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Stomach contents from an Albatross include plastic caps, fishing line, and even a small wooden door knob.

Monica hit the message home by passing around a jar filled with contents from an Albatross’ stomach which included a pen and several other pieces of colorful plastic, I heard murmurs of horror coming from the pupils as they passed the jar around with disgust.  To be honest, although I’ve gone through several years of environmental education throughout my time at UCSD, I learned a lot about watersheds and how important it is that we do our best to keep them clean.

All in all, I walked out of University City High School proud to be a part of such an amazing and inspiring organization and feeling hopeful for our future generations of environmental enthusiasts, and I look forward to the months ahead here at ILACSD.

You’ll hear from me soon, until next time.

Christina

Think Blue Brigade tackles storm water pollution in Market Creek

monicaToday’s post comes from ILACSD’s Environmental Educator, Monica Rosquillas!

Last week, I gladly spent my Saturday with the high school students from the Elementary Institute of Science (EIS) stenciling storm drains in the neighborhood of Market Creek. The students at EIS are part of the Think Blue Brigade, a program by Think Blue San Diego that aims to connect high school students with storm water pollution prevention.

???????????????????????????????I arrived at EIS, stenciling kits in hand, and was met by a warm group of students and their enthusiastic advisor.  Soon after, we walked out into the sunny streets of Market and Euclid, where we split up into 3 groups, each group stenciling “Don’t Dump Goes to Ocean” on 3 storm drains. While some tackled storm drains, others documented their progress, recording video and taking pictures for their end-of-the-year project.

The footage collected will be used in a video that will be showcased at the end of the year. The storm drain stenciling activity and video project fulfill 2 out of the 3 requirements of being part of the Think Blue Brigade. Having already completed the storm drain stenciling, this group of students will also participate in ILACSD’s signature cleanup event, the Creek to Bay Cleanup, held on April 27th of this year.  Then, they will have until June to finish their video on storm water pollution and Green Transportation.

thinkblue1It’s very encouraging to work with a group of high school students, like these kids, who willingly give up their Saturday mornings to come out and do an event like this. As an educator at I Love A Clean San Diego, I go to high schools all over San Diego and teach kids about pollution. So when I see them do something about it, it feels great! Overall I had a great day spreading the message of storm water pollution prevention with this awesome group of students.

If you are a high school student interested in becoming involved with the Think Blue Brigade, please contact the education department by calling (619) 291-0103 or email me at mrosquillas@cleansd.org.

Believe it or not, high school kids DO care about our environment!

With many students heading back to school this week and next, today’s post comes from former ILACSD Environmental Educator Alex Mullen-Ley who shares her thoughts on our High School Watershed Education program and what it’s like working with high schoolers!

Let’s be honest: high school kids have a bad reputation. When I tell people that I teach high school students about water pollution prevention, they often say something like, “I could never do that!” It’s easy to stereotype high school students as self-centered and unmotivated. In reality, the vast majority of these kids are open-minded, eager to learn, and willing to help out in their communities.

Local high school students at a recent cleanup

I Love A Clean San Diego’s high school education presentation focuses on the importance of clean water, and is designed to increase students’ knowledge of local watersheds and promote behaviors that prevent marine pollution from urban runoff.  We identify important concepts such as the water cycle, food webs, and biomagnification and relate them to real life issues. We also review the latest information about the pacific garbage patch and help students identify everyday actions they can take to keep their local watershed healthy.

In 2011, ILACSD educated over 9100 students at 36 high schools around San Diego County through this program. It can be tedious talking about the same thing for five or six class periods, but the uniqueness of the students makes each day different. Nearly all of the 9th through 12th graders that I have talked to are genuinely interested in protecting the natural environment.

More than beach cleanups, students can get community service hours doing a variety of projects

Many high schools in San Diego County now actually require community service hours to graduate. So as the educators explain how trash ends up making its way into the ocean, we offer students the chance help at one of our upcoming cleanups.  It’s a win-win situation; ILACSD has more volunteers to clean up the canyons and beaches and the students earn community service hours.

Students learn that small actions like recycling can have a big impact

The watershed education program isn’t the only way that ILACSD is trying to reach out to high school kids. We recently partnered with the City of San Diego’s Think Blue campaign to create a pilot project for high school students to become more active in preventing stormwater pollution. The program gives the students resources to design a project to increase awareness of the impacts from urban runoff on local waterways. At the end of the year we will have a celebration for participating school groups where they can show off their projects and meet other like-minded teens.

When I first realized that I was going to be teaching high school kids, I was nervous about it. I thought that they might be uninterested in the material or might even have a lack of respect for me. I was wrong to prejudge them. The students I’ve talked to as the Environmental Educator are smart, motivated, and make me feel optimistic about the future of San Diego.

Alex’s Goodbye – Becoming an Environmental Educator

Today’s post comes from Alex Mullen-Ley who has been ILACSD’s Environmental Educator for the past year. Alex grew up in San Diego and graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a degree in Environmental Studies, focusing her education on fresh water management and political ecology. Alex has been an amazing asset to the ILACSD team and we will all miss her as she moves on to continue her environmental education!

If you had told me five years ago that I would end up teaching K-12 students I would have never believed you.  I didn’t think I had the patience or the temperament required to be an educator.  And yet for the past year I have been standing in front of thousands of elementary school students, high school students, and even adults, teaching them about the causes of water pollution and how individuals can take action to protect the environment and care for their communities.

My time as the Environmental Educator at I Love A Clean San Diego has been an incredible learning experience. It is not easy to inspire 30+ young people, each with a unique background and different strengths and weaknesses, to listen and learn. Looking back on the past year I think it’s pretty unbelievable that only myself, the Education Coordinator, Samantha, and the two part time educators (four people!) spoke with over 30,000 students countywide.

One of the greatest challenges of being an environmental educator is redirecting the conversation away from the “gloom and doom” of the environmental problems and focusing instead on a more positive message.  Some students would groan audibly when they discovered that I would be talking about water pollution prevention, “Aww man, this is going to be boring!” But when I learned to focus my lectures on suggesting simple but tangible things that they could do to help solve the problems, the students were suddenly much more engaged and excited.

Over 1000 students & volunteers brought Alex’s design to life!

My favorite event while at ILACSD was Kids’ Ocean Day. I participated in last year’s event as part of the support staff but this year I was responsible for designing the aerial art and giving assemblies to the participating schools. The assembly was one of my favorite presentations because it was all about empowering students to protect the ocean and getting them excited about the beach cleanup and aerial art. The success of this year’s event is a testament to how well the staff works together. I’m not being egotistical when I say that the event was picture perfect.

Though much of my time was spent visiting schools around San Diego County, I did have the opportunity to work closely with the other staff members at ILCASD. I helped out with cleanups and development events, and worked the booth at countless community events. Because ILACSD’s events always run so smoothly, it isn’t obvious how much effort and coordination go into organizing them. The staff members at ILACSD are very good at what they do, whether that is educating the youth, coordinating events, or managing a fast-growing organization.

I have a good reason for leaving my position at ILACSD- I am going to begin graduate school at Scripps Institution of Oceanography where I will pursue my interests in ecosystem-based marine management. But I am grateful for all of the experiences that I have had as the Environmental Educator and I will miss being part of such an inspired, dedicated, and successful nonprofit. I wish only the very best for everyone at ILACSD and I will continue to attend cleanups and volunteer for other events. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Local Students Defend the Sea at Kids Ocean Day 2012

Many people will look at this picture and squint at it thinking, what is that?

“Are those rocks?” is a common question we’ve heard since releasing this picture after last week’s Kids Ocean Day. The design is definitely not made of rocks, or shells, or even trash from a cleanup. This amazing image is a piece of living art made up of over 1000 people. Yep, those are local San Diego students, parents, volunteers and the ILACSD staff sitting on the sand at Crown Point Shores sending a message to the rest of San Diego to ‘Defend the Sea.’

Kids Ocean Day is how we here at I Love A Clean San Diego get kids involved in celebrating World Oceans Day each year. This amazing work of art started as just an idea a few months ago, and was brought to life by ILACSD’s Environmental Educator, Alex Mullen-Ley and Education Coordinator, Samantha. Our staff were up before the sun last Thursday, mapping out and drawing Alex’s design in the sand.

As the buses began arriving, 3rd-5th grade students from 8 local schools started the day by cleaning up the beach, finding cigarette butts, beverage containers and small pieces of plastic.

The excitement started to build as we began lining the students up to file into the aerial art and the news helicopter started circling overhead. It was amazing to watch our octopus come to life piece by piece as the students and volunteers started to fill in the lines of the image. Most of the kids had never been a part of anything like this and were very excited to find their place in the sand.

Last but not least, the I Love A Clean San Diego staff sat down to form the eye of the octopus.

The second helicopter arrived, carrying our friend and photographer Rachel Lebowitz from Outside the Lens, another local nonprofit that teaches youth to use digital media to create change within themselves and their community. We were so impressed at how well behaved the students were as we waited for word from Rachel that she’d gotten the perfect shot!

Kids Ocean Day was coordinated in 5 cities in California, all using the theme ‘Defend the Sea’ in their designs. Click here to visit the Ocean Day website and see all of the amazing aerial art images!

ILACSD Educators Get Kids Out of the Classroom and Into Nature

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Environmental Educator, Alex Mullen-Ley.

Students consult their field guides on a Nearby Nature walk.

It is easy to see that the staff members here at I Love A Clean San Diego are all fervent environmentalists.  I can confidently say that this enthusiasm is due in no small part to our unique childhood experiences in the great outdoors. Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, maintains that a child’s experience in nature is vital to his or her development.  Studies have shown that youth who spend time outside are happier, healthier, and are better at learning than those who spend most of their time indoors.  ILACSD’s Nearby Nature program allows our educators to help youth connect with nature by leading them on an outdoor walk through a natural area close to their school.  We recently had the opportunity to take elementary students from two very different schools out of the comfort of their classrooms and into the wild.

Our first group of students was from John Muir Elementary, a school with a rather serendipitous name located next to Tecolote Canyon Natural Park.  After a short set of instructions and a safety talk in the classroom, we led the students out the door and down into the canyon. It was cool and invigorating early in the morning, and I was amazed to hear that many students had never been to the canyon before, despite its proximity to the school.

We handed all of the students a field guide with colorful pictures of San Diego’s native species. They used the guides throughout the walk to identify the plants and animals that we saw during the short walk through the canyon.  The most exciting part of the adventure was when one group walked around a corner and saw a three-foot long snake lying across the middle of the trail not five feet away!  After everyone had calmed down, the students looked up the reptile in their naturalist guides and identified it as a harmless Gopher Snake. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Back in the classroom, the students showed each other leaf rubbings that they had done and swapped stories about the different plants, animals and flowers that they had seen on the hike. Before we left, I asked my group if they were going to visit the canyon again with their parents.  A loud, “yeah!” evidenced their enthusiasm. The ILACSD Educators all left the school with satisfied smiles.

We drove all the way to James Dukes Elementary School in Ramona a week later. The school is in a comparatively rural location, but again I was surprised to hear that the majority of the students hadn’t yet explored the nearby greenbelt.

Students drew a picture of a yucca plant in their notebooks.

The kids had just learned about Kumeyaay culture, and were excited to tell us about how the Native American tribe had used elements from the surrounding environment to survive. The students became the teachers when they told us educators about how the Kumeyaay made sandals out of Yucca and Agave fibers, crafted pots out of clay, and ground up California Live Oak acorns to make most of their food.

Exhausted after the hike, the students collapsed in their chairs in the temperature-controlled classroom and filled out a short survey. The survey only had three questions: what the most interesting thing they saw on the hike was; one thing they learned; and what nature means to them. Their responses were all honest and heartening. Nature was described as awesome, special, wonderful, interesting, and in the words of one fourth grader, “calming. Any time I go into nature I feel safe.”

The Nearby Nature program is one of the most rewarding for us as educators. While we do enjoy teaching young students inside the classroom, it is extra satisfying to watch them get excited at seeing the native plants and animals in their neighborhoods.  The statistics do reveal that kids these days are missing out on the benefits of experiencing nature, but it pleases me to know that there are at least a few children in San Diego who have had the chance to explore a beautiful natural area in their neighborhood.

If you are a 3rd – 6th grade teacher in San Diego County who is interested in having your students participate in the Nearby Nature program next year, please contact our Education department at education@cleansd.org.