Ocean for Life: 2011

Sunday, October 23, 2011

River Rescue

Yes, I know it has been forever. I'm way behind on many many things. Seeing as I just went on fall break, I intended to catch up on all of these things, but, of course, I have not.

Well, I was involved with the River Rescue at the beggining of this month. I didn't have entirely the enthusiasm I wanted, but there were many people who were quite enthusiastic. I'm still waiting on a few of the sheets from the cleanup, but have the data added for the groups who have given me the sheets. (Thanks to the enthusiastic help of Joshua Barret, who spent two of his free school periods helping me number crunch)\

On the day of the River Rescue, I met up with Laura Keys of Caribbean Sea and Shannon Carney, a fellow classmate, and we traveled through three of the River Rescue zones to do water quality monitoring.

Once I have the physical data and the final numbers from the survery cards, I will add them, as well as the actual final Ocean for Life Action Plan (which is, in fact, a month late)

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

River Rescue, Planning

Yesterday afternoon I went to the River Rescue meeting to hand out the data collection sheets for the cleanup. I accidentally forgot one of the stacks (two North Chickamauga cleanups and looking at the paper I became confused and thought only one), and the papers were temporarily lost (Christine Bock thought I'd taken the papers with me when I'd left them in the office), but we got it all figured out with plenty of time to hand them out and explain.

All zones plan on participating.

They received all other supplies as well. I've also gotten involved in some water sampling at a few of the zones by Mary Beth Sutton. I'll have the help of Ryan Gardner, a schoolmate, and we'll be working with a woman named Laura Skyles. The River Rescue will be next Saturday, October 1st. Hope to see everyone there!! I'll post information on the cleanup when I get the numbers back.

Chattanooga Times Free Press

Alright, so yesterday I was sitting in first block and got a text message from my mother. It said... "You're in the newspaper!". I definitely freaked out a little bit.
So... the "unveiling"...

About a month ago I got interviewed by the Chattanooga Times Free Press to tell my Ocean for Life story.The photo shoot I did was about an hour and the interview about an hour.. in case anyone was interested. Then, after the interview, I didn't hear from the woman I'd spoken withfor awhile, so was left a little confused about the date of the article coming out.

Though I didn't really do anything, an interview was one of the options for our Action Plan and it involved Ocean for Life and thought I'd link to it for anyone interested.

The link to the entire article for anyone if they would like to read it is below...
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/sep/20/0920-e1-soddy-daisy-student-charts-career-path-in/

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Tennessee River Rescue

So! Another project!! While we were in California, we did two beach cleanups. We recorded the information of all the debris we found and sent it in to the Ocean Conservancy. So, I thought I'd record some data collection and incorporate it into a local cleanup, the Tennessee River Rescue. It happened to line up nearly perfectly with an event the Ocean Conservancy is hosting called the Inernational Coastal Cleanup. The River Rescue has now been added to the list as a cleanup station/event.

Last Tuesday I had a meeting with the council of the River Rescue, and they agreed data collection would be a wonderful idea. Christine Bock, the lead horticulturist at the Tennessee Aquarium and one of the two main planners for the rescue, helped me by making copies of the data collection sheets this past Sunday.

Here is a picture of me sitting in the Aquarium office Sunday afternoon going through the stacks of 500 data collection sheets and seperating them into 20 seperate groups to cover the 20 zones included in the cleanup. Along with Christine Bock, I had the help of Nyck Green and Kelly Marie.

I am attending another River Rescue meeting tonight, Tuesday September 20th to help hand out the collection sheets.
The River Rescue will be October 1st in 20 different zones, and I have also been asked to do water sampling during the Rescue.

For more information on the Tennessee River Rescue or to find a zone near you go to this link...
http://www.tennesseeriverrescue.com/ ---There is a link to the zone flyer at the top, or for more information e-mail me.

For more information on the Ocean Conservancy, visit...
http://www.oceanconservancy.org/

Friday, August 19, 2011

Recycling Commercial

Here is a recycling commercial I made for my school to use, as well as any other OFL Alumni and anyone else who would like to use it. I hope you enjoy!!

My First OFL Project

So my first project.

Well, though this one is less about outreach to others and more an outreach to my fellow OFLers, one of the things necessary after the program is continued contact with the ALUMNI, and this form of contact includes the cultural understanding we're working so hard towards.

One day while on the bus in California with all my friends, the OFL Alumni, everyone passed around different candy we had bought at the UCSB Bookstore. I was just sitting there, not paying much attention, when I saw my friend Alhassan's face pucker as I'd never seen before while eating a Sour Punch. I realized he'd never had one before. Later, the same happened with my friend, Noaf from Bahrain, eat dry koolaid for the first time and love it. These are things they'd never had before, and things they wouldn't have available when they left us.

So, I decided to start a project through all of the Alumni. I thought we should all do carepackages for one another, each of us sharing food or candy from our country not available in our counterpart's.

Being that I am a tad more ambitious and ready to work than other people, I decided I would go ahead and do the first few carepackages as a practice run. I made four; one for Natasha in Pakistan, one for Noaf in Bahrain, one for Ibrahim in Qatar, and one for Alhassan in Egypt.

Here are the final products:

Now, an individual carepackage.

Each carepackage includes: One Poweraid, one Sour Punch, a bag of Airheads, one Fudge Shop Keebler Snack Pack, one Cheeze It Snack Pack, One Rainbow Keebler Snack Pack, one (meat-free) Chef Boyardee, one pack of Ramen Noodles, one pack of microwavable popcorn, three packs of gummies, and two packs of crackers.

Noaf's also includes 15 small packets of Kool Aid.

I hope to have these sent out by the beginning of next week, so I will keep you all posted!!

"One World, One Ocean"

On July 14th, 2011, I started a journey that would change my life forever. That was the day I left my small town in Tennessee and headed to Santa Barbara, California, to start the Ocean for Life program, a program about ocean conservation, cultural understanding, and communication. I was going to be spending eleven days with people from all over the world, learning about each other and our world. Throughout the next two weeks, I learned so many things. I made friends from Egypt and Bahrain, and I started to learn Arabic. I saw, first-hand, the effect our carelessness and overuse is having on our planet. Now, since I left, it's my job to take the things I learned and put them into action. This is where I will document every part of my experience, from and since the Ocean for Life program, and every part of my action plan. The newest part of my adventure, and I can't wait to share it with you all.

I'll count this as my first post, though I know it's not. I just wanted the explanation of the blog to always be at the top, not the bottom at the bottom of the list.

So, Ocean for Life. This'll be an explanation.

In March of 2011, I applied to be part of a program called Ocean for Life. It was a program hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in partnership with Qatar Foundation International. I didn't know about the application until two days before, and I rushed through it to make the deadline, faxing everything in the last minute. I hadn't had much time to truly find out much about it, considering the time restriction. A few weeks later, I got a message telling me I was an alternate for the program, and if it were possible they would contact me and I'd cover for another delegate who couldn't go. A few more weeks, and I was told it wouldn't be possible. I went into the summer focusing on work and doing my own thing, forgetting about the entire thing... Until one day, I checked my e-mail and saw a message from Claire Fackler. The project supervisor. The message said there may be a spot open for me, but they weren't yet sure, to make sure to check my e-mails and they'd keep me posted. This was a week before the program start date. The next days, sitting and wondering were crazy. Then, two days before I got an e-mail. "Buy your plane ticket. You're going." I cried. I was happy, scared, excited, worried, nearly every possible emotion I could think of. This was the biggest opportunity I'd ever had, and I was going to be doing something big.

Ocean for Life is a program designed to foster ocean conservation through cultural understanding and the use of media. We went to the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary and the University of Santa Barbara. We learned from National Geographic photographers about how to photograph; we learned from top scientists about conservation and some of the issues facing the oceans. We snorkeled the kelp forests off Santa Cruz Island, lived on the Reserve Station, hiked the island, and kayaked around it. We did beach clean ups and water monitoring. I met people from all over the world. I saw and did things I will never forget, and I will use all of those things to make a difference in the world I see now.

We use pictures

The things we learned

The bad things we saw

Me, along with my new family, my Ocean for Life brothers and sisters, we're all going to change the world together. We'll make it a better place for your children, our children, our children's children. We want to help people understand each other, the world, and how we're mistreating both. We want to peel back the misconceptions about each other and connect over who we are as true people, as well as the connection we all share over the ocean. This planet is all our home. It's protection should all be our number one priority.

So. This is the start of our journey, as a family, to make a difference. Won't you join us??