Yes, kids can!

This morning, fourteen students from our class, their families, and I got up early to make the journey to Quintana Beach County Park for the annual spring Texas Adopt-a-Beach Beach Cleanup.  All together, our class contributed a total of 43 volunteers to the effort today! 






Trash accumulates on our Texas coasts when it is left behind by careless beach-goers and when is washes ashore from streams, rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico.

The coastwide beach cleanups take place twice a year--one in the fall (usually the end of September) and once in the spring (typically the end of April).  Thousands of volunteers work to collect an average of 500 tons of trash from Texas beaches every year.  The Texas General Land Office provides gloves, trash bags, pencils, and trash data cards for gathering information about the trash that is found.  Most sites (ours included) also provide a complimentary lunch for volunteers.







The children worked together with parents to collect and tally marine debris that could be harmful to the habitat, including glass, plastic, many cigarette butts, and many meters of fishing line. 

We even found a plastic dinosaur!

Along the way, the children also had on their naturalist hats, spotting a surprising number of ladybugs, wonderful mollusks, a hermit crab, shore birds, a rock with coral attached, and a beautiful spotted egg. 












The families had a great time, and I think all of the children ended up wading in the water.  It was the perfect combination of field work, environmental service project, and family fun.  A definite win-win! 


Perhaps this will become a class tradition . . .

There's a Book for That!
Seashore (One Small Square) by Donald Silver
The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth
Where Does the Garbage Go? by Paul Showers
Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, & the Science of Ocean Motion by Loree Griffin Burns
Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean by Arthur Dorros
One Well: The Story of Water on Earth by Rochelle Strauss
Earth Day--Hooray! by Stuart Murphy
Oil Spill! by Melvin Berger
Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Silvia Earle by Claire Nivola