On March 5, 2016, two Team Marine members, Amanda and Christa attended the Blitz the Bay Youth Summit put on by Heal the Bay. The summit took place in Playa Vista near the Ballona Wetlands. The purpose of the summit was to get youth to explore biodiversity and become involved in BioBlitzing, in which a group of people go to a particular area and record species. We were trained to use a new app called iNaturalist to help us BioBlitz. We used the app to record different plant life around the Playa Vista park. Near the end of the day, some members of the Heal the Bay club at Samohi taught us how to do the BioBlitz dance. People are posting videos of this dance (to DJ Snake’s song Bird Machine) to enter the The National Park Service BioBlitz Dance Challenge. This summit was in preparation for Heal the Bay’s upcoming Bio Blitz events and for their club challenge. The club or group to get the most species tagged or the most observations on the iNaturalist app wins the Blitz the Bay Club Challenge. Team Marine plans on participating in this challenge. We would like to thank Heal the Bay for inviting us to the summit and we look forward to attending their BioBlitz events.
