Tesla Model 3

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By Amanda Samimi
Tesla Motors released the design of their 3rd generation electric vehicle on March 31st, 2016. The Model 3 has revolutionized electric vehicles forever. It is the first affordable luxury electric vehicle. The car starts at just $35,000, before tax incentives. The intention of Tesla is to make electric cars widespread to the masses. Tesla envisions a world where most of the vehicles on the road are electric and that vision is only possible if the cars are affordable to the common person. Surely other motor companies will be releasing their own electric vehicles to compete with the Model 3’s design and performance. The Model 3 goes from 0 to 60 in 6 seconds. Elon musk, the CEO and co-founder of Tesla Motors said that he will never make a car that slow again. The Model 3 can go 215 miles on one charge, and with Superchargers all around the country, it makes roadtripping almost free.Tesla is currently accepting pre-orders. The company plans to ship the cars out in late 2017. More than 150,000 people reserved their Model 3’s on the very first day it was announced. A bright future is in place for Tesla and for the environmental cause.

Happy Easter!

One of the downsides of Easter is the plastic easter eggs used in Easter egg hunts. Here are some alternatives:

Fabric eggs:
Fabric eggs can be made by stitching fabric pieces together and filling them with the same sweets that would be found in plastic eggs. If someone if your family is a talented seamstress, these eggs can turn out beautifully. Moreover, the communal effort required in making these can teach young children how to sew!
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Felt eggs:
Felt eggs could also be sewn together. Perhaps these eggs could contain the coveted cash prize rather than sweets! Felt is a versatile textile, and could be made similarly to fabric eggs. The picture below is a pocket-type egg. There are thicker felt eggs that are sold online as well.
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Papier-mâché eggs:
Papier-mâché eggs are fun and easy to make! While this method does require the use of balloons, it is still a colorful alternative to plastic eggs. See this website for instructions: http://www.notmartha.org/tomake/papiermacheeastereggs/ Additionally, papier-mâché eggs can be made in many different sizes and last for a long time if taken care of!
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Hollow chocolate eggs:
While these eggs would likely not survive an outdoors egg hunt, they would complement an Easter meal or dessert. Desserts are often covered with a chocolate dome, which is then melted by adding more warm chocolate! By making egg-shaped chocolate domes or simply hollow eggs, your family’s sweet tooth will be thoroughly satiated! The method featured here http://www.sheknows.com/food-and-recipes/articles/987631/hollow-chocolate-easter-egg-recipe/ also involves balloons, but other recipes do not. See here http://www.buzzfeed.com/melissaharrison/magic-chocolate-bomb-sundae#.wyBooXjQK for the chocolate dome recipe, which does use a plastic ornament.
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Blown-out eggs:
Eggs that are drained are extremely delicate! Using non-toxic paint, anyone can be creative in making their individual egg! These eggs are best used for display. See this website for instructions: http://craftknife.blogspot.com/2012/04/tutorial-blown-out-easter-eggs.html
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Whether you celebrate or not, Team Marine wishes you a plastic-free Easter!
This blog was adapted from craftingagreenworld.com and growingagreenfamily.com.

Ocean Friendly Restaurants

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Team Marine is proud to partner with Surfrider’s Ocean Friendly Restaurants (OFR) program! The goal of Ocean Friendly Restaurants is to reward restaurants for their beneficial practices.

Team Marine members have begun contacting local restaurants to inform them of this great opportunity. Perks of being an Ocean Friendly Restaurant include decals, informational materials, social media promotion, training of staff, and much more! Many restaurants already qualify for most, if not all, OFR requirements.

The three mandatory requirements include:
1. No expanded polystyrene use (aka Styrofoam).
2. Proper recycling practices are followed.
3. Water conservation efforts such as saving water in a drought, no hosing down outside without capturing the water to reduce urban runoff, and/or proper disposal of FOG (fats, oil and grease) to conserve water and help reduce sewage spills.

Restaurants also choose three of the following to implement:
4. Plastic straws are provided only upon request.
5. Only reusable tableware is used for onsite dining and utensils for to-go food are provided only upon request.
6. No beverages sold in plastic bottles.
7. Discount offered for customers with reusable cup, mug, bag, etc.
8. No plastic bags offered for takeout or to-go orders.
9. Organic, local, and/or vegetarian/vegan food options are offered on a regular basis. All seafood must be a ‘Best Choice’ or ‘Good Alternative’ as defined by Seafood Watch.
10. Energy efficiency efforts are implemented where possible

If a restaurant implements all 10 of the qualifications, they are designated as a Platinum Level Ocean Friendly Restaurant!

Yesterday, Team Marine attended an OFR training session at the TOMS flagship store in Abbot Kinney. We met with Josephine Miller from the Santa Monica Office of Sustainability, who gave a great presentation on recyclable food containers. Team Marine was educated on new nationwide OFR criteria and proper recycling practices for restaurants in Santa Monica.

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Some information gleaned from Josephine’s presentation included examples of transitions from plastic packaging to paper packaging, even in franchise restaurants! Additionally, we learned that bioplastics (under #7) are not able to be composted with Santa Monica’s current program — as of now, they need to be composted in a special process. Interestingly, plastics with no number are actually the banned polystyrene (#6).

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We were happy to learn that Santa Monica aims to be a zero-waste community by 2030, with 95% landfill diversion! Restaurant patrons: you are also allowed to bring your own reusable takeout containers and pack your leftovers yourself — no intervention from the kitchen needed.

The link to the City of Santa Monica’s Non-Recyclable Food Service Container Ban website is http://www.sustainablesm.org/container

For more information regarding Ocean Friendly Restaurants, contact a Team Marine member or Surfrider-WLAM chair Emily Swallow at eswallow@wlam.surfrider.org.

World Water Day: March 22

We’d like to give a shoutout to our friends at WAVE club at Marina High School in Huntington Beach for their work for World Water Day! World Water Day is today, March 22! In order to initiate a conversation about water at their high school, WAVE created a large poster to inform students of the status of the drought. WAVE members then invited students to write their pledge to conserve water not only today, but every day.
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Marina High School student Austin Hwang founded WAVE in response to a lack on environmentally focused clubs on their campus. “I started WAVE in order to raise awareness about things from global climate change to ways to conserve water. Our main goal is to raise funds to provide access to clean water in places like Africa and Asia and it has been definitely both fun and rewarding!”
Here are some more resources for World Water Day.
How can you help?
» https://tap.unicefusa.org/mobile: Every 5 minutes away from your phone = 1 day of clean water for children in need!
» https://thewaterproject.org/: Donate to increase access to water in sub-Saharan Africa!
» Conserve water:
  • Turn off your faucet when brushing your teeth
  • Water your grass only when you step on it and it doesn’t spring back up
  • Wash your car only early in the morning or late at night

» Change your Facebook cover photo to raise awareness!

 Why is this day important?
» 1 in 9 people worldwide do not have access to safe and clean drinking water.
» Half of the world’s hospital beds are filled with people suffering from a water-related disease.
» Nearly 1 out of every 5 deaths under the age of 5 worldwide is due to a water-related disease.
» By investing in clean water alone, young children around the world can gain more than 413 million days of health!
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Thank you Austin and Marina High School WAVE for your work! We hope to implement a similar activism project here in Santa Monica!
Visit WAVE at http://mhswave.org/ and follow WAVE on Instagram @mhswave!

Blitz the Bay Youth Summit

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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.

 

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Nothin’ But Sand

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On Saturday February 20th, a couple of Team Marine members attended Heal the Bay’s ‘Nothin’ But Sand’ beach cleanup at the Venice Beach Pier. The turnout was amazing, with over 1077 people, and the amount of trash that was collected was even more impressive which was measured at around 292 pounds! As we were scanning the beach we noticed that there was a large amount of plastic bottle caps, small pieces of styrofoam, cigarette butts and plastic straws. One of our captains, Zoe, took photos of the straws we collected for her other club (Reducing Straw Pollution). We also met two 8th graders from Lincoln Middle School who we ended up talking with about what we do and hopefully convinced them to join their freshman year! Cigarette butts were one of the most abundant litter found on this beach, probably because there was rain a couple of days before and they most  washed down from the streets. We spent 3 hours cleaning, and because of the sheer amount of people who showed up, we picked up even the microsystems and the beach looked absolutely beautiful!

Climate Sign!

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On February 5th, 2016 Team Marine was delighted to have Hadley from #climatesign (climatesign.org) come to our meeting to talk to us about the “peace sign of this era.” The climate sign is hand gesture in which the fingers form the letter C, which simply stands for “climate.” Individuals can raise the climate sign as a symbol for the progression to a world without the damaging effects of climate change. One can raise the climate sign when seeing someone recycle, ride a bike to work, or drink from a reusable water bottle. We talked with Hadley about some new ideas that would allow the climate sign to become more well known by the public. Such ideas included the production of stickers, pins and patches, the creation of art murals, and many more. Team Marine is extremely excited about seeing the future of climate sign. This small gesture can consciously remind individuals that changing the Earth for the better is a daily and habitual practice, as well as encourage others to start or continue environmentally beneficial practices. So, don’t be surprised if you see someone raising a C next time you bring your reusable bag to the grocery store.

Revolution Movie

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As you may know, our amazing mentor, Mr. Benjamin Kay loves to incorporate service learning events into his curriculum so that his students can learn more about Marine Biology and Environmental Science through movies, fairs, beach cleanups, and simply getting out into the environment to apply their knowledge to the real world. On Wednesday April 29th, 2015 our  TM President Kimberly Fuentes accompanied his college students and high school student to the amazing movie “Revolution” directed by Rob Stewart and to our surprise there was also a special appearance by the one and only Rob Stewart after the movie for a Q&A session although everyone was too in awe by the movie to even process what we just watched (yes, it was that good). It did an amazing job on covering all of the current environmental issues that TM advocates for such as overfishing, ocean acidification, climate change, overpopulation, air quality, the excessive burning of fossil fuels, and politicians’ inability to compromise on these issues due to their conflicting interests. A great introduction film for all of you out there reading this that want to familiarize and educate yourself with what is happening in your world. We can not count on our government to educate us about the problems with it because they’re content with us being ignorant. That allows them to do whatever they want, but we are in charge of changing the world and starting the Revolution as we always do in time of crisis. So on that note, watch the movie yourself and share it with friends by going to therevolutionmovie.com.

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Suffocating Love

 

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Putting a bear in a plastic bag? Thats a violation of the Endangered Species Act! The school is already a place where plastic expo markers thrive as an invasive species, and now the plastic  has been introduced in an alternative form: plastic wrap. This vile deleterious polyethelne product has infultrated the campus premusis and threatens all forms of wildlife.  The last of these fluffy bears can be saved, if measures towards eliminating the plastic products are increased.

What a way to go – Bike, Bus, Expo!

 

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On Sunday November 22, 2015, Team Marine attended What a way to go – Bike, Bus, Expo! sponsored by Climate Action Santa Monica. We showcased our cigarette research and introduced our petition to the community for the first time. We had all 41, 922 cigarettes on display, along with our science fair board and newspaper clippings. We went into an auditorium and listened to speakers:  learning about ways to reduce CO2 levels. There were representatives outside for Big Blue Bus, where you could practice putting a bike on the bus, there was Breeze Bikes, informing us of their new bike racks throughout Santa Monica. Our fellow Santa Monica High School club, SSA was also there, talking about their Bike-it Day.  Over all it was a very successful, interesting event!

 

 

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