Category: Blog

This past Tuesday, the County of Santa Cruz passed what is being called the “stiffest” grocery store bag laws in California. Yay! It seems that other counties are seeing the great work that has been done in Santa Monica, Oakland, San Jose, and other cities in California and have begun to draft their own bag bans! Hopefully it’s only a matter of time before a state-wide (or maybe even national!) plastic bag ban! Lots of love to the people in Santa Cruz who petitioned their leaders to make this possible!

Like food? Like good food? Well on Sept. 17 & 18, the local Santa Monica Farmer’s Market along with other well-known, and delicious, food vendors will celebrate the farmers market’s 30th anniversary by launching a Good Foods festival partnered with Family Farmedhere at Samohi! The event will start at 10:00 am and end at 7:00 pm both days and an admission ticket costing $10 will admit you to workshops, delicious food sampling, and lots of fun for the whole family.

Whats non-recylcable, made from oil, and banned from Santa Monica? Plastic grocery bags!

At the end of this past school year, former Team Marine member Aidan Richker helped to bring the famous documentary film maker Chris Paine to SAMOHI to do a special guest lecture for the marine bio students. Chris Paine is responsible for the shocking and informative documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? While at samo, Chris Paine also brought his all-electric Tesla car… Mr Kay even got to test drive it! Lots of thanks to Mr. Paine for coming down and Aidan for making it happen!

Earlier this summer Team Marine was talked about in an article in Good Magazine. The article elaborated on the group and the plastic boats we made from single use items that successfully floated earlier this year. Lots of thanks to all the people at Good Magazine!

Recently, the Heal the Bay foundation created a program known as “trash your friends”. When you “trash” a friend, their screen will fill up with single-use plastic bags among other types of trash and spreads awareness of the plastic-filled gyres all over the world. Adam Bagger and Kevin McDevitt from CourierContent created a short film about the “trash your friends” program that has received a lot of attention and was even short listed for Adobe’s 2011 Mofilm Cannes Lions contest. The link to the Heal the Bay video is posted below but much love out to CourierContent and the Heal the Bay foundation and good luck in the film contest.

>

Nhi Ho and David Shabsovich, juniors at Santa Monica High School, will be representing Santa Monica at the USA Biology National Finals round.

Every year, over 10,000 students take the US Biology Olympiad (USABO) local test hoping to represent the United States in the International Biology Olympiad (IBO). 500 of these students then move onto the Semifinal round to take a grueling 2 hour test. Out of the 500 Semifinalists, 20 are then selected to attend an intensive residential program at Purdue University to learn about “advanced biological concepts and exacting lab skills.” Four students will then be selected to go to the International Olympiad at Taipei, Taiwan.

Out of the five students at Santa Monica High School that took the local exam in February, four made the Semifinalist round. Of those, only Nhi and David advanced to the next round.

“I’m so excited to be attending the training session at Purdue University during June. If my AP Biology teacher, Mr. Gaida, did not recommended me to take the local test, I would have never made it this far. I look forward to representing Santa Monica at the training in June,” said Nhi, 17.

Kathy Frame, director of USA Biology Olympiad and Special Projects, said, “[Nhi’s and David’s] stellar performance in the Olympiad identified [them] as a talented scholar placed among the best of the U.S. biology students. This is an achievement of which [they] can be very proud of.”

Lets all wish Nhi and David “good luck” in the biology olympiad. Lots of thanks to Mr. Gaida and everyone who made this possible.