Hey guys, it's me again. This past Friday, we had a group of high school interns from a company called Vertex join us at Carson Beach. There were 30 of them, and 6 Harbor Explorers. Vertex had a variety of reasons for coming to Carson on that day, and they persevered through the rain and gloom that hovered over us for most of the morning and early afternoon.
These high school students were coming to learn a little STEAM from us; that is, some Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. How on earth could we incorporate STEAM into our amazing and clean harbor? Pretty easily, actually. These interns learned a lot about how the harbor gets so clean: where does the waste go? How does the waste get sorted? How does the water get so clean that Carson Beach is now one of the cleanest urban beaches in the country? They got all of those answers from Bruce and the harbor explorers. They learned about high and low tides, and the "rule of twelfths" which explains how the tide comes in and out. We had a wonderful artist, Olga, help these young adults paint 13 giant rocks, which we then placed equidistant from an average high tide to an average low tide. This activity required teamwork, math skills and engineering ideas. And of course the art piece!
The teens also took some time to do a beach cleanup, where they combed the surrounding areas for trash and helped keep our beach as clean as we like it. At the end, we tested the interns by asking what they learned today, and to give us something personal about what they love and appreciate about the harbor. Overall, it was a great day because we got to have different kinds of conversations with these interns than we are used to, and it was great working with people on a more peer-level as well. I think they learned a lot from us and I hope they take this information with them into their future endeavors!
Until next time,
Bridget
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