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	Home - gARTbage Artworks - Children's gARTbage -What Can I Do? - Links The 'Keep Track of Your Beach Toy's Project - Navigators of a new Time & 5IMDC 2011 The 'Ride the Wave for a Cleaner Ocean' project by Teresa Espaniola With Roberta Dean & Rancho Santa Fe School The 'Ride the Wave for a Cleaner Ocean' project was designed for grades 4-8 at Rancho Santa Fe School for the purpose of bringing awareness about ocean pollution problems, specifically plastics. The classes collected trash from the beaches and then sorted through the washed trash to examine what kinds of things end up on the beaches of Southern CA. Some of the responses were: "I found 17 lighters!" and "Look, a cell phone!" We gave the students 5 minutes to sort plastic bottle caps into buckets by groups and then count them. The total was over 1,300 bottle caps and there were still more in the pile. They were also surprised by the number light sticks, electronic equipment, flip flops, straws, chewing tobacco containers, plastic flatware, odd pieces that no one could identify, nylon rope, nets, cups and so much more. The students are now great beach trash detectives! Here is the project under construction. The pieces were painted with a base coat and two coats of turquoise paint. That is me painting the 'wave' onto the sides to give it some personality. There are two base pieces and two wave sections to accommodate the 8' surfboard, (donated by Mrs. Pam Alexander, teacher at Rancho Santa Fe who surfs). My husband Frederick did the harder job of the construction! There is wire mesh covering the back and front of the wave to hold the trash in. The bases are also covered with wire mesh and are filled with plastic bags which were collected by Rancho Santa Fe's 'Go Green Club' and by many of the students. The wave's top dowel has white plastic bags tied around it to resemble white water. As you can see, there is room for more beach trash in the wave. The 4th - 8th graders go through the washed beach trash to get a hands-on concept of the problem. It seemed to many of them that it should be impossible for most of these items to ever have been in our oceans or to ever be found on our beaches. They are right. When the wave was finished, it was presented to the school during two assemblies. Classes had the opportunity to pose together on the wave between assemblies. People also had a chance to pose on the wave during the last day of 'Ocean Weeks', where parents visited classrooms to discover the projects their children had worked on during the school year.

Home - gARTbage Artworks - Children's gARTbage -What Can I Do? - Links

The 'Keep Track of Your Beach Toy's Project - Navigators of a new Time & 5IMDC 2011

The 'Ride the Wave for a Cleaner Ocean' project by Teresa Espaniola

With Roberta Dean & Rancho Santa Fe School

The Wave

The 'Ride the Wave for a Cleaner Ocean' project was designed for grades 4-8 at Rancho Santa Fe School for the purpose of bringing awareness about ocean pollution problems, specifically plastics. The classes collected trash from the beaches and then sorted through the washed trash to examine what kinds of things end up on the beaches of Southern CA. Some of the responses were: "I found 17 lighters!" and "Look, a cell phone!" We gave the students 5 minutes to sort plastic bottle caps into buckets by groups and then count them. The total was over 1,300 bottle caps and there were still more in the pile. They were also surprised by the number light sticks, electronic equipment, flip flops, straws, chewing tobacco containers, plastic flatware, odd pieces that no one could identify, nylon rope, nets, cups and so much more. The students are now great beach trash detectives!

Painting wave sculpture

Here is the project under construction. The pieces were painted with a base coat and two coats of turquoise paint. That is me painting the 'wave' onto the sides to give it some personality. There are two base pieces and two wave sections to accommodate the 8' surfboard, (donated by Mrs. Pam Alexander, teacher at Rancho Santa Fe who surfs).

Paint Wave

My husband Frederick did the harder job of the construction! There is wire mesh covering the back and front of the wave to hold the trash in. The bases are also covered with wire mesh and are filled with plastic bags which were collected by Rancho Santa Fe's 'Go Green Club' and by many of the students. The wave's top dowel has white plastic bags tied around it to resemble white water. As you can see, there is room for more beach trash in the wave.

Sorting trash

The 4th - 8th graders go through the washed beach trash to get a hands-on concept of the problem. It seemed to many of them that it should be impossible for most of these items to ever have been in our oceans or to ever be found on our beaches. They are right.

Class rides the wave

When the wave was finished, it was presented to the school during two assemblies. Classes had the opportunity to pose together on the wave between assemblies. People also had a chance to pose on the wave during the last day of 'Ocean Weeks', where parents visited classrooms to discover the projects their children had worked on during the school year.