Ocean Guardians

Welcome 2011/2012

2011-11-20T18:01:00.000-08:00

Dear Visitors

This is my last year in the Ocean Guardians class here at HBP (HomeBased Partnership*). This class does a variety of fun activities and field trips to many places around Santa Barbara and Goleta conducting tests and observations.

A watershed is an area of land that drains many dispersed bodies of water into one large body of water. Bjorklund Ranch, is the headwaters of our Maria Ygnacio watershed, behind the school is the halfway spot in the watershed (it’s right in the middle of it), and where Patterson Ave. and the bike path intersect is pretty much at the bottom just before it empties into the Goleta Slough. According to our chemistry results, the water got progressively worse as we went down the watershed. If you look to the right you will see, Results from Each Site Over the Seasons, and you will find our chemistry results there.

This year and last year, we did some rapid trash assessments. That means that we go up and down the creek getting all the trash. The trash is especially harmful to creeks because when there’s a big load of trash in the creek and the rains come, where does all that trash end up? In the ocean! We noticed that those assessments made a big impact on our creek.

When we do our testing, we record our data on our Quantitative Analysis Cover Sheet. That’s where all the chemistry results on this blog came from. It has spots where you can record and note all the results from the test at hand.

I hope that this blog will help you understand a little bit more of what we do in this class. We have a blast learning about our creeks, cleaning them, and helping to keep them healthy. But most of all, we want to help others to keep our creeks, and other creeks
clean and healthy.

— John

*Associated with the Santa Barbara Charter School

"Litter in the Creek" animation

2011-11-20T18:00:00.000-08:00

This great little animation demonstrates what happens when plastic trash gets into the watershed system. It's an endless cycle!

Welcome

2011-06-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Visitors,

I am a student in the HBP (Home Based Partnership*) Ocean Guardians class. We do a variety of activities in this class. On a weekly basis, we meet at HBP and walk down to the Maria Ygnacio creek to examine the water. We conduct tests on the water, and make measurements to determine the condition.

In the fall of 2010, we took a field trip and hiked up to the headwaters of Maria Ygnacio creek, called Bjorklund Ranch, which is located in the foothills of Santa Barbara. There, we completed our tests, and recorded them on our Quantitative Analysis Sheet.

Then, later on in the term, we did a Rapid Trash Assessment project, where we went up the creek to a certain point to pick up all the trash that we saw, and then brought it all back to the school. Then, we counted up all the trash, from the tiniest things, such as bottle caps, to the largest things, that ranged from metal pipes to large amounts of steel rebar.

Near the end of the term, we went all the way to the bottom of the watershed, near the point where the Maria Ygnacio creek joins with the Atascadero creek. After the trip, we compared the data we recorded from the headwaters to the data we collected from the bottom of the watershed to gain an understanding of how our creeks were doing, from top to bottom.

This is the second time I have taken the Ocean Guardians class and we hope to present our information to professional watershed watchers. I am thrilled to learn more about our creeks, and maybe one day inspire others to help take great care of this beautiful, natural resource.

by John

*Associated with the Santa Barbara Charter School

Goleta City Council Presentation

2011-06-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

The Ocean Guardians made a grand presentation of their research and recommendations from studying the Maria Ygnacio Creek this past year. The video of their presentation and the Council's responses is a little over 13 minutes long. Check it out. They did a fantastic job!

Paper or Plastic?

2011-06-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

by Jade
How many times have you gone into a store and had the cashier ask you, “Paper or plastic?” Plastic shopping bags are horrible for the earth. There are several reasons why you should say “no” to plastic bags.
One reason to refuse plastic bags is that they are made from polyethylene. Polyethylene is made from a gas, which is a type of oil, which is nonrenewable. I think within the next 300 years we will run out of oil. Instead of plastic bags, we could then use polyethylene for transportation (if we do not have all electric transportation at that time) or for heating houses. Not for plastic bags! In addition, plastic is not recyclable. The trash is put in landfills, where a big hole is dug in the earth and the trash, including the plastic, piles higher and higher. This is a problem because birds come and eat the trash; therefore they will eat the plastic bags. Plastic bags become smaller and smaller as they take 500-1000 years to decompose, that is a long time! The smaller the plastic particles get the bigger the problem is for the environment!
Some plastic bags do not make it to landfills, instead they blow away. When the rain comes the bags end up in streams and rivers, which make up our watersheds and eventually flow into the ocean, where marine life eats it. For example, a turtle may think a bag is a jellyfish and will eat it. Soon the turtle will die. Not only are plastic bags harmful for marine life, but the chemicals from the plastic and the stuff in the bags, like dog dodo, makes the water unsafe for our dogs and us. Once plastic bags reach the ocean, they can end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is twice as big of the state of Texas!
We can do some things about this problem. If we use plastic bags, make sure they are biodegradable. We can also clean our beaches and streams so there is not as much trash. Lastly, we can use paper bags at stores instead of plastic bags. So now you know what to say when some one asks you “paper or plastic?” You can say, ”I brought my own bag”

Cieneguitas Creek Restoration

2011-05-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

This last Friday the 13th was not an unlucky day for the terraces of Cieneguitas Creek. A small but hard working group of us met along the creek in the San Marcos Foothills Preserve and under the guidance of Jonathan Applebaum of Channel Islands Restoration we planted at least 86 1 gallon native plants. These included Wild Four O’clock, California Sunflower, Wild Bitter Gooseberry, Purple Sage, Hummingbird Sage, Giant Rye Grass, and Lemonade Berry. It was fun to see how everybody gravitated towards certain plants as their favorites. We also pulled a lot of weeds along the way. Our number one least favorite invasive weed had to be Castor Bean. Yuck! Enjoy the slide show.

Santa Cruz Island Trip

2011-05-06T22:39:00.000-07:00

About 60 of us went to Santa Cruz Island, Scorpion Bay with Channel Islands Restoration on Friday May 6th. We saw incredible pods of Humpback whales on our trip to and from the island. Once on the island we took a short hike and then got to work. We pulled invasive weeds from a restoration site along the creek mouth near the visitors' center at Scorpion Bay. We filled 30 bags with weeds in no time flat. One of the best comments overheard from a student was a request to come back for two months to do nothing but weeding each day. That might be able to be arranged! Enjoy the slide show.

Macroinvertebrates at HBP

2011-05-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

We had a great visit from Dr. Michael Caterino, Curator of Entomology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History last week. We spent some time in the creek looking for cool insects and found a ton of diversity. It looks really healthy based on what we saw. Check out the photos in this slide show to see what we found. Beware of the Toe-biters!

Water Chemistry Results From Each Site Over the Seasons

2011-04-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

Use this link to see the results of our water chemistry tests at each site over the seasons. It is easy to see that the water quality is better in the Spring after the Winter rains than in the fall after a long dry summer. The rains function as a big flush sending all the runoff out to sea. Good for our creeks but bad for the ocean and our channel islands.

Results 2010-2011

Water Chemistry Results Spring 2011

2011-04-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

Use the following link in order to view our water testing results from Spring of 2011. It is easy to see that the water is cleaner upstream than downstream. The only bump here was that our coliform test was a bit higher at the mid-point than at the bottom of the creek.

Spring 2011 Results

Project Fair Sharing

2011-04-13T16:52:00.000-07:00

Listen in to what the students have been learning this year at our Home Based Partnership Project Fair. These kids are good!

Pacific Mole Crab

2011-04-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

by Chloe

The Pacific Mole Crab is a kind of sand crab that is very small and gray. It can grow to be up to 35 mm long and 25 mm wide. The female is larger than a male and it may have bright orange eggs or short threads near the telson. The males are smaller than the female and they both can be tan too.

They live on sandy beaches from Alaska to Baja California. They bury themselves in the sand.

The mole crab’s predators are fish, water birds, and shore birds. That is why they live underneath the sand.

In our Watershed class we measure their length, count how many there are, and chart the data. We also check to see if the females have eggs. We enter the data on the LiMPETS website.

I think mole crabs are so cool because of how they dig in the sand. They dig with their back legs, moving backwards. They dig so fast that if you look away and you look back they might seem to disappear. Their quickness makes them hide from their predators quickly.

Nine Inches of Rain in 24 Hours

2011-03-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

This is what our quiet little creek looks like during a Noahmic rain event.

Trash in Our Creek

2011-03-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

by Nashat

Lots of people put trash in our creek. This can affect our creek in many ways. One reason is that if people put plastic bags or any other types of trash in our creeks it will sail into the ocean, and some fish think that those plastic bags are their food, and then they eat it, which is very bad. Also, when people are washing their cars and they’re using soap, sometimes the soap has chemicals, and some of those chemicals go into the creek and down into the ocean, and some of the sand crabs living down there eat it. It actually doesn’t affect them, but birds that eat them, such as pelicans, can be harmed. Pelicans stand on their eggs they don’t sit on them, and when they eat those chemicals (DDT) their eggshells are not hard. When they try to stand on them, the eggs become squashed. Just because of this, one whole species of pelicans almost died out. Long ago, the Native Americans could drink from the creek water. That was because in that time the creek wasn’t contaminated. Today we can find soda bottles, steel, plastic bags, and paper in our creek. These trashes have damaged our creek in many ways, and will eventually affect the ocean.

Water Chemistry Results Winter 2011

2011-03-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

Use the following link in order to view our water testing results from Winter of 2011. It is easy to see that the water is cleaner upstream than downstream.

Winter 2011 Results

Turbidity - How Do We Test For It?

2011-02-10T20:51:00.000-08:00

I’m Katie. I’m a part of Ocean Guardians. I’m going to tell you about the turbidity tube. First thing you need to know is the four parts of the turbidity tube. The parts are a clear tube, a tube cap, a viewing disc, and a measuring device. To use the tube, fill it with water from the creek until you can no longer see the viewing disc at the bottom of the tube. Then look at the side of the tube and use the measuring device to measure the turbidity. If the water is murkier the higher the turbidity is. This is how you measure the turbidity using the turbidity tube.

Turbidity - What's That All About?

2011-02-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

by Caleb

I am a student in the Home Based Partnership Ocean Guardians class. We go down the Maria Ygnacio creek to test the water. One of these test is turbidity, turbidity is measuring how clear the water is. The greater the turbidity the murkier the water is. Solids vary from clay, silt and plankton, industrial waste and sewage.

If the water is dirty, how does it affect the ecosystem? When the turbidity is higher it affect the organisms in the creek. The particles floating in the water absorbs heat from the sunlight, which causes the water to become warmer. Warmer water holds less oxygen. A lack of sunlight causes some bugs to die because they’re is not enough oxygen in the water.

Pacific Mole Crab at Goleta Beach

2011-02-10T20:30:00.000-08:00

Acorn Woodpecker

2011-02-10T19:46:00.000-08:00

by Chloe

The Trouble with Trash

2011-02-10T06:09:00.000-08:00

by Lauren

I would like to explain how trash affects our creeks and bodies of water. When people litter, they leave trash on the ground, right? Well, when the rains come, all that trash and litter gets washed into our creeks and oceans. When it gets in our creeks, it flows down until it meets the ocean. Then the trash gets pushed out to the islands where sea creatures and other animals that live on the islands eat. When they eat this trash, depending on if it’s aluminum, plastic, metal, etc., they can die from it. This makes me very sad when I see litter on the ground. I would very much like it if no one EVER littered, but how can we stop these people? Easy, when you find any trash on the ground or even in our lakes, pick it up! It’s really that simple, only, you have to continually do this. Someday, I wish that everyone would be nice to our lovely, wonderful, earth and not litter. I hope that this has inspired you to help with this issue. Thank you for listening to what I had to say.

Native and Invasive Creek Plants

2011-02-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

Sycamore Sprouts

by Nashat

Plants that live near the creek can affect the creek in many ways. Most native plants are beneficial to the creek. The Arroyo Willow tree and the Western Sycamore are very good for the creek. Little animals such as fish, frogs, and crayfish that live in the creek get oxygen from the willow and sycamore. However, there are some plants that are invasive and take up the space of the good plants, so the little animals in the creek can’t get enough oxygen. Some examples are Cape Ivy, a plant that has seven point leaves, and Periwinkle, with light purple flowers.

Cape Ivy

Periwinkle

Coyote Skull

2011-02-02T07:40:00.000-08:00

by Ryan

Our class went on a field trip to do water testing at the lower part of Maria Ygnacio creek. When we were doing the water testing, I saw a skull in the water. I got it out of the water and didn’t know what kind of skull it was. I took it to the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum and I found out it was a coyote skull. At first, I thought it was a raccoon skull but it wasn’t. It was fun to find it and figure out what kind if skull it was. :) Here is the skull in a picture and a skull with a bottom jaw.

Aren’t these awesome!

E-Coli and Coliform

2011-02-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

by John

Coliforms consist of a related group of different bacteria species. Coliforms are found in two distinct sources. You will find them in human and animal wastes. You can also find it in within the environment (soil, vegetation etc.).

Coliform
Why do we test for Coliforms? Coliforms are the “indicator” organisms to tell you if the water is bacteriologically polluted. If there is a large amount of Coliform in the water, it is unhealthy. The fewer the Coliforms, the healthier the water.

E-Coli

E. Coli, or Escherichia coli, is a Coliform group bacteria. These rod-shaped bacteria are found in the intestinal track of warm-blooded animals. It is also the indicator of fresh pollution from human and animals.
A German pediatrician, named Theodor Escherich, first discovered E. Coli in 1885. Thus, it has its name, Escherichia coli.

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How we test for Coli form and E. Coli.

The way we test for Coliform and E. Coli is by using a syringe or pipette to suck up some water from the creek. Then, we squirt the water from the syringe onto a substance that changes and reacts over the course of a week or so, and after that, they form colonies (which look like little dots). These colonies appear to be red and blue. The colonies are only the “dots” that have air bubbles on the sides. And anything else does not count as a colony.

Water Chemistry Results Fall 2010

2011-01-03T11:28:00.000-08:00

Use the following link in order to view our water testing results from Fall of 2010.

Fall 2010 Results