Welcome 2011/2012

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