Tidying up the tide

Huntington State Beach may look tidier today after more than 1,000 Orange County students, including ones from Pomona Elementary, sifted through the sand Monday to pick up trash.

On an overcast day with a brief threat of rain, children pulled on plastic gloves and spent the morning extracting pieces of debris from the sand. More than 7,000 students participated in similar programs up and down the California coast for this year’s Ocean Day.

For the last five years, the Earth Resource Foundation, an Orange County nonprofit group, has contacted elementary schools and invited them to participate in the Ocean Day program. When a school accepts, the foundation sends a representative to lead an assembly on protecting the ocean, then leads students down to the shore itself.

“If they can keep their streets and schools clean, the chance of it washing down to the ocean is far reduced,” said Candice Dickens-Russell, the foundation’s youth program coordinator. “We teach them that they can do a beach cleanup anywhere, and then we do a real beach cleanup.”

The Ocean Day program is paid for by a grant from the California Coastal Commission, which focuses on third- and fourth-graders in low-income neighborhoods. In all, around 1,000 students from four cities ? Costa Mesa, Garden Grove, Buena Park and Santa Ana ? gathered on the beach Monday morning to clear away trash. As they worked, students listed the items they had picked up on cards, tallying glass, plastic, cigarettes and more.

Pomona Elementary School, which is on the Westside of Costa Mesa, was the only Newport-Mesa school to participate in the event, with all five of its third-grade classes participating.

Third-grader Freddy Montes, 8, said he had learned from the previous week’s assembly of the importance of keeping the beach clean.

“It needs a lot of help, because fishes eat little pieces of trash,” he said.

His classmate Ivonne Robles, 8, noted that it wasn’t just fish who benefited from the cleanup.

“Without nature, we can’t live, because we need oxygen,” she said.

As the students picked up trash and traipsed about the beach, many noticed a pair of dead seagulls. Students circled around one of the birds at one point, poking each other and trying to decide what to do with it. Teachers ordered the students to step away and not touch the carcass. Santa Ana teacher Elaine Villaverde even tried burying the birds.

“I buried them, and they uncovered them,” said the Lincoln Elementary School teacher. “They’re really making the animal connection between the trash and nature.”

Third-grade Pomona student Abigail Rosetesaid she thought that trash on the beach could have harmed the birds, as well as other animals.

“When we saw the birds, there was a little bit of trash on top of them,” she said.

The day wasn’t entirely sobering, however, as students and teachers got a rare chance to work in the sun, which did manage to peek out from behind the clouds. Pomona teacher Julpha Dormitorio said she was having fun with her students as they benefited from the cleanup day.

“Service learning is so important,” she said. “It’s important for them to look outside the classroom. This teaches them to be more aware of their environment.”

Dormitorio’s student Moises Molina said if he saw someone littering at the beach, he’d want to help correct the behavior.

“I’d say, ‘Why did you throw trash on the ground when you could’ve put it in the trash can?’” said Moises, 9.

The program’s initial assembly already had an effect on Abigail, 9, who said she felt badly when she saw someone dump something from a moving car while she was driving with her dad.

“I just wanted to help the earth and the beaches and make sure they stay nice,” Abigail said.

Some of the fourth-grade students from Santa Ana’s Jefferson Elementary School had never been to the beach, or did not go very often, said teacher Sherrie Anderson. She said that despite some of their relative inexperience, her students were learning the connection between throwing trash on the ground and the negative impact it can have on the environment.

“For one thing, they seem to be making a real connection to where the trash goes,” she said. “They need to know there are consequences for not controlling, or creating more, trash.”

Joy De Candido, one of the Pomona teachers who brought her class to Huntington, said she had asked her own students whether they saw the ocean very often ? and she received an inconclusive answer.

“They say that they do, but I’m not sure,” she said, gesturing toward a group of children splashing in the tide. “Look at them. They’re just going crazy.”dpt.23-oceanday-cw-CPhotoInfo7R1R79VE20060523izoy8dncCHRISTOPHER WAGNER / DAILY PILOT(LA)Abby Estrada, 8, Julie Juarez, 8, Guadalupe Merida, 9, Michelle Sosa, 8, and Maria Maximiliano, 8, (from left) throw away the trash they collected on Huntington Beach near Brookhurst Street at the 13th annual Ocean Day.