Advocacy for Local Tide Pools

by Amy, Emily and Madison

Living in California, oftentimes you find yourself wanting to go to the beach to explore wildlife in the area. However, with the beauty of California beaches comes tide pools, and vulnerable wildlife that needs nurturing. Responsibility and having caution is key to respectfully exploring California’s gorgeous beaches.

For our Marine Biology service learning experience, we investigated and researched issues with coastal tide pools and how the tide pools can be preserved. After a great deal of research and discussion, we created a website to raise awareness about these issues and shed light on what we can all do. Our site includes step by step guides, FAQs, and a variety of information. Additionally, we posted QR codes around our school and in public places along our coastal beaches such as Huntington, and Newport. We also conducted interviews with our peers to advocate for tide pool preservation.

Our group learned how to appreciate our local tide pools, and realized how much additional awareness is needed in this area. In our early research, we initially connected our mission with SDG target 14.5: “conserve coastal and marine areas, call for preservation of tide pools”. We also connected with SDG target 14.1: “reduce marine pollution (limiting chances of plastic waste and other human trash at tide pools”. Both of these targets helped our team figure out what we could do with our website.

Please visit our website HERE to learn more about tide pool conservation.

Talking with peers about tide pool conservation (above). Brainstorming to create our website (bottom left) and a poster we made for our school and community (bottom right).