Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

**I was unable to borrow a digital camera to capture an image of the beach cleanup. Instead I uploaded a picture of me and my teammates analyzing samples from Santa Monica.**

A couple of months ago, I was involved in a research project for an engineering class I was enrolled in at UCLA. My teammates and I were assigned the environmental engineering project. We needed to investigate the growth of Escherichia coli (â€œe.coliâ€) in Santa Monica Beach. We collected sediment and water samples and transported them back to campus where we studied them. During our inquiry, we found that there were a large number of bacterial contaminations in both the sand and water as well.

When I found this scholarship and read its purpose, I knew that I wanted to reach out to Santa Monica for my project and finish what I started earlier this quarter. Santa Monica is the most visited beach in Southern California, which is why there is no surprise that it is also one of the most polluted.

I did not have sufficient time to organize a large beach cleanup since most of my college friends were home for the holidays. I invited my close friends and family to participate in the small beach cleanup for Santa Monica. My mother provided the trash bags and gloves that were used to pick up and collect the trash. We started under the pier and made our way outward. We were there for two hours and made great progress. Although there were a few of us, we were able to see the impact we had made within those couple of hours. We ended our day at the beach by putting the trash bags in a dumpster and eating at a hot dog stand nearby.

This project has been beneficial to many. What we have done at Santa Monica can be beneficial for the community and the environment. We removed plenty of trash and also reduced the large number of e.coli bacteria that contaminates the beach. We were able to make the location a safer and sanitary place for the public and the wildlife that resides nearby. This project has also impacted my life because I was able to go back to Santa Monica and do something about the contamination that I had found during my research project there. Not only did I expose that there was a problem in Santa Monica, but I also returned to try and resolve it. In a way, it brought closure to what had merely begun as a graded assignment. In the future I hope to keep giving back to the community. Instead of doing this with beach clean ups, I hope to use my civil engineering degree from UCLA to better society.