- Author: Saoimanu Sope
Ibrahim Yaaseen, member of the Palos Verdes Peninsula (PVP) 4-H club, grabs a hard hat and places it on top of his head. He then reaches for a bright orange safety vest and goggles to complete his safety gear outfit before joining the rest of his club members who are dressed the same.
The 4-H Youth Development Program of Los Angeles is already thinking about the future of water management and turned to the West Basin Municipal Water District in El Segundo to gain a deeper understanding of the precious resource we often take for granted.
The University of California 4-H Youth Development Program is managed through local Cooperative Extension offices. Through hands-on learning experiences, 4-H empowers youth to reach their full potential and enables them to build self-esteem, connect with their community and emerge as leaders.
Dee Keese, community club leader for the PVP 4-H club, coordinated an exclusive and interactive tour of West Basin's Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility for the club's monthly marine biology meeting in December 2022.
Eager to inspire a stronger appreciation for water, Janel Ancayan, the West Basin's education coordinator, challenged the youth to build their own water filters using materials including fabric, a strainer, and a funnel. Since no specific directions were given, the activity challenged each student's science and engineering skills, such as carrying out an investigation, designing a solution, and communicating information with team members.
During the tour, students saw firsthand the impressive equipment and essential staff members that help to produce nearly 40 million gallons of recycled water each day. At the end of the day, students left with a deeper understanding of water resources and felt empowered to do their part to conserve water sources.
“We learned that recycling water helps to conserve our limited water supply and improves the environmental condition of our coastal waters,” said Yaaseen. “We ultimately learned a great deal about how to conserve water for future generations and that water conservation is one of the most important elements in combating climate change.”
Though Keese has volunteered as community club leader for 48 years, this is only the second time she has partnered with the West Basin. “I like to mix it up,” she said. “I'm always looking for community organizations and local businesses to partner with because these are places that the kids will likely interact with since they're nearby.”
Regardless, it's leaders like Keese and programs like 4-H that encourage water stewards like Ancayan. “I'm always so humbled and inspired when teachers make it a point to come out and visit our facility. In Southern California especially, [water] is not something we think about,” Ancayan said.
Even in a drought, water continues to flow from our faucets allowing us to shower, wash dishes or water the lawn. It's no wonder why water conservation is not always top of mind, especially for consumers. Educating the public, and targeting the younger generation, however, is a great start to prepare for the future.
West Basin offers a variety of educational programs that focus on different age groups. Many of them involve hands-on learning like the Teach and Test volunteer program, a partnership with the Surfrider Foundation, where high school students test samples of coastal water for bacteria, and then publicly share their findings to contribute to water quality monitoring in the area.
According to Yaaseen, the time spent with Ancayan at the West Basin was “one-of-a-kind” and provided a “golden opportunity” to learn why water recycling facilities are important. Ancayan hopes that her time spent with students ultimately influences them to consider a career in water.
“It's not a glamorous job but I'm really passionate about the next generation of water workers,” she said. “I hope that once they see the engineering, the excitement of these scientists that work in our laboratory and everything in between, that they start to think about water as a future career path.”
For those interested in joining 4-H, visit https://4h.ucanr.edu/Members/
To read this story in Spanish, please visit:
Programas 4-H de Los Ángeles forman a la futura generación de administradores de los recursos hídricos
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=57063
- Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. – Salida Library
- Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 2:30 p.m. – Patterson
- Monday, November 14, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. – Ceres Library
- Tuesday, November 15, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. – Oakdale Library
- Monday, November 28, 2022 at 6:15 p.m. - Modesto Library
Gardening on a Dime
Prices for everything are going up, including plants, seeds, and supplies. Take this class to learn some creative ways to garden reusing items you may already have, learn how to save your own seeds, and how to propagate (make more of) plants. In a hands-on exercise, you will learn how to harvest, save, and label pepper seeds, and then take them home to plant next spring!
Due to holidays conflicting with class dates, this class won't be offered at Riverbank or Turlock Library locations.
Contact your local library branch to find out more. Missed a class you wanted to take? Look for it at another library branch in the future.
/span>- Author: Jennifer Baumbach
Gardeners are always finding new ways to spice up the garden. After visiting the San Francisco Garden Show, held in San Mateo, I saw a lot of new ideas about how to reuse materials in the garden. Succulents seemed to play a big part of the reuse. At the Sunset venue, I saw this great table made from a recycled wooden pallet. It had this trough in the middle of the table that was planted with succulents. Très chic! Of course there is the ever-popular Succulent Gardens booth with their colorful varieties of succulents. If you visit this booth, you have to sharpen your elbows and dive in. Many of the people are fanatics about getting just the right succulent for their home. Among the other booths, I saw the use of succulents in grapevine wreaths, but what caught my eye was this cute 6”x6” redwood frame of succulents. I am sure many of you have seen the walls of succulents, and if you haven’t, they are something to behold. But this small frame really appealed to me, so I thought I would purchase the kit and try it making it at home. I purchased mine from Succulent Gardens http://sgplants.com/ . They have several sizes of frames to choose from. The kit came in the mail with the frame, consisting of recycled old growth redwood, a landscape fabric mesh, and a concrete board backing. Other items in the kit were the cactus/succulent mix, and of course, the succulents. On their website, they have a video of how to plant the frame with the soil and succulents. It’s worth a look.
I worked on my frame yesterday afternoon. I sat at the kitchen table and separated out the succulents by type. I then cleaned off the old leaves from each of the succulents. I then put the soil into the frame and packed it in. Once that was finished, I carefully placed the succulents onto the face of the frame. I also incorporated a few succulents I had at home just to make it more interesting. Since none of the succulents have roots at this point, I could arrange and rearrange the plants to my liking. What is going to be hard is the long wait until the succulents’ root-that will take about 6-12 weeks. After that, I can water the frame and hang it up. I will keep you posted on the frames progress.
- Author: Anne Lombardo
Thank you 185 times over!! The wildlife research team from the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Projectrecently put out a request for the donation of single socks. They use them to hold bait for their camera trap studies of the Pacific fisher. The response was overwhelming and the fisher research team would like to thank all of the people who sorted, dropped off or packaged, waited in line and mailed their recycled socks to them. Your commitment and follow through are remarkable!
The team first got bags of socks from the local high school, and then grocery bags of socks started appearing in a local drop off bin. Soon boxes of socks started arriving by mail. They came from all over California and as far away as Oregon, Nevada, Minnesota, Arkansas and Maryland. The boxes just keep coming: 12 one day, 16 the next, 185 at last count!
During one visit to the post office at Christmas time, we had to roll the bin to the car. Other customers standing in line were trying to hide their envy of our good Christmas fortune!
The team has been purchasing socks for years to hang meat in trees to attract the elusive Pacific fisher, a nocturnal weasel, to motion-detecting cameras. Researchers have had to spend valuable time and money acquiring the socks, but never again!
The wildlife piece of this SNAMP forest study continues, along with our other scientific teams, to look at the effects of the U.S. Forest Service’s thinning projects in the Sierra. These projects are done in our national forests for fire protection and forest health. Our scientific research teams from the University of California are here to look at changes these thinning projects bring to the forest, its water cycle and its wildlife. This collaborative effort is part of state and federal efforts to refine management practices for our beautiful and complex forested ecosystems.
We have collected years of baseline data and welcome the forest thinning work that has begun this summer in both the southern site near Oakhurst and the northern site near Forest Hill. We will continue to follow the movements of the fisher over the next few years to learn more about their responses to the forest management efforts.
But in the meantime, six newspaper stories and four radio interviews later, we stand in awe of the power of the media and social networks. So, for the many cards, letters and emails we got sharing the stories behind the socks, from the drawers of loved ones who passed away to Earth Day projects for school kids, our wildlife crew is buoyed by your thoughts and support! Our faith in people’s attention to kind details in life is renewed! Thank you!
- Author: Esther E Blanco
Gardening can provide exercise and reduce stress. Gardens make your surroundings more beautiful and serene, and vegetable and fruit gardens can provide healthy food for you and your family. The downside to gardening is that it can be expensive and toxic to you and the environment. However, with a little awareness and better choices, you can reduce the use of toxic chemicals, have a greener garden, and even reduce costs by recycling every day items. Here are a few tips for going green:
- Reduce use of harsh or toxic chemicals. Look for natural or less toxic methods to enrich the soils and controls garden predators. Healthy plants are naturally more resistant to diseases.
- Consider your gardening spaces with conservation in mind. Choose an overall design that conserves water and works well with the existing landscape and weather zone.
- Figure out the microclimates in your yard by season. Where does the sun hit during the summer/winter? Where are the shady spots? Which way does the winds blow and when? What other exiting factors may affect your garden such as, a pool, pond, or shade from large trees or buildings. These factors can make a huge difference on the survival of certain plants.
- Water-wise Gardening. Select native and drought tolerant and pest resistant plants whenever possible. Check out www.solanosaveswater.org for a list of local plants as well as turf replacement rebates.
- Compost yard waste. Contact your local Master Gardener’s for home composting information. If you can’t create compost pile your yard, then put all your green waste in your green cart. Most cities require that green waste be turned into compost and diverted from landfill. Several local landfills also provide free mulch to residents. Check with your local garbage company or landfill to see if they are providing this service.
- Reuse or Recycle. So many items can be reused for the gardening. Try using egg cartons to start seedlings or 2 liter bottles, with the bottoms cut off, to cover seedlings – miniature green houses, complete with ventilation. You just remove the screw cap if it starts to get too warm. Reuse plastic “to go” cups or jars for mini- window green houses.
- Be creative! Need a planter or a few bricks for your backyard? Try yard sales, second hand stores, look on FreeCycle.com, the “free” section of the local paper, or Craig’s List for items that might be turned into a planter or maybe used as stepping stones.
- Become informed! Do research online, join garden chat group, a local gardening group, or contact the Solano County Master Gardener’s to learn more about Green Gardening Tips!
Look around, there are lots of examples of creative recycling. I recently saw at the San Francisco Renegade Craft fair, beautiful terrariums made out of recycled glass containers with little “toys” such as Star Wars characters inside as well as a “boot” planter!
What have you done to be creative – have you recycled or given new life to in your garden? Tell me about it.