Heal the Bay

Heal the Bay will leverage its high-impact marine science programming for youth through a partnership with LA Conservation Corps (LACC), a non-profit providing individuals with job skills training with an emphasis on conservation and service projects that benefit the community. LACC members trained by the Heal the Bay Aquarium, the organization's marine science education facility, will educate hundreds of Los Angeles County-based students (K-12) at local schools to further promote success in STEAM.

Heal the Bay envisions a resilient water future for Los Angeles! Building on the organization’s Know the Flow program, Heal the Bay will expand its impactful water-smart programming to include: Latest information on regional water sustainability goals; An environmental justice perspective on California’s water sources and impacts of water extraction on Indigenous, low-income, and communities of color; and, Youth engagement through educational field trips to the Environmental Learning Center at the Hyperion Reclamation Water Plant.

Heal the Bay wants to make LA the best place to LEARN! The SEA Education Program (Science, Environment, and Action): Promotes STEM proficiency. CHECK! Ensures access to a safe virtual classroom. CHECK! Inspires curiosity and respect for the ocean and marine life. CHECK! Addresses academic gaps exacerbated by economic inequalities. CHECK! Fosters equity among thousands of underserved Los Angeles-based students. CHECK! Now who’s ready to check out the cool hermit crabs at the Heal the Bay Aquarium?!

Heal the Bay’s River Report Card (RRC) protects the health of Angelenos who enjoy freshwater swimming and recreation areas by providing water quality information during the hot summer months. Funds will support the training of community college students in bacterial water quality monitoring, the development of state-of-the-art public notification tools, and a targeted outreach campaign for communities living near these sites. The RRC will also be used to identify water quality problems in the region and advocate for improvements.

Heal the Bay wants a resilient, self-sustaining water future for the great people of Los Angeles! Building on the success of the organization’s high-impact outreach efforts, Heal the Bay’s Dropping Knowledge Project – Building a Water Literate L.A. – will bring meaningful, streamlined water-focused messages to the masses.

Most human health issues prevalent in urban areas have at their root an environmental component. Whether it is air pollution and asthma, water pollution and infectious diseases, urban blight and psycho-social disorders, or poor planning (no parks and lots of junk food outlets) and obesity, there is a nexus between the built environment and human health, between environmental health and community health. Since 2005, Heal the Bay has served as an educational and advocacy resource for those residing within the Compton Creek Watershed, an impaired 42-square mile sub-watershed of the Los Angeles River Watershed. The region is historically underserved, park-poor, severely economically challenged, suffers from chronic litter problems, and is also home to one of California’s most polluted waterbodies - Compton Creek. The Creek, which is on the State's list of impaired waterbodies, drains portions of the City of Los Angeles (Watts, Vermont Knolls), South Gate, Lynwood, Compton, and Los Angeles County (Florence/Firestone, Willowbrook, Athens), before discharging into the Los Angeles River and San Pedro Bay. Through our work in the Compton Creek Watershed, we have witnessed for ourselves this lack of understanding regarding the relationship of the environment in students’, residents’, and policymakers’ lives. As such, it is impossible to affect behavioral change for a healthier environment if the agents of the change do not know the issues, see themselves as having a role, or the tools to make it happen. For this grant, Heal the Bay intends to target the next generation through our Healthy Neighborhoods, Healthy Environment Initiative (HNHE), specifically through our Environmental Corps campaign. We will target the scholastic youth of a specific unified school district in the South Los Angeles area; we will develop new leaders who have an understanding of the nexus between environmental and community health through the lens of water. The HNHE’s programs are designed to provide participants a holistic approach to understanding, addressing, and ultimately changing their environment. The Environment Corps has nine educational and action-oriented programming elements to engage a majority, if not all, grade levels (K-12) in a unified school district. The program takes into consideration EEI (Education and the Environment) essential principles and concepts, state and national academic content standards, as well as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) principles, and steeps them in local social, cultural, and economic conditions when implemented. The Environment Corps consists of: Speakers Bureau, Santa Monica Pier Aquarium’s Youth Environmental Education Program, Aqua Explorers, Lunch n’ Learn, Coastal Cleanup Education Day, “The Story of Water,” Creek 101, Youth/Teacher Summits, and Digi-Green. By inundating a school district over a five-month period with environmental programming, students, teachers, parents and district officials are all simultaneously experiencing a similar environmental literacy campaign at the same time. In addition, this targeted population will possess a level of understanding between environment and community to begin making informed decisions about follow through with behavioral changes. In today’s economic climate, we often have a difficult time justifying spending money on environmental projects, no matter how critical, when money is so desperately needed to fund our schools. We would embrace this grant as an opportunity to close that gap, and bestow much-needed funds and resources to a school district, while moving the marker forward on environmental change. Through our Healthy Neighborhoods, Healthy Environment Initiative (HN/HE) Environment Corps, we are committed to: Working with a specific school district to foster on-the-ground environmental improvement projects (e.g. campus and neighborhood cleanups, campus gardens); Providing high-quality, standards-aligned environmental education curriculum for thousands of students and their teachers through our partnerships with schools (prek-12th grade), colleges and youth-serving organizations; Coordinating presentations about environmental issues and solutions where students live, attend school, and recreate; Creating opportunities to participate in capacity-building workshops (e.g. how to communicate with policymakers), team-building summits (e.g. the power of networking and community organizing); and hands-on stewardship activities (e.g. removing trash from the banks of Compton Creek); Strengthening civic engagement outcomes by mobilizing students in a specific school district; Grooming the next generation of environmental leaders tasked with leading the charge in 10 years, 2050, and beyond. These programs working together in a focused manner will increase student access to parks and local open spaces, allowing them to participate in programs that benefit the local watershed.