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MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION
 
Science & Spanish Club Network
One of the Gulf of Mexico Foundation's most innovative programs is a multicultural outreach project working to bring English-speaking and Spanish-speaking students together through science education. Established in 2000, the GMF Science & Richard Gonzales photoSpanish Club Network is an extracurricular multicultural approach to coastal environmental education.

Directed by Project Coordinator Richard Gonzales of the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, the multicultural science club project is funded through grants from the Texas General Land Office, the EPA, NOAA, and the Gulf of Mexico Foundation.

The program strives to develop youth leadership through teaching stewardship of the Gulf of Mexico and the greater Gulf Stream ecosystem. The network stretches along the Gulf coast, with 11 sites along the Texas Gulf coast, 2 along the Mexico Gulf coast and one in Puerto Rico. Participating clubs include public school districts, Boys & Girls Clubs and private schools (see list of club locations at right).

The GMF S&S Club Network uses Texas as the gateway to establishing people-to-people relations
Science & Spanish Club between the U.S. and Mexico to address environmental concerns. Club meetings are held in both English and Spanish to not only help English-speaking students learn Spanish but to give students whose primary language is Spanish a chance to learn in their native tongue. Together, the students learn language and science skills through participating in environmentally oriented educational projects focused on the Gulf of Mexico and the watersheds that empty into it. Activities include dragging seine nets through bay waters to learn firsthand what lives beneath the surface, kayaking through wetlands to monitor animal and plant life, cleaning up trash along coastal areas, and attending events such as Earth Day.
Carrie Robertson photo
The Science & Spanish Club's goal is to develop a cadre of young students who are knowledgeable about coastal society, both as observers and residents. In addition, it strives to teach students the importance of building long-distance, long-term relationships.

The project’s long-term plan is to connect the middle school network currently in place to middle schools in the other Gulf States (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida). Plans also include establishing counterpart connections along the Gulf states of Mexico: Tamaulipas, Vera Cruz, Campeche, Tabasco, Quintana Roo and Yucatan.

The S&S Club Network was originally designed as a coastal environmental education program for middle school students but, since it now has "alumni" who have moved on to high school, the program has begun to reach out at the high school level as well, starting with Aransas Pass High School in Texas.

CLUB LOCATIONS
TEXAS COASTAL BEND
   Van Vleck
   Bay City
   Tidehaven
   Edna
   Palacios
   El Campo
   Port Lavaca
   Aransas Pass
   Ingleside
   Sinton
   Corpus Christi
SOUTH TEXAS COAST
   Port Isabel
   Brownsville
MEXICO
   Matamoros
   Tampico
PUERTO RICO
    Penuelas

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CLUB EVENTS 2008


April 5 - 2nd Annual Bahia Grande Limpienato Parade and Coastal Cleanup, Port Isabel, Texas. Three clubs with 100 volunteers will participate.
>> VIEW PRESS RELEASE

April 8 - Gulf of Mexico Alliance Environmental Education Committee meeting @ Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi

April 19 - 12th Annual Earth Day Bay Day in Corpus Christi, Texas. Seven clubs with 150 volunteers will exhibit ecology games and display coastal artwork.

April 26 - Earth Week Celebration in Bay City, Texas. Five clubs with 100 volunteers will participate.

May 10 - 4th Annual Gulf of Mexico Youth Leadership in Stewardship Conference, Corpus Christi Omni Bayfront Hotel 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
(also GMF Board Meeting)

May 17 - Bay Day in Galveston, Texas. Van Vleck club will display its "Beaches and Bays of Matagorda County" ecology game.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PAST EVENTS 2008

March 12 - Beach cleanup at Playa Baghdad, Matamoros Colegio Juvenal Rendon

March 8 - GMF S&S Club Network Faculty Workshop, Corpus Christi 10 am - 2 pm, to discuss May 10 GMF Youth Leadership in Stewardship Conference

Feb 19 - Coastal Zone Obligation Day (Aransas Pass, Ingleside and Sinton)

Feb 16-23 - Economy = Ecology Week

Feb 16 - 3rd Annual Redfish
Bay Trash Parade & Coastal Cleanup (Aransas Pass, Sinton, Ingleside, Corpus Christi Edna)

Feb 16 - Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup at Lighthouse Lakes Trail Park

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

S&S IN THE NEWS


April 27, 2007 - GMF S&S Club Network helps to rename causeway 'Redfish Bay' - Corpus Christi Caller-Times

May 2, 2007 - GMF S&S Club Network accepts state's top environmental achievement honor during ceremony in Austin, Texas.


Science & Spanish Club News

   • Feb 2008 - Clubs march in parade, clean beach, restore marsh
   • Feb 2008 - S&S Clubs create first Ecology = Economy Week
   • Feb 2008 - Palacios clubs create 'river dragon' for parade
   • Jan 2008 - Message-in-a-bottle experiments teach students
   • Dec 2007 - Clubs tour lakes, learn first hand about watersheds
   • Nov 2007 - South Texas clubs participate in trash clean-up
   • Sept 2007 - Coastal Bend clubs clean up, learn at Matagorda
   • Sept 2007 - Clubs clean up Lighthouse Lakes Park, more
   • May 2007 - 3M Corporation presents check to S&S Club
   • Feb 2007 - S&S Club organizes two-town Trash Parade

Clubs march in parade, clean beach, restore marsh
Feb 2008 - Science & Spanish Clubs from the Texas Coastal Bend kicked off Ecology = Economy week with the 3rd Annual Redfish Bay Trash Parade & Coastal Cleanup on February 16. The parade began in Ingleside and reconvened with another parade through downtown Aransas Pass. After the parade, some clubs participated in the Texas General Land Office's Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup at the Lighthouse Lakes Trail Park along Redfish Bay Causeway while others went to Goose Island State Park to transplant marsh grasses as part of a habitat restoration project.

S&S Clubs create first Ecology = Economy Week
Feb 2008 - The first Aransas/San Patricio County Economy = Ecology Week held Feb 16-23 featured a Trash Parade, Redfish Bay Cleanup, Goose Island Marsh Restoration and Obligation Day. The event was organized by the GMF and sponsored by Texas Transportation Institute, Valero, Cheniere LNG, San Patricio Economic Development Commission, Coastal Bend Bays Foundation, Texas Parks & Wildlife, Dairy Queen of South Texas, and the Texas General Land Office’s Coastal Management Program. The economy side of the Economy = Ecology formula featured an Obligation Day on Feb 19 at the Aransas Pass High School gymnasium where students learned about coastal workforce training, education and employment choices available where they live. Obligation Day featured several local and regional employers including South Texas Nuclear Power, Texas Department of Transportation, Shiner Moseley Engineering, Texas Parks & Wildlife, the US Navy and TAMU-CC Nursing School. "These companies are looking to recruit workers now and in the near-future, said Richard Gonzales, GMF's Project Coordinator for the Science & Spanish Club Network. For that reason, we invited community leaders from chambers or commerce, city councils, school boards and other community groups to meet with the exhibiting companies during a Community Bleacher Lunch sponsored by Cheniere LNG,” Gonzales said.

Palacios clubs create 'river dragon' for parade
Redfish Bay Trash Parade 2008
Feb 2008 - Science & Spanish Clubs from Van Vleck and Palacios marched in the 60th Annual Harmony Club Valentine's Parade in Palacios, Texas, on Feb 9. To carry in the parade, students and faculty helped to design and make a "river dragon" made of sheer fabric to represent the watershed approach to coastal environmental stewardship and upstream-midstream-downstream community-based cooperation.

Message-in-a-bottle experiments teach students
Message in a Bottle found 2007 on MatagordaJan 2008 - Science & Spanish Clubs from Texas learned about scientific experiments conducted by students from two schools which are faraway but which lie near the Gulf Stream. Science students from schools in New York and Puerto Rico put messages in bottles and released them into the Gulf Stream to see where the bottles would land. A school from Long Island, New York launched a message in a bottle in 1999 which was found on Matagorda Beach in Texas in 2007 (see photo at right). A school from the island of Puerto Rico launched 84 bottles in November 2006 off the southern coast of the island and bottle #13 was found by volunteers at the Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup in April 2007. Science & Spanish Club members are studying message-in-a-bottle experiments using real-time sensors to track the natural movement of the bottles via satellite.

Clubs tour lakes, learn first hand about watersheds
Dec 2007 - Science & Spanish Clubs from Aransas Pass, Ingleside and Sinton explored the man-made lakes at Lake Texana in Jackson County and the 7,000-acre lake that supplies water to the South Texas Nuclear Power Plant near Bay City, Texas. These field trips helped to show how people influence natural watersheds. Next these students will connect with the Science & Spanish Club in Edna, Texas, to explore the Mary Rhodes Pipeline, a humanized watershed that brings fresh water from Lake Texana to Corpus Christi 120 miles to the south. Corpus Christi then redistributes the water to several Coastal Bend communities.

South Texas clubs participate in trash clean-up
Nov 2007 - Science & Spanish Clubs from Port Isabel and Brownsville joined hundreds of other volunteers in the 3rd Annual Bahia Grande/Laguna Madre Coastal Cleanup on Nov 10. The event was organized by Cameron County Parks & Recreation, the City of Port Isabel, the Port Isabel Economic Development Commission and Red River Services. Nearly three tons of trash were picked up in several trash hot spots around the Bahia Grande and Laguna Madre.

Coastal Bend clubs clean up, learn at Matagorda
Sept 2007 - More than 180 members of the Science & Spanish Club Network helped to boost the largest volunteer turnout (300) ever for the Texas General Land Office Fall Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup at Matagorda Beach held on September 22. Students from Tidehaven, Edna, Bay City, Port Lavaca, El Campo and Palacios joined more than 100 other community volunteers as hundreds of bags of beach debris was picked up. "The Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup experience teaches youth leadership by example skills by learning how to take the initiative in picking up other people’s trash,” explained S&S Club Network coordinator Richard Gonzales. “Students are also introduced to the scientific method as they record the types of shoreline trash picked up. Data is collected on data cards provided by the Ocean Conservancy who have been organizing a global beach cleanup effort for over 30 years now. Students come to understand that trash is a global problem that will be solved only through local communities taking responsibility for their part of the coastline,” he said.
Matagorda cleanup -  click to enlarge
Science & Spanish Clubs from El Campo, Palacios, Tidehaven, Edna, Port Lavaca and Bay City joined other volunteers at the Texas General Land Office Fall Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup held on Sept 22 on Matagorda Island, Texas.
Tidehaven Sand Erosion team - click to enlarge
Science & Spanish Club students from Tidehaven, Texas, assemble in front of the Lower Colorado River Authority Nature Learning Center as they prepare to measure sand dune erosion along Matagorda Beach as part of their Adopt-A-Beach cleanup experience on Sept 22.
Edna S&S Club at Matagorda - click to enlarge
Science & Spanish Club students from Edna, Texas, take a break from their volunteer work at the Texas General Land Office Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup on Matagorda Sept 22.

Clubs clean up Lighthouse Lakes Park, more
Lighthouse Lakes Trash Pick-Up
Sept 2007 - More than 130 members of the Science & Spanish Club Network helped to boost the largest volunteer turnout (160) ever for the Texas General Land Office Fall Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup at the Lighthouse Lakes Park, Conn Brown Harbor and the Aransas Pass Aquatics Center held on September 22. Science & Spanish Clubs from Sinton, Ingleside, Corpus Christi and Aransas Pass joined over 30 other community volunteers as 300 hundred bags of beach debris were picked up.

3M Corporation presents check to S&S Club
3M Check for $2,500
Photo by Diana Gonzales - click to enlarge
May 2007 - 3M Corporation-Brownwood surprised the GMF’s Science & Spanish Club Network middle-school students at the 2007 Texas Environmental Excellence (TEE) Awards on May 7 by presenting them with a check for $2,500 for the work they have done to promote a healthy environment in the Gulf of Mexico region. The bilingual science education project has expanded to include students in coastal zone communities from Texas to Mexico. At the TEE awards ceremony, the GMF’s S&S Club Network received the award in the Youth category. "It was a day the kids will not forget," said GMF Executive Director Dr. Quenton Dokken about the award, adding, "And, the grant from 3M Corporation was more icing on the cake. Many of the kids come from disadvantage backgrounds and the check from 3M was mind boggling! When I last saw them after the event, they were walking down the hall carrying the oversized check mock up. It was a gold medal in their eyes. I have no idea how they packed it into their van." At the same banquet, 3M Corporation-Brownwood received the award in the Large Business/Technical category for its innovative methods that helped to reduce volatile organic compound emissions, to reduce waste and to improve energy efficiency. The GMF congratulates 3M Brownwood for its award, and appreciates its financial support of the GMF S&S Club Network.

S&S Club organizes two-town Trash Parade
photo by Carrie Robertson
Photos by Carrie Robertson - click to enlarge
Feb 2007 - GMF Science & Spanish Club members from five schools in the Texas photo by Carrie RobertsonCoastal Bend area joined together to march for a cleaner environment during the 2nd Annual Redfish Bay Trash Parade on Saturday morning, Feb 17. Dressed in matching parade T-shirts, the students first marched in Ingleside, then got back in school buses and rode to Aransas Pass, where they marched again. In both parades, they carried themed banners, posters and flags, and shouted slogans such as "Pick up your trash," and "Please don't litter." The event was part of the annual Winter Beach Cleanup sponsored by the Texas General Land Office. "The students have leaned that they share a common ecosystem that is Redfish Bay with its vast sensitive seagrass pasture," said Richard Gonzales, project coordinator, adding, "Marine debris, whether it comes from land, rivers, bays or the gulf, is caused mostly by human behavior."

Gulf of Mexico Foundation - PMB 51, 5403 Everhart - Corpus Christi, TX 78411
(800) 884-4175 toll free - (361) 882-3939 phone - (361) 882-1262 fax
e-mail: info@gulfmex.org     website: gulfmex.org
webmaster: Carrie Robertson