Final Movie

We hope you enjoy!!!

The Forum went extremely well for us. Many people enjoyed watching our videos and they complimented us on being creative. We both expressed our love for the kelp forest and explain why it was important to biodiversity. We also talked about the pills; and since we had them on display, people were very interested in them. We both think the experience was very fun and rewarding overall because we finally got to show off our months of hard work and what we had learned. We also felt very happy that we could make a difference in the kelp forests. Even though we were presenting our topic for a few hours, the time went by fast because we were already occupied with talking to the judges, adults, parents, and teachers. We both agree that coming to an end with our project is bitter sweet because it has been such an amazing learning experience, but could also be a little stressful at times. Thanks for reading our blog and following along with our experience!

- Catie and Serafina ♥

Home Stretch!

This is out final week for the project. This past week we filmed two more videos. On Monday, we made sea urchin pills which is another option for getting the nutrients and vitamins from sea urchins if you don't like the taste. On Tuesday, we cooked sea urchin pizza and we just uploaded our videos. We are presenting our project on Tuesday in our school's library where we'll be playing our cooking videos and on Thursday our final movie is due and we'll be showing it in front of our class. The video attached is our sea urchin pizza cooking video.

Making Sea Urchin Capsules!

We decided that it would be a good idea to make sea urchin pills so that people could get the nutrients from cooking with sea urchin and from taking a capsule. See our process by watching the video attached!

Problem :(((

Main Problem: Sea Urchin Overpopulation

We chose sea urchin overpopulation because it is a very general topic and there are many different diverse kelp forests dealing with these issues. Sea urchin overpopulation is a topic that so many kelp forests are facing in the world, so we chose it because we can try to help find solutions that can benefit all of the kelp forests; not just ones in a particular area. We will mainly focus on kelp forests in California before we embark on more adventurous journeys that can benefit more than just kelp forests in one area. Hopefully, we can help keep kelp forests alive and thriving for the years to come.

Video Reflections

Visiting a Fish Market

This weekend, we visited Redondo Beach Fish Market to buy Sea Urchins.

Group Plan + Taking Action!

This past weekend it was Catie's bat mitzvah, so we were unfortunately not able to go out and accomplish anything for our solution. This weekend we'll be working all day on Sunday on our cooking videos and filming for our iMovie. We're a little behind everyone due to our lack of research on sea urchins because we came up with that idea a little late in the project.

On Saturday, we're going to the Los Angeles Fish Company to purchase sea urchin. On Sunday, we plan on going to Serafina's house and filming in her kitchen with recipes. Our blog is going to become more centered towards cooking with sea urchins and helpful recipes you can use! Next blog we will share with you some recipes and then post a video on cooking with it in detail.

Finally back on track!!!

This week has been very successful! We have finalized our idea and e-mailed Jackie Cannata. We are planning on making a series of videos on cooking with sea urchins and how they are beneficial to your health. Hopefully, we can get people to eat sea urchins in their everyday lives and level out the population of urchins in the kelp forests. We emailed Jackie Cannata, the Education Specialist of Heal the Bay, about helping us with getting our videos into the public eye and hopefully can get our message out there! Thankfully, we have gotten back on track since last week when we were very behind, and now have a very steady plan for the future. 

(Sea Urchin Pasta)

courtesy of: http://www.zencancook.com/2011/11/sea-urchin-spaghetti/

Creative>Practical?

This week we had a very hard time with our solution ideas. At first, we thought that we could invent a kind of net to filter the plastic from getting into kelp forests... but that isn't practical and way too hard to do in a few weeks. Then, we thought about going diving into the kelp forests to help clean up trash and re-locate Sea Urchins; but we don't have a scuba diving certificate, and it takes so many hours of training to get one... so we had to come up with another plan. Finally, with the help of Ann Marie, we got an idea! We are trying to level out the population of sea urchins living in the kelp forest because they are overpopulating and destroying biodiversity in the kelp forest. By using three predators of sea urchins, we will try our best to make sea urchins become a popular tasty snack on sushi and for sea otters and seals. We're planning to do a web series of recipes for eating sea urchins and post it online. We may also partner with an organization that works on relocating sea urchins in the kelp forest.

We're hoping to get back on track and continue with the project to help restore and preserve this beautiful and aquatic plant that we don't want to lose.

Catie and Fina's Kelp Forest Introduction

Why did we choose each other?

Firstly, we chose each other because we are close friends and we know each other well. This helps when working in teams because we know each others’ strengths and weaknesses and understand the other persons’ personal needs. We can work on our project easily outside of school because we live close to each other and we can get work done while enjoying quality time. Lastly, when finding team-members we truly felt that the other person would be a good work partner because we both strive to be the best we can be and are very hardworking when it comes to school work. This is going to not only help us achieve goals, but it will also keep us determined to keep on working harder.

What is our topic?

Our topic is biodiversity in the kelp forests. We chose this topic because we had a speaker come talk to us at nutrition and it really had an effect on both of us. Also, we chose it because there are kelp forests along the coast of California, so it would be easy to travel to them and see them up close. We really want to help protect the kelp forests (especially the ones in California), because they not only provide us with oxygen, but they are also the habitat to so many organisms. Without the kelp forests, the organisms will lose their habitat and die off; which would cause a giant issue with biodiversity.