December Donation Guide

Grace Clark

Look, there’s no reason to pretend: you’re busy, and thinking about the environment is stressful. The climate emergency is the last thing you want to be thinking about while trying to enjoy the holiday season. But it doesn't have to be all scary! This season would be incomplete without celebrating the passionate people working to preserve our natural world, or without supporting this work in turn. Seaside Sustainability believes that this year, an investment in environmental sustainability initiatives is the best gift anyone can give or receive.

Green Scholars

Our project-based learning curriculum Green Scholars is not only award-winning, it’s community defining. As part of our mission to help meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals, this hands-on program gives honors students at the middle and high school level the opportunity to preserve our environment in ways that are meaningful to them. From school gardens to micro wind farms, students across the country have completed projects that both make the world a better place and give them skills ranging across our program’s three domains:

• Environmental Literacy- Information is power, which is why we think it is incredibly important to arm our youth with the basics of environmental science. Over the course of the program students learn how the environment works, how humans impact the environment and how we can move towards a more sustainable world.

  
  

• Professional Skills- Green Scholars aims to give students the skills they can only gain from real life experience. On top of providing guidance in resume construction and interview technique, the program pushes students beyond the classroom and into the realms of leadership, networking, communication, time management and creativity. These skills thrive in hands-on environments, where students are inspired to continue pushing for both a better planet and better self.

  
  

• Project and Program Management- We believe that students shouldn’t stop at understanding environmental science, they should be pushed to engage in it! Green Scholars culminates in real world projects which are conceptualized and realized by our students themselves. By encouraging school and community outreach we hope to give students the autonomy to change the world for the better.

Overall, Green Scholars aims to serve educators and students alike by sharing our expertise and passion.

Blue Technology

Seaside Sustainability is also proud to be in partnership with Keep Massachusetts Beautiful and support the distribution of Blue Technology across the East Coast. This series of unintrusive marine cleaning devices are designed to monitor and remove harmful debris as well as collect data for marine research.

As a part of the Clean Coast Coalition, Seaside Sustainability aims to counter marine pollution through a combination of education and hands-on intervention. While our Blue Technology efforts are based in New England, your support allows us to expand our outreach across the coast.

We hope to one day have the means to provide one of these technologies anywhere a plastic bag can float:

• Collec’Thor- This floating waste collector turns any free floating dock into a trash skimmer. Capable of running in silence for twenty four hours a day, it’s a perfect low-maintenance option that meshes perfectly with our existing infrastructure. Most importantly, it’s designed to collect trash at the source, cleaning waterways before they lead into the open ocean.

  
  

• Pixie Drone- Comparable to a marine Roomba, the Pixie Drone is capable of navigating both manually and independently and is designed for heavily-trafficked commercial areas with calm waters, like marinas and ports. It collects not only debris but also harmful oils and aims to stamp out pollution at the source.

  
  

• BeBot- Cleaning our coasts isn’t only about the water! BeBot navigates rough and sandy terrain, locates and excavates buried debris, and safely transports loads, all while preserving intertidal wildlife and natural features. It is designed to consider all the ways humans impact our coastal environments, not only removing debris but leveling harmful disruptions in the sand and raking seaweed as well. Finally, it operates silently day or night despite operating exclusively on solar energy.

  
  

• Invisibubble- It might not seem like a bubble curtain could do much, but Invisibubble is one of the most versatile technologies we work with! It purifies water by redirecting debris and holding them at a collection point and is able to isolate incredibly fine material. Like BeBot, it considers human pollution from every angle and uses this ability to stabilize erosion in areas it has been accelerated by human activity. It also enhances water clarity by preventing sediment dispersion, making a happier environment for marine life and humans alike.

  
  

  Invisibubble also works beyond the pollution we can see. It fights eutrophication, which is a process in which an excess of nutrients causes an unhealthy algae bloom so intense it’s able to kill native fauna. Luckily the curtain is able to combat this through aeration, or the process of infusing water with air and movement.

How to Help

These are only two of the many initiatives that the hardworking volunteers here at Seaside are working on. Our efforts in marine science and education, climate action and advocacy, and sustainability counseling are all aimed at meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which is a set of goals calling each individual to action to protect the planet for prosperity. These efforts have only been possible due to generous donations from people who share our passion and believe a sustainable future is possible.

If you are able, please consider clicking here to donate today so that we can work for a sustainable tomorrow.