Weekend at Jekyll Island

This article will be about our visit to Jekyll Island on March 19^th and 20^th. My sister, my mom, and I went to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center to sell my “Save Our Oceans” tee shirts and participate in Jekyll Island’s “Green Screen” events.

The Sea Turtle Center had a “Love Our Habitats” homeschool program on March 19^th and they let us set up a booth. We sold lots of shirts! We also met lots of great people who loved sea turtles and helping our environment, just as much as me!  They said things like “Great job Hannah!’ and “Keep helping the environment!” That made me feel so proud! After a little while, our friends came. They were going to see the movie “Racing Extinction” and help do a clean up with us the next day.

“Racing Extinction” is a movie about animals going extinct and the people trying to change that. These people went to all different countries. They wanted to see what the other countries were doing to the environment. One country was killing manta rays. They were spearing lots of manta rays every day! So, this group of people made a film for the people of this country to teach them about the manta rays. They also helped to stop the trade of these animals to other countries. At the beginning and end of the film, they played a recording of a bird that went extinct in Hawaii. A guy said, “The bird was calling for a mate that would never come.” Since he was the last bird, once he died, the species became extinct. Those word were really strong to me. The last thing I would like to talk about the movie is when they made an electric car. The car had two projectors on top of it. They drove it to different places and showed different pictures on buildings and even on smoke! For example, one projector showed pictures of carbon dioxide (and other gases) going into the air and the other projector showed what a human eye saw. This was so awesome! Before the show closed on the big screen, they showed several ways to help the animals not become extinct. I chose not to eat meat one day each week, along with no milk. They said that helps, because cows produce lots of methane every day which contributes to global warming.

The next morning, we got up and we got ready to do a beach clean up. When we got there we were put in groups. We got a crew leader named Mr. Sam. We picked up lots of trash! Most of it was cigarette butts. We even found a purple bag with dog poop in it. It smelled bad – ew! We also found a dirty diaper – so gross!

It does not take much to help the environment. In just one weekend, we were able to share our story, learn more about the problems we have and how to solve them, and clean up the beach. We helped the environment, and so can you…every day