By Michelle Marraffini, Invertebrate Zoology Lab

This weekend MLML students left the classroom and the lab to participate in the Annual California Coastal CleanUp Day!  Students ventured outside on this gloriously sunny day to help clean up and protect part of the ecosystem we work so hard to understand.  New, continuing, and even graduated MLML students came out to join other volunteers and to put in some dirty work.  According to the Save Our Shores website, this September 17th volunteers at over 81 cleanup sites, from Wadell Creek in the north to the Big Sur coast in the south, helped prevent over 17,000 pounds of pollution from entering 157 miles of beaches, rivers, lakes, creek, and sloughs.  If you missed this year’s annual clean up day don’t worry, Save Our Shores hosts a monthly cleanup in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties.  For more information, including how to sign up for a beach clean-up, visit http://www.saveourshores.org/volunteer/.