WSC Ocean Advocacy and Youth Leadership Program
Who we are: Youth Leadership Development and intergenerational lifelong learning communities focused on surfing and the climate crisis
Mission: To encourage WSC Junior members and non-members (and parents) such as Y Strong Girls, Kumeyaay Nation, and local La Jolla middle to high school students to engage in ocean-related sciences
History:
Jim Neri founded the Ocean Advocacy and Youth Leadership program in 2014. With the help of the Windansea Surf Club Membership Committee, they recruited the first class that would participate in this program for the next five years!
This club not only participated in oceanography projects but planned and organized multiple Menehune Contests, talking to the media, on the microphone at the contests, judging, going after sponsors, teaching the younger kids, and showing up spectacularly to report at Club meetings.
Ocean Science Project
King Tides Dec. 23-4 Jan. 21-2
The next California King Tides will be December 23-24, 2022 and January 21-22, 2023.
Use your smartphone or digital camera to participate in the Project by taking and uploading photos of king tides through the King Tides Photo Upload form. Start by choosing where you'll go to take your photos and then look at the tide to find out what time and how high your king tides will be. Take your photos as near to high tide time as you can. Your photos will be displayed on an interactive map. (If you'd like to share a video clip of king tides with us, please email kingtides@coastal.ca.gov for instructions.)
I owe a lot to the Bathymetry project and the SDSU internship. I feel like those projects really catalyzed my interest in science and definitely helped propel me to UC Berkeley and my field of study, Environmental Engineering
Jordan Shultz, Member since 2016
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Windansea Bathymetry Project
The first group of WSC Ocean Advocacy was able to map the Windansea bathymetry (underwater topography) using kayaks with sonar. This group of teens worked with the Coastal and Marine Institute Laboratory of San Diego State University and built a Remotely-Operated robot with a camera to do research on our challenged kelp forests.
Our teenagers also worked with the Coastal Data Information Program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Our teens were able to and I was able to listen in on oceanography lectures provided by UCSD Extension Lifelong Learning Institute.
Most of the scientists at Scripps Oceanography are surfers including Prof. Falk Feddersen who suggested the bathymetry project (he's an old friend of Hank Warner). This project was designed to combat climate change and the drastic changes it is causing on our beloved coastline.
Another project we helped with was "World's Greatest Oceanographer Walter Munk". We helped provide specific dates of the biggest swells at Windansea in the 1940s.
The projects that this group of teens participated in for 5 years provided valuable data and information on the San Diego coastline, specifically Windansea Beach. The teens used their time with the Windansea Surf Club Ocean Advocacy Program to aid them in getting into UCSD, UCB, and UH.
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WSC Ocean Advocacy and Youth Leadership in the Press
Project Pegasus 2017
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