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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Meet Little Gray

Photo by Peter Meade

This is Little Grey. (Look, he is waving to you)

He is a life-sized California Grey Whale replica made by the first- graders at my school entirely out of  the beach trash they cleaned up in Carlsbad.  The kids got together with artist Theresa Espinosa to create Little Grey, which is on tour right now to help other people remember that the proper way to treat our beaches is NOT to litter on them.   (If you want to see Little Grey, he is currently residing at the Legoland Aquarium in Carlsbad.  I hear he will be visitng other places, including Legolands all over the world.)

If you look closely at this sea creature, you will see unbelievable things that people have left at the beach...dentures, anyone?

True.
So, if you go to the beach,
don't leave your teeth there.

eww.

Actually, just don't leave any trash there.

None.

Happy Earth Day.

hrh

14 comments:

Myrna Foster said...

Happy Earth Day, Shelley.

Tess said...

this is the best Earth Day post ev-ah! What a clever idea to make a display out of trash like that. very poignant.

and, in 7th grade, we lived right on the beach for one year (my mom was free form that way) anyway ... I could be in therapy for YEARS over the things I saw that year. People do the craziest things, wear the craziest things (or nothing at all!). Dentures are a new one though. Wow.

Tricia J. O'Brien said...

What an amazing art and ecology project! I love the whale and that it is touring, dentures and all.
Thanks for a colorful reminder of what we need to do.

L. T. Host said...

How very cool! Your kids must love that it's at Legoland. And he's going on tour!

Happy Earth Day back atcha :)

Elana Johnson said...

Wow, that is mind-boggling. Happy Earth Day!

Kim said...

This is fabulous! Crazy about the dentures. Whoa!

Happy Earth Day!

Imola said...

Nicely put!

Sherrie Petersen said...

How very cool!! What an impressive (and kinda pretty!) way to make a statement.

Jackee said...

And happy Earth Day to you too, Shelley!

The wind blows really hard out at my house and it shocks me to find the trash that blows up onto my forest hiking trails. When I pick up the trash as I hike, I curse the bright, plastic kiddie pools the most.

I took my kids to see the new movie Oceans today and they have apart in there about trash in the oceans. Very poignant... until my three year old laughed very loudly about the shopping cart on the ocean bottom. (ha, ha.)

Anonymous said...

How wonderful. I remember my grandad losing his teeth in the sea. After all these years they might be his!! hehe

Julie Dao said...

Thanks for sharing this story, Shelley. Can't believe some of the things people leave lying around!

storyqueen said...

Myrna-and to you as well!

Tess-Very true! The teachers had to disinfect all of the stuff just the the students could glue them on the piece.

Tricia-In person, it is truly stunning. I think Legoland and Surfrider made a documentary of how it was made, but I've not seen it yet.

LT-All of the students who worked on it (around 120) were given free tickets to Legoland to see it get hung. Very cool project.

Elana-Maybe mind-bloggling!

Kim-crazy in a kind of gross way...

Imola-Thank you for stopping by the blog. Come back any time!

Sherrie-And they had a blast doing it, too.

Jackee-I'm hoping to go to Ocean's this weekend! I hear it's awesome.

Niki-Wouldn't that be something!!!?
Imagine what those dentures have seen!

Julie-That's the thing, isn't it? It all has to go somewhere.

Clementine said...

What a wonderful idea! I'm going to print this and show it to our principal. The kids just did a trash-pickup for a couple of parks for their community project last week. That sends a very powerful message!

alexis nicole said...

It always makes me sad to see trash on the beach (or along highways, fields, anywhere!) and I'm glad that someone has come up with an example that is likely to induce some change! I'm off to look a little closer at the Whale!