The Brazoria chapter of Texas Master Naturalist held their monthly meeting Wednesday evening July 13, 2023, at the AgriLife building in Angleton. John Boettiger, membership chairman, reported that Tom Morris, Jo Myers, John O’Connell, Mary Schwartz and John Boettiger had recertified in June.
To recertify, members must have 8 hours of advanced training and 40 volunteer hours. Boettiger also reported Hannah Beckett, Juli Martin, Marlon Nation, Cris Tobola, and Barb Whaley of the intern class certified by accumulating 40 volunteer hours, and Pam West attained the 1,000-volunteer milestone.
This year to date, members have impacted 3,746 adults and 14,376 youth through outreach programs and educational programs such as the “Birds of Prey” programs presented at area schools, Brazoria County Summer Library Programs and the Discovery
Environmental Education Program for area 4 th and 7 th graders at Brazoria NWR.
The chapter recognized July as the ice cream month by having an ice cream social to begin the meeting.
The meeting keynote speaker was Sarah Weller, Senior Manager of International Coastal Cleanup, ICC, whose topic was “Community Science and Data Collection.” ICC started in 1986 and currently has over 17 million volunteers and has removed over 350 metric tons of trash along shorelines around the world.
Volunteers report details of the trash collected, and the data is compiled in an annual report. The data is presented to various local, state and federal agencies and governments throughout the world to show the seriousness of the pollution.
The top 6 of worldwide trash collected are:1. Food Wrappers, 2. Cigarette Butts, 3. Plastic Bottles, 4. Unknown, 5. Plastic Bottle Caps, 6. Plastic Bags.
It was also noted that September 16th is International Coastal Cleanup Day. For more information on becoming a Texas Master Naturalist: https://txmn.org/tmncot/ Our next meeting will be 8:30am on August 9th at the AgriLife building in Angleton. Visitors are welcome.
