Juan Ortiz, president of the Student Veterans Organization compresses a truck bed full of cut down palm trees, which is an invasive species.
One hundred or so volunteers gather at the bottom and Marlesta Drive and the entrance Tecolote canyon in order to give back to the city by cleaning up the local environment.
The Mesa College Information Officer Lina Heil says “We are out helping the county clean Tecolote Canyon today.” Mesa College is “bordered on two sides by Tecolote Canyon, which is San Diego environmentally protected land that would not otherwise get developed. However
San Diego City gave some of Tecolote Canyon to allow Mesa College to build the parking structure that sits higher up in Tecolote Canyon at the end of Mesa College Drive and in return Mesa College provides Canyon Day, and a week after brings young school kids to explore the canyon.
Students and volunteers had the opportunity to give their attention to the important issues that usually go unnoticed, by getting down in the canyon and working to clean it of trash and uproot the invasive species like arundo bamboo and palm trees that are harmful to the endemic ecosystem. This effort is a way to get students and other people around the community involved in protecting the local environment, which is important in protecting the environment on a global scale.
San Diego Park Ranger Janis Lavallee said “8 years ago there was so much trash in the canyon, I needed a bunch of volunteers to help bring it out.”
“Palm Trees are invasive, so we are taking out the baby ones” Janis says, and using a saw to cut out the bamboo.
Tim Dillingham has been a Park Ranger and Wildland firefighter said volunteers “get to see just how much trash” ends up in the canyon and, “the little bits of trash that people loose out of their cars” might seem like a little amount but “when it all washes down into the same canyon all of the sudden it becomes 20 trash bags full of garbage.”
Stephen Adegoke and another volunteer work on clearing bundles of torn up plants
Canyon Day was also an opportunity to learn about the local environment, with biology professors and park rangers present to provide lectures and share with volunteers.
Steven Adegoke, a student at Mesa, learned about how plants grow in this climate from one of these spontaneous lectures.
Teaching while in the environment that is being taught about changes the learning dynamic from abstract ideas or pictures in a textbook to real and tangible, allowing students to make sense of the importance of caring for the local environment.
When asked about the benefit of learning about biology outside of the classroom a Mesa Biology student, Ileana said its important to know, “and you should be aware, you are hiking you are going to the beach every day you should know what you are surrounded by.”