Canyon High School’s “Eco-Chicos,” the Santa Clarita school’s largest environmental advocacy and awareness group, rallied nearly 100 student-volunteers to Santa Monica beach Sunday morning in order to clean-up the famous Southern California shoreline.

“One of our mottos for the club is, ‘Think Globally, Act Locally,’” said Dennis Yong, Canyon High AP Environmental Science teacher and “Eco-Chicos” faculty advisor. “Santa Monica is our closest beach and a lot of our students and their families go there regularly. So we wanted to make the beach clean for Santa Clarita residents who visit.”

Over 95 Canyon High students walked the Santa Monica Beach and Pier, cleaning up trash and plastics.

For three hours Sunday morning, the high school student advocacy and volunteer group trudged a large portion of the 3.5 mile long Santa Monica beachfront, with 95 club members clearing trash in an attempt to mitigate the far-reaching and long-term effects plastics and other pollutants have on the environment.

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“This plastic and trash we picked up oftentimes ends up in the oceans, and the plastic is not bio-degradable,” explained Yong. “What happens is that the plastic stays in the ocean for a long time, and the fish and marine life mistake it for food, eat it, fail to digest it and then die.”

The efforts to clean up this trash helps avoid the immediate issue of marine life consuming the plastics, but also help decrease the long-term likelihood of “bioaccumulation,” according to Yong.

“The pollutants from the trash and plastics eventually get into the water that it’s floating in, and even if the fish do not directly consume the materials, the toxins seep into their skin,” said Yong. “And those toxins magnify as they travel up the food chain, eventually reaching us when we eat seafood.”

Not only did the students tackle all the trash they saw oceanside, but environmental conscientiousness percolated throughout the entire event, even down to the transportation to get to Santa Monica.

On Sunday, those Eco-Chicos in attendance walked the Santa Monica Beach for three hours.

“We encouraged the student and parent drivers to plan ahead and carpool for the sake of the environment,” said Yong. “And when we got there, we wanted to further limit the plastic we used, so students grouped up and made one person the ‘collector’ with the plastic trash bag and all others were ‘collectors.’”

This is not the first-time that Eco-Chicos’ club members have sacrificed their time, early on a weekend morning, in order to take proactive steps to defend their local environment.

Related: Santa Clarita River Rally Helped By 120 Canyon High Student-Volunteers (GALLERY)

In September of this year, the high school club brought nearly 120 student-volunteers to the Santa Clarita River Rally, an annual event that invites Santa Clarita residents to walk the Santa Clara River, cleaning up litter and garbage in the riverbed.

“The River Clean-Up and this last weekend were our big events for the semester, but we’re already planning things for next semester,” said Yong. “In March, we’re going to the St. Francis Dam to collect the micro-trash, like pieces of glass and plastics, that the condors mistake for food.”

However, while future events are in the works for Yong and his “Eco-Chicos,” the advisor stated that he’s already proud of the work they’ve done.

“I’m already really proud of my students for using their spare time to help the environment,” said Yong. “We often say: ‘Be the change you want to see in the world,’ and that’s what the students are doing through their actions.”

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