On January 19th, my group and I met with Kaitlyn Parkins, who is the education director for the Lower East Side Ecology Center. The Lower East Side Ecology Center focuses on making a sustainable New York City. They offer Community-based recycling and composting programs, local stewardship of green space, and environmental education programs. They are also in contact with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy which was surprising. We met with Kaitlyn Parkins at the Fire Boat House by the East River, which was there education center, and learned more about what the Lower East Side Ecology Center does. Sometimes they will have schools come to their education center, where they have tanks filled with East River water, and filled with animals like oysters and fish. Sometimes Kaitlyn will go to schools, teaching the kids about what  the LESEC does. They focus on what the East River used to look like, what it looks like now, and we’ve effected our water ways and how they affect us. During the summer they have catch and release fishing clinic as a chance to teach people that the water is actually a living thing that we have to take care of. They also work on community based composting, composting education, and work with community gardens and have a big composting facility in their downtown park. We also learned that on January 17th the New York State Senate passed a bill to block a bill that would tax plastic bags. The bill taxing plastic bags were created by organizers, community activists, and environmental organizations to help stop plastic pollution because it would be more convenient to use a bag you already have then to have to pay extra for another bag. Another big problem that most people don’t know about are fishing lines, people often fish in the East River and Hudson River, and fishing lines can get caught on something in, or are discarded in the rivers. It was really interesting meeting with Kaitlyn because our group did learn some new things about water pollution like, fishing lines being left in the water or that there was a bill trying to tax plastic bags. It was a pleasure to meet with Kaitlyn and learn more about how the LESEC helps the environment.