Preserving the pristine white sands and glorious blue seas of our South Bay beaches is a goal that freshman Chandipati Muttulingam dedicates part of his life to. Muttulingam volunteers for the South Bay chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, an organization intent on protecting the world’s oceans and providing access for all people to enjoy them. The organization employs a wide variety of methods to enact change, including beach cleanups, fundraising and convincing governmental bodies to take action in preserving our oceans.
A foundational aspect of the South Bay Surfrider chapter is the Teach and Test program, which gives student volunteers an opportunity to test ocean water quality in the South Bay by collecting samples from 21 different local sites. Muttulingam mainly works in this branch and directs the acquisition of water samples every other Sunday before heading to the testing lab at the local Dive N’ Surf, where students get to test samples for bacterial presence.
“We’re testing specifically for Enterococcus bacteria, which indicates [the presence of] fecal matter,” Muttulingam said. “We run a test to see if it’s compliant, marginal or noncompliant [with government guidelines], and then we upload [the results] to our website.”
All data collected from the program is available on the Surfrider website and may be used as evidence to motivate governing bodies to pass new policies for beach safety.
“[Teach and Test] helps with science skills but also helps your critical thinking, too. Especially being in a higher position, you can help make some of the leadership decisions, and it really helps with everyday life,” Muttulingam said.
Muttulingam has been volunteering for the South Bay Surfrider chapter since second grade, when he first attended a Surfrider beach cleanup with his family. Volunteering for Surfrider has become a family practice for Muttulingam. His brother, sister and mother volunteer alongside him. His older brother, senior Balakumar Muttulingam, is the current student lab director.
“I really like my role as student lab director because I really enjoy helping and teaching other kids,” Balakumar Muttulingam said. “They all come to volunteer and figure out what the program’s like, […] and they keep coming consistently because they find a passion for it. I really like seeing that and knowing I was able to help teach them.”
According to Chandipati Muttulingam, the community aspects of the program offer a chance to develop critical thinking through leadership and teamwork skills in an enjoyable and rewarding way.
“They’re all really nice people,” Chandipati Muttulingam said. “They’re really committed to their jobs. We even have full-time volunteers. We just really love helping our beaches stay clean.”
The Surfrider program also allows volunteers to meet and work alongside people from neighboring cities and communities, enabling collaboration and creating a more tight-knit beach cities community.
“[The volunteers at Surfrider are] a very diverse community of people,” Balakumar Muttulingam said. “We have Costa kids, Redondo kids, Lawndale kids and a couple of Palos Verdes High kids, too.”
Along with encouraging community, the program also encourages volunteers to enter STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields in the future and to apply the lab skills they have gained to their future careers.
“There is actually an environmental science scholarship that they give out every year to seniors,” Chandipati Muttulingam said. “My sister also went into nursing because she loved the program so much. She originally wanted to become an engineer, but she loved the lab work so much.”
Chandipati Muttulingam encourages other RUHS students interested in science and environmental health to get involved with the Surfrider initiative.
“I’d recommend to anyone to just come at least once and try it out,” Chandipati Muttulingam said. “For the past seven years I’ve been doing this, I don’t think I’ve had one bad experience. It’s really great.”
