Breanna Hernandez grew up riding around her neighborhood in Ontario on her roller skates.
She would skate by pieces of trash and pick them up without even thinking.
The more trash she noticed, the more she collected. Eventually she took her roller skates down to Long Beach.
There, she took off her roller skates and went into the water.
“A bag came to me from the water, and I picked it up and filled it with trash,” Hernandez said.
The bags were a way to quantify it. She saw how much trash was in the small section of ocean she was in, Hernandez said.
Hernandez gathered people from her neighborhood and led her own roller skate cleanup groups. The cleanups only grew in size and impact.
Those roller skates eventually steered her to Citrus College.
Hernandez is a student who enrolled in Citrus to study environmental science with an emphasis on ocean conservation.
Even before she was pursuing an education, she was making a difference through her beach cleanups. She hosts the cleanups at Long Beach with one goal: collect trash.
Hernandez knew that the trash in oceans posed a risk to the environment. She decided to do something about it. She went back to school and continued to clean up beaches.
Hernandez said she always had a love for science but struggled with it in high school.
She felt she learned differently.
She said the typical test and lecture based high school science setting discouraged her from pursuing anything in that field.
Hernandez said pursuing a career in science was behind her before the COVID-19 pandemic came along. It was an opportunity for her to reopen a path into science.
Not only did she start to host cleanups again at the tail end of the pandemic, she decided to go back to school. She enrolled at Citrus to begin exploring environmental science.
Hernandez said internships and mentorships are huge in any major, so she applied for programs where she could gain more experience and learn about her field.
She is a recipient of the Community, Equity, Learning, Persistence, Scholar Program through the Aquarium of the Pacific. This program came with $10,000 and a year of mentorship and career building events.
Her biology professor, June Han, sent her the CELP scholar program as an option.
Because of her past relationship with school and science, Hernandez dealt with imposter syndrome within school and her application process.
“I did not give myself much credit when applying,” said Hernandez.
She said she had nagging feelings of self doubt. The feelings took a toll on her self-confidence.
“The confidence gets low sometimes and I feel like, ‘Can I even do this?” Hernandez said.
Hernandez said Han helped her work through the imposter syndrome.
“I feel like it doesn’t go away,” Hernandez said. “Once you understand it, you can live with it.”
Professor Amanda Konya taught Hernandez in several photography classes and saw a shift in her confidence when she was awarded the scholarship.
“I believe receiving this scholarship gave Breanna the well-deserved acknowledgement that her work is important and possible, which resulted in a boost to her spirit,” Konya said in an email.
Konya said Hernandez is a kind and humble person, so the scholarship will only increase her work ethic and drive for environmental studies.
Hernandez finds her purpose in both her ocean conservation efforts and her family. She is a mom of a 9-year-old son.
“He sees trash and gets triggered by it too,” Hernandez said. “He’s my little scientist.”
Han said she’s had conversations with Hernandez about being a mom and balancing her family with her love of science. She said she is proud to see Hernandez bringing what she loves home with her.
“She would tell me how she does experiments with her son at home,” Han said.
Hernandez said her son is the gas in her tank. He is the reason she wants to create a better future.
Just like her son, concern for environmental issues grew on Hernandez at a young age.
“My mom sat with me and showed me (the documentary) ‘The Blue Planet’ and it blew my mind,” she said. “They started talking about how endangered subspecies are and how the ocean is at risk. I really did not understand how such a big, vast place could be polluted by us. From then on it was like, ‘How can I help?’”
Not only is Hernandez looking to expand her cleanups with the money she earned, she wants to use it to get her diving certification.
She wants to become Professional Association of Diving Instructor certified. This PADI certification is completed with several online courses and tests. She also has to take a diving test in the ocean.
She said she is working with the CELP scholar program to get her certification and it offered to pay for her to take her final test at Catalina Island when she gets to that step.
The certification will only increase the impact of her cleanups and the places she can reach, Hernandez said.
She said the cleanups collect so much just for it to be deposited to landfills. This inspired her next step.
“Repurpose it,” Hernandez said. “I want to find something else to do with it. I’m starting with just one jar and seeing what I can do with that.”
She wants to focus on making something out of the trash she collects.
“I want to repurpose it, maybe make it art,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez has gained artistic experience through photography.
Konya said Hernandez embraces the art that goes hand-in-hand with science.
“So often the ‘A’ for arts is left out of STEAM,” Konya said in an email. “Similar to the way artists and scientists collaborate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Breanna’s studies in photography and art inform her strong critical and creative thinking skills, resulting in her unique and communal approach to environmental science.”
The CELP scholarship Hernandez received is providing her with the resources to pursue her passions.
Hernandez said the program is not all about the money. She is focused on everything she can gain from the experience.
She gets to be a part of symposiums, talk to professionals in the field and be around other students who care about the environment just as much as she does.
The struggles have been prominent for Hernandez, but she finds a way to see the good in herself and what she is doing.
“I know it’s worth it,” Hernandez said.
She said her son wants to join her in picking up trash at a young age, just as she did on her roller skates.
