Reminder: To receive credit for attending each activity, you must: (1) Check in with a Peer Mentor at the start and conclusion of the co-curricular experience and have them initial twice next to the activity you are attending. (2) You must post a written reflection to the course blog of at least 150 words briefly describing the event or activity as well as things you learned from the experience. This written reflection is due within 24 hours of the event’s conclusion. You will turn in this form on the last day of class.
Please post your reflection as a comment below.
For this event we took a trip down to cocoa beach to clean up the shoreline which was, and unfortunately still is, infested with garbage. We were placed into groups of four and each group was supplied with garbage bags as well as a checklist. This checklist was used to tally every single item placed into the garbage bag. After cleaning up the liter for about an hour it was discovered that the most common things found along the shoreline were cigarette buds and pieces of micellaneous plastic, including bottle caps. My group alone picked up a total of 733 Cigarette buds ! And the unfortunate truth is that this isn't even a miniscule dent in the amount of litter that actually consumes our beaches. Such debris can be hazardous for animals to consume, and has caused the lives of many. On a side note, during the trip we also came across a multitude of dead jellyfish washed up at the shoreline. Oh, and we found a toy lightsavor !
ReplyDeleteAt first I wasn't to happy happy about being drug from my bed at seven in the morning but that completely changed later. It was really cool to find out that this was and event being carried out all over the world as a way to help the oceans. I also felt really good about having the change to make a difference in our environment by sending just a few minutes out of my day to pick up trash. I am actually in Dr. Harper's Discover Biology class and in Class we read a book called "The World Is Blue" about what harm we are doing to our oceans. The beach clean up gave me a chance to not just talk about how we need to help the oceans but actually do something. At the end of the day I was very happy that I went.
ReplyDeleteCoastal Cleanup was actually a very exciting event and I never even realized how many cigarette butts were thrown around the beach by people who are too lazy to find a trashcan. I think it was educational to actually be out ‘on-site’ to see the way people are littering our beaches and not even caring! If we had just seen a power point or watched a movie about the litter on the beaches it would not have made as big of an impact on me as being out there did. As I was picking up cigarette butts a few beach goers stopped to ask me what I was doing and I told them about Coastal Cleanup and they were very happy that we were out cleaning the beach. After an hour we were able to relax and go in the water, which was nice! Once I got home I told my dad about Coastal Cleanup and he googled it and said that all around the world Coastal Cleanup had gotten 5 tons of trash from beaches!
ReplyDeleteThe coastal cleanup was a lot more fun than I anticipated. The hour we spent picking up the trash seemed to fly by, and it was a beautiful day. I was shocked at how many cigarette butts are on the beach, and some people even collected sums in the 700's. We found a bandaid and a close pin, but other than that it was just a bunch of cigarettes and plastic. It was sad to see how people treat the beach, and most of the trash was actually near the trashcan, so the people were so close to throwing it away, but didn't. After picking up it was a nice reward to just sit and relax on the beach. Now I know next time I go to the beach I'll spend some time to pick up some more trash to help out.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the Coastal Clean up. Since I am most likely going into marine biology I thought it was really important to clean up the beach. I was really surprised by the amount of cigarette butts we found. I feel like there was at least one cigarette butt every foot. Also, the amount of jellyfish that were washed up on the beach surprised me. I felt really bad for them and wanted to throw them back in. I did throw a couple back in but then one of the tentacles on one of them flew off. Something that really bothered me was when we were going around with a trash bag and yelling to our recorder that we found cigarette butts there was a lady laying in her chair putting her finished cigarettes on the ground. I was really surprised that someone would actually do that. I learned a lot about the amount of garbage that is all over the beaches. I never noticed how much there was until we had to pick it up and now I feel like that’s all I’m going to see when I go to the beach now.
ReplyDeleteThe coastal cleanup was a lot of fun once we got there and started to wake up. I’m not a morning person by any means, but the long ride allowed me to sleep on the way there and back so it wasn’t that bad. It was shocking how much trash is there if u look for it. I’ve never noticed that sort of thing when I go to the beach but I think I will now. Smokers really need to figure out a system with their cigarettes cause the amount we found was ridiculous. After the cleaning was finished I went into the water and just bounced around in the waves which was pretty fun. I didn’t notice a sea lice problem but I accidentally touched something slimy and saw that it was a pink jellyfish bigger then my head. I was out of the water in no time. But it was a good day and I got home without a sunburn.
ReplyDeleteThis event was a lot of fun. Although it was early on a Saturday morning it was nice to go all together to help a good cause. It was a beautiful day to be on the beach. It was a great feeling to be helping with the beach clean up because after I learned about all the trash that is left there and how it effected the environment, it really made me want to help out. it was astonishing how much trash we found. we found mostly cigarette butts. It was also really cool to enjoy the scenery and we saw a lot of beached jelly fish which i have never seen before. at the end we were able to go in the ocean but with all those jelly fish I was not about to go in and get stung. Overall I really liked the event because it showed the heart that Rollins really has to make a difference in the world.
ReplyDeleteThis activity was actually more fun than I expected it to be. I didn't picking up trash at a beach could be fun. I also didn't think people littered as much as they do. The thing that surprised me the most was the cigarettes that we found. There was over 700 and we weren't even close to getting them all. We also found a bunch of metal bottle caps and plastic. I felt good picking up the trash. It made me feel like I did something good and I was making a difference.
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