Monday, April 29, 2013
Third Beach Visit
Today was supposed to be our third beach visit, but unfortunately our water testing kit did not arrive in time. It's an unfortunate circumstance considering it is a gorgeous day outside! We are hoping to get out on Saturday which should also be a nice day.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Reflection
My entire reflection is shown as this blog, but here are some highs, lows, and more about the journey.
My service learning project is over half-way over, with only one more beach visit scheduled for Thursday, May 2. It has been an interesting and educational experience that let me discover the real problems that fact Lake Michigan.
Through this blog I was able to cover a bit about myself and what took place during the course of our service learning project. While going back and looking at the entries, I discovered two things:
1. Something needs to be done about the garbage on the beach
2. There needs to be a more efficient way to distribute water testing kits.
I'll start with my first discovery. The Bay View Park beach was absolutely filthy in some of its locations. It was incredibly depressing to see, especially after visiting Doctors Park in the north shore, which may have been one of the most pristine beaches that I've ever seen along Lake Michigan. Where Doctors Park had zero pieces of garbage seen on an hour long walk, Bay View Park's beach was covered. All along the beach we found cigarette butt upon cigarette butt, and way too many pieces of plastic for comfort. I feel that because of this a better educational system has to be set up by Milwaukee county to inform the citizens about the amount of trash they've created. Along side that, more garbage cans could be present along the beach, along with ashtrays or a beach-wide smoking ban. I know that Milwaukee is diverse when it comes to socioeconomic statuses, and that smoking is more common in those of lower SES. If the city could somehow implement more anti-smoking campaigns or educational programs it really could help to hopefully rid some of the cigarette related waste.
With the second issue, I feel it's a very minor complaint. I think that the Alliance for the Great Lakes has a wonderful program with Adopt-A-Beach. They are able to get in wonderful volunteers who care about Lake Michigan's health, and who take care of the problems I've discussed in this blog. The only problem is waiting on the water testing kits. It would be nice if volunteers could either pick up the kits at their local headquarters, or if kits for multiple visits were all shipped at once. The only problem foreseeable with that is the shelf-life of the Petrifilm. The media does have an expiration date, and it may be tricky to send out ones that can cover a large period of time.
Through this experience I learned that volunteering at a location not necessarily nearby can be difficult. Our assignment to Bay View Park beach lead to some difficulties due to availability of a car, bus routes, weather, etc. Unfortunately mother nature did not always play along, and April seemed rainy and cold. The beach was a great spot, I'm just thinking that it may be more enjoyable in the summer months, or maybe finally now that spring has decided to rear its head.
Personally, I found this experience to be a real eye opener and well worth experience. As mentioned earlier, the amount of trash found on the beaches was absolutely shocking. It was disgusting to see that that's how people treated a location that could be so gorgeous. I find it disconcerting that here we have wonderful free resource that people are so willing to trash.
This experience also was a real-life scenario showing why conservation is so important. The pollution at the beach was a problem for the biosphere and hydrosphere, being a problem for the water and than any life nearby. A lot of the plastic pieces were small and probably looked appetizing to the birds near by, which could cause problems for them internally. Thankfully we didn't stumble upon any toxic chemicals, but we're not able to comb all of the beach so who's to say that they aren't lurking nearby? It's scary to think about the environmental ramifications from just dumping trash at the beach.
This experience has also opened my eyes to the impact that just a handful of people can make. After our routine beach surveys we picked up litter on the beach, and it was so rewarding to look back over the area we cleaned and see how much better it looked. I think this was one of the best ways possible to see the principles of conservation in action. If more people participated in programs such as the Adopt-A-Beach, perhaps they'd realize the importance of our water sources and keeping them clean.
I appreciate the Adopt-A-Beach program for being a great way to see ecological restoration in action. The fact that the Alliance for the Great Lakes has taken the initiative to actually track the data and results from the visits shows a scientific bend to the beach monitoring, and not just a 'go-and-clean-up' attitude. By monitoring as they do they can pinpoint problem areas and perhaps even narrow down the sources of these problems. They are helping out Southeastern Wisconsin by making the beaches a safe and clean place to spend time. By monitoring the lakes they are helping with the sustainability of our water. They track things like pH changes, strange trash appearances, and animal deaths, all which can be indicators that something strange is afoot in Lake Michigan. This helps with sustainability as a problem can be identified early on hopefully solved immediately.
My boyfriend tagged along for a few of the beach trips, and we decided that we really enjoyed the Adopt-A-Beach program and that we will continue with it over the summer. It's our goal to recruit at least five more friends to tag along, with the hope that that will inspire them to start their own Adopt-A-Beach teams.
In addition to the Service Learning project itself, I have been keeping a blog documenting the project as a way to do a reflection. I think that it was a great idea, as I got to share what I was doing with friends and family, but also think back on what I was doing as I was doing it. Trying to re-word what I did and how I felt was sometimes difficult, but it really got me thinking about how much the trash on the beach REALLY bothered me. In addition, touching back on the friends and family portion, it was cool to see and hear from them about the experience. A lot of my family thought that it was a great project that we were taking part in, and a couple of friends have asked how they could get involved. It makes me happy to know that a project I was simply doing for class could actually make an impact on how others were thinking.
Personally, I found this experience to be a real eye opener and well worth experience. As mentioned earlier, the amount of trash found on the beaches was absolutely shocking. It was disgusting to see that that's how people treated a location that could be so gorgeous. I find it disconcerting that here we have wonderful free resource that people are so willing to trash.
This experience also was a real-life scenario showing why conservation is so important. The pollution at the beach was a problem for the biosphere and hydrosphere, being a problem for the water and than any life nearby. A lot of the plastic pieces were small and probably looked appetizing to the birds near by, which could cause problems for them internally. Thankfully we didn't stumble upon any toxic chemicals, but we're not able to comb all of the beach so who's to say that they aren't lurking nearby? It's scary to think about the environmental ramifications from just dumping trash at the beach.
This experience has also opened my eyes to the impact that just a handful of people can make. After our routine beach surveys we picked up litter on the beach, and it was so rewarding to look back over the area we cleaned and see how much better it looked. I think this was one of the best ways possible to see the principles of conservation in action. If more people participated in programs such as the Adopt-A-Beach, perhaps they'd realize the importance of our water sources and keeping them clean.
I appreciate the Adopt-A-Beach program for being a great way to see ecological restoration in action. The fact that the Alliance for the Great Lakes has taken the initiative to actually track the data and results from the visits shows a scientific bend to the beach monitoring, and not just a 'go-and-clean-up' attitude. By monitoring as they do they can pinpoint problem areas and perhaps even narrow down the sources of these problems. They are helping out Southeastern Wisconsin by making the beaches a safe and clean place to spend time. By monitoring the lakes they are helping with the sustainability of our water. They track things like pH changes, strange trash appearances, and animal deaths, all which can be indicators that something strange is afoot in Lake Michigan. This helps with sustainability as a problem can be identified early on hopefully solved immediately.
My boyfriend tagged along for a few of the beach trips, and we decided that we really enjoyed the Adopt-A-Beach program and that we will continue with it over the summer. It's our goal to recruit at least five more friends to tag along, with the hope that that will inspire them to start their own Adopt-A-Beach teams.
In addition to the Service Learning project itself, I have been keeping a blog documenting the project as a way to do a reflection. I think that it was a great idea, as I got to share what I was doing with friends and family, but also think back on what I was doing as I was doing it. Trying to re-word what I did and how I felt was sometimes difficult, but it really got me thinking about how much the trash on the beach REALLY bothered me. In addition, touching back on the friends and family portion, it was cool to see and hear from them about the experience. A lot of my family thought that it was a great project that we were taking part in, and a couple of friends have asked how they could get involved. It makes me happy to know that a project I was simply doing for class could actually make an impact on how others were thinking.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
First Official Beach Visit
This afternoon we had our first visit to the beach. At first we were worried that we'd have to hold off another day due to weather forecasts. This week has been raining nonstop and for this afternoon they were originally predicting thunder and lightning. For safety concerns we would have stayed off of the beach if there was lightning, but fortunately for us the forecast was wrong and just had to deal with it being overcast and chilly.
My partner for class, boyfriend, and I made it out later in the afternoon. The entrance to the beach was a bit difficult to find, but after a bit of driving around we found the beach.
Bay View Park's beach was not very busy, but this could have been due to the weather. It wasn't very warm and the overcast skies made for an unpleasant environment.
*Unfortunately there will not be pictures until I can find my camera's plug-in cord!
Some results from our visit:
My partner for class, boyfriend, and I made it out later in the afternoon. The entrance to the beach was a bit difficult to find, but after a bit of driving around we found the beach.
Bay View Park's beach was not very busy, but this could have been due to the weather. It wasn't very warm and the overcast skies made for an unpleasant environment.
*Unfortunately there will not be pictures until I can find my camera's plug-in cord!
Some results from our visit:
I. General Beach Conditions
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Water Testing Kit
If only the mail would work a tiny bit faster! Today (one day after our first scheduled outing!) our water testing kit arrived.
The kit came along with some of the handouts that Mr. Brennan had already given us, but it also came with the items we'd need to test Lake Michigan's water:
A Whirl-Pak for obtaining the water for sampling
Transfer pipettes for measuring the correct amount of water needed for sampling
Petrifilm for culturing of the sample
I'm excited for our first outing, as water testing is something that greatly interests me. The quality of the water and the presence of any harmful microbial growth is important both environmentally and for population health.
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