In the whole city of Surat, there is only one beach. The Dumas Beach is comparatively a large space for tourists and locals. It is always crowded with people from all over the city. Since it is the only popular beach it is always polluted and littered. This beach is old and has been a part of the city for a long time now. Over the years the condition of the beach has only worsened with pollution. Although urbanization and increase in civilization around the beach also lead to a lot of pollution – the lack of awareness and mindfulness is the root cause of the dirt. The objective of the beach clean-up was to not only clean as much as we could but also set an example for others watching. The aim of this experience was to more importantly let people know at the beach why they should not pollute the beach and keep it clean. While cleaning the beach we saw how careless people were as even though they saw us cleaning it they were still throwing trash on the beach. The final aim for us was to clean the beach and keep the environment clean, we also installed trash cans on the beach.
LO5: during this entire experience we were a group of friends who took this initiative. We were a lot of people but we divided ourselves into groups of three so that we can clean more in less time and also because of the protocols for covid-19. During this time we all were well prepared as we knew before the activity what we were going to do and we had discussed it prior to the activity. By working in groups we were able to work more efficiently and on an indivisible basis we were able to enhance our communication skills and learn how to cooperate with our colleagues. We all were responsible and performed the activity with sincerity and determination. In the group which I was in it was easy for me to cooperate with them as we know each other from years and all the three of us have been good friends. Whenever we had to make a decision all of us gave their inputs and then we came to one conclusion which is approved by all. It is important to work collaboratively with others as in the future this is going to be a very important skill for us. For example, working with other employees in a firm will definitely require working collaboratively to complete different tasks.
LO6: The waste on the beach has a lot of bigger significance on our environment. Littering on the beach has many other impacts on our environment. The waste we throw usually ends up in the ocean and the plastic and other trash harms marine life and damages biodiversity. With that it also causes pollution. Being a citizen of this world, looking at this worries me and in school I understand the importance of biodiversity and why it is important to preserve our environment. By harming the ecosystems we hamper a lot of other things which are essential for the survival of all living creatures. Knowing about the global issues contributes to my personal growth as I would try to take actions upon those global issues and it will increase my knowledge about the different cultural, ethical, political, economical, issues as well. One of the sustainable development goals is ”life below water”, cleaning the beach will take actions for this global issue and it will help to improve the life below water.
LO7: The ethical issues that were involved in this activity were that we conducted this experience while there was a global pandemic going on, travelling and meeting more people was just going to increase the chances of the virus spreading more. We were following all the protocols given by the government but still there was a huge risk attached to it, and to some extent I think that it was not right for us to make such groups and go for a group cleaning when there was a global pandemic going on. These ethical issues were affecting me directly as if any of us would have been positive there was a chance that the virus could have affected all of us, and then it can further create a chain where my family and other friends would also get affected by the virus. Hence this ethical issue affected me directly.
After every beach clean-up, I was a reflector to think about the purpose of the activity along with my impact as an individual. I reflected upon how this connects to a few learnings from my ESS classes. Although this may not be a direct relation we learned about water pollution and how damaging certain materials can be to marine animals. How beaches are a huge medium to worsen these pollutants. I also developed the learner profile characteristic of caring. This activity benefited my community because it created an impact on everyone watching us. I definitely think of it as a success. After cleaning the beach, all of us felt a sense of enjoyment and accomplishment. We felt so good that we were all able to work together and clean such a huge area of the beach. We also got a lot of appreciation from the locals and said that they will also continue cleaning the beach just like we did. If I did this activity again I would like to change the time in which we conducted this activity as we needed to understand that the time in which we were doing this was not right and it could have affected and increased the spread of the virus.
EVIDENCE:
Photo evidences:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n5U31HiWw5OGWCJ20ipRmICCymAaf6bLyVe39CkVMVU/edit?usp=sharing