Field Trip at Santa Monica Beach
Your assignment is to take a "field trip": a nature walk, a tour around your neighborhood, a bicycle ride, a trip to the city, or any kind of journey by any mode of transportation, that gets you out into your environment. Observe your surroundings, make of note things, situations, and people's behavior from the new lens the course has given you to see things from the perspective of environmental ethics. There are a number of ways of approaching this assignment. You might have a particular place in mind that is environmentally sensitive or that has been designated as susceptible to environmental pollution. You might want to visit the local dump, a recycling center, or a wastewater treatment plant. You could take a trip to the beach, to a waterway or river area, take a walk on a wilderness trail, or drive out to the desert areas where people recreate on weekends and vacations to see if these areas are being abused or suffer from littering and pollution. You could visit the zoo or animal park, or even go to a farm or food-processing plant.
The idea is to apply what is really going on in the world-your lifeworld, as the phenomenologists call it. This everyday world is our true environs, or surrounding world. This assignment is an attempt to return to the place where, in a certain sense, you already are--as part of the world, as part of nature--you are investigating a more significant part of your self-identity. Observe carefully what you see, hear, smell, and feel. Try to take things in from the perspective of an environmental ethic, as you consider the various concepts of nature, land, and our world overall as an ecologically interdependent system.
Your assignment is to write a report that details your experience with as much specificity as possible. Here are some questions to think about as you write your report.
What were you expecting to encounter?
What, precisely, did you observe?
How did you decide where to go or what to look for?
Did anything you studied cause you to see things differently than you have in the past?
How did adopting the phenomenological approach (seeing the world from the standpoint of pure subjective experience) affect your relationship to the environment during the field trip?
Did you make any critical discoveries or notice anything interesting or surprising (or shocking!) about the environment or area you visited?
Which ecophenomenological philosopher impacted your thinking most when writing this report?
Assess anything you may find in terms of environmental and ecological sustainability issues and, if possible, come up with a recommendation for a possible solution or way to improve the situation, should you find a problem or environmentally sensitive situation. If you find no problems, perhaps you have not traveled far enough; or perhaps you live in an area that is well attuned to environmental conservation issues and engages in sustainability practices. If that is the case, explain what is being done right.
try adopting the "phenomenological attitude" (this is what Husserl calls the "phenomenological reduction") as you take a fresh look at your environment. See if you can "bracket out" your habitual thought patterns and preconceived ideas about what you are seeing and experiencing--try looking at the world with the "fresh" eyes of the phenomenologist.
Please include images, maps, charts, diagrams, or even links to video clips in your Essay.
Field Trip: Santa Monica Beach
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Field Trip: Santa Monica Beach
I decided to travel along the Pacific Coast Highway of Santa Monica Beach for my environmental field trip project. Arguably the most famous and attractive spot globally, Santa Monica State Beach draws tourists worldwide daily. The City of Santa Monica and California State Park jointly maintain the three-mile-long State Beach, which has 99 hectares of sand. Santa Monica has several outstanding landmarks for a state celebrated for its symbols. Many can be found along its 5.6 kilometers of famed Pacific Ocean shoreline, known for its surfable waves and waterfront entertainment. The attraction's focal point is the famous Santa Monica Pier, which rises above the water and illuminates the sky with its solar-powered Ferris wheel. Santa Monica Beach, which lies approximately west of Downtown Los Angeles, is an iconic representation of the renowned Southern California state beaches. Santa Monica Beach offers various recreational opportunities, including miles of beach, bike tracks, and other attractions. The Santa Monica Pier is located in the central area of the beach, which stretches from Colorado Boulevard and the heart of Santa Monica. The pier, which has a theme park, aquarium, Ferris wheel, restaurants, stores, and more, is a hallmark of the capital and the beach.
Image showing Santa Monica Beach
I came here because it's the beach nearest to my house. Since numerous households would be here on the weekends, I thought the beach would be a wonderful spot to spend the day, particularly for this project. I had hoped to see some ocean animals before coming here, but unfortunately, I was unsuccessful. I had visited the beach before and could photograph a dolphin and a sea lion each time. That might be because I was not as close to the dock as usual, where I usually run across them. I removed my sandals when I got there and sank my foot into the warm, smooth sand. I started to move toward the water and set my beach towel down. I lay down, shut my eyes, and inhaled deeply. My nose tingled at the scent of the clean ocean water. Due to my busy lifestyle, I barely have time to visit the beach once or twice a year. I closed my eyes and paid great attention to everything around me. There were other audible sounds in the background that were all strangely familiar. Children were yelling and running around, alternative rock music was coming from the speakers, a family was talking happily next to me, and I could hear the waves lapping against the coastline. After some time, I chose to pack up my things and go for a walk along the shoreline.
I felt the chilled ocean water washing through the bottom of my foot as I drew nearer to the water's surface, and I felt large pieces of seaweed getting tangled around my toes. I have never seen a beach with so much garbage. Seaweed bunches were scattered all over the shoreline. As I continued to stroll, I encountered a beer bottle encircled by seaweed. I returned to the drier ground as the sun started to set gently. I walked on what I assumed was plastic while strolling on the sandy ground. However, as I reached down at my toe, I was shocked to see that I had also stepped on a little pile of rubbish in addition to a plastic bottle. A little piece of plastic bags, cigarette buds, alcohol cans, and used scratchers were among the items found.
I kept walking along the shore and eventually arrived at the Pico-Kenter storm drain. It smelled like gasoline and motor oil, which was unpleasant. Since there was plenty of garbage, I had no idea where to start. Tons of plastic containers, a can of coke, used chip containers, paper bags with dog waste, and the list were all floating everywhere. How could humans be so disregardful of their surroundings? The debris spread out in front of me will eventually find its way into the ocean, the habitat of beautiful marine life. Our marine wildlife is perishing as a result of all these waste materials. Since they ingest so much garbage, mistaking it for food, we often hear them drifting up to the coastline dead. I was disappointed to see so much trash on the beach. Still, there is promise in a new project that might lessen the detrimental effects of stormwater and significantly improve the area's water supply quality: Los Angeles County's Clean Water, Clean Beaches Measure (Catanzaro, 2019). Through this program, citizens of Los Angeles County have the chance to lessen dangerous waste and pollution in rivers and safeguard nearby drinking water supplies from contamination.
The amount of garbage at Santa Monica Beach is a depressing sight. Rain takes high concentrations of debris directly to the waters during the first flush, the first substantial rain of the season. The First Flush frequently introduces larger concentrations of debris, an...