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| A sand flower I made at the Revere Sand Sculpture Festival |
It seems like there are no normal weeks anymore, but I'll never complain about that. This Monday was staff day, which we spent at Lovells Island! All of the SHSB staff are great people, and I loved spending a day just hanging out on the beach with them. We found a dead whale on the beach, which sounded pretty cool at first, but as we got closer we realized that the whale had been decomposing for several months, which was really gross and smelled horrible. Luckily our spot on the beach was very far away, but despite all of that it was still interesting to look at. Tuesday was a bit of a mix-up on our end: Courageous didn't need us this week, but we went anyways and ended up going straight home. Wednesday was a normal day at Piers Park, with a Jeopardy!-themed lesson about harbor facts. Some of the kids didn't fully understand the rules, but they still had fun answering questions and learning stuff. Thursday was similar, but with no lesson. Friday was a complete change of pace, as we went to the Beach Bash at Carson Beach! We had a ton of fun stations for the kids, including fishing, kayaking, sports, and I got to run the sand raking station! Sand raking is a form of art in which people draw on the sand with rakes. I had some practice from my time working with Andres Amador at the Sand Sculpture Festival this year, which helped a lot when teaching kids how to draw what they wanted.
This week, unfortunately, is my last full week this summer working at Save the Harbor. So, I wanted to take this blog in a slightly different direction than usual, to focus on one of the core reasons I work at Save the Harbor: environmentalism. Over the past few years, I've learned more and more about the importance of the natural world, between the research I do and the increasing amount of news articles describing imminent natural catastrophes. I've taken individual steps to lower my carbon footprint: I don't eat meat, I have reusable cutlery, and I don't buy single-use plastic water bottles, to name a few. That's nice and all, but if only a small minority of the population takes these steps there won't be much of a change. This is why my job is so important to me on a personal level. There won't be much change from my work now, but if I can help a future generation understand the importance of the natural world that goes so far beyond what my individual actions to that they become incomparable. Even if the kids I work with only walk away with one happy memory of fishing, or one thing they learned during lessons, that's one step closer to realizing how important it is to keep the world the way it is.
Song of the Week: Come Hang Out by AJR
SotW compilation playlist
See you next time,
~Colin McRae
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