Charles River Chronicles :))

    This week my group was at Constitution beach in East Boston. It was a hot one, but we still managed to get our work done and still have some fun. For our deliverable we made a Where's Waldo kind of picture, but it was a drawing of Constitution Beach and you had to find hidden crabs within the picture. However, I think the best part of the week was going kayaking as a group... socially distancing though! Since Covid-19 has made it hard to get together as a big group, we do the best we can to make it work. It felt really good to get to see some familiar faces that I haven't seen in a very long time. I kayaked with my friend Vanessa and to say we struggled would be an understatement. We just weren't coordinated enough to do this so we ended up just drifting and seeing where that took us. We did have a hard time going straight, but at the end of the day it might have been one of the best days I've had all summer just because of the laughs and genuine fun of it all.

A group picture of some STH staff right after kayaking.

    The theme of this week was environmental justice, which means being treated equally on your well being no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from. Some examples of environmental justice is the lack of access to food, transportation, air and water pollution, and being in a dangerous or unstable living situation. Minorities face many challenges in the world because many are less fortunate than others, so they would be the most likely to be affected by this. With coronavirus spreading and people losing their jobs, that means many families will go without a good income, impacting their food supply and living situation. In Boston, Boston Public Schools set up many locations in the area where kids and families can get a free meal so they don't go hungry. This kind of topic needs attention brought to it or it will get swept under the rug. Since this generation of people use their phones all the time and have social media accounts, we could use them to get the word out. Hopefully, if we do that, the right people will see it and make the change. One person can't do this all by themselves so we as a community should all try to do our part and try to make the world a better place for everyone.

Sea you out there!

- Madi

A picture of me in the kayak on the Charles River.