This week was pretty alright! Though our group spent most of our time researching accessibility at sites in South Boston and the Seaport, where we took a deeper look into how accessible various beaches and parks were, specifically concerning ease of transportation, and accessibility for people with disabilities. Though we weren't able to visit Carson Beach, we were still able to find valuable information through government websites like bostonharborislands.org, and we were able to find transportation information through Google Maps and the MBTA. One of the sites we looked at was the Lawn On D in the Seaport, which actually happened to be a privately owned park/event space, in spite of it being free and open to the public.
We also had the chance to learn about Beach Profiling during our outing at Winthrop, and learn about how data is collected regarding the mapping of shorelines. We got to work with some folks from the National Parks Service and collect REAL data on how Massachusetts' shoreline is changing due to global warming and coastal flooding. An interesting thing that I hadn't thought about was how costs impact the quality and accuracy of such environmental research. Though charting the shorelines with a precision-calibrated GPS was a lot easier and yielded better data, we learned just how prohibitively expensive it was to do so, and we got to see firsthand how tedious and often inaccurate it was to use the more affordable "Emery Boards". It was interesting for us to see environmental research in action, and to speculate on the practical aspect of said research.
Overall, a solid week to kick off August! Can't wait to see the Charles River next week!
-Albert
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