Name: Lars

Social Justice Group: 2018-2019, Environment: Plastic Pollution

Date of Fieldwork: January 7, 2019

Name of Organization: WCS

Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Noah Chesnin and Edward Perri, docents at the New York Aquarium

Type of Fieldwork: Tour of Organization

What I did:

We went on a tour of the NYC Aquarium, with the oceans group. We got to see the inside and outs of the of the aquarium, and along the way got facts about the ocean and pollution.

What I learned:

On our trip there was a plastic section, unfortunately the tour guide said that we needed to leave if we will make the rest of the tour, so we missed some information that we might or might not have learned. I learned that more then 5,000 cigarette butts are harming the oceans, and 50% of all sharks are endangered mostly because of humans.

What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:

I learned that informing the public can sometimes take a lot of money. Our tour guide said that the shark exhibit itself costs over $165,000. $100,000 was funded by the NYC government, that means that over $65,000 dollars came from private donations. This shows that even little donations to things you care about can help them a lot. It also proves that having a good government leader can help lots of social justice causes.