Kirsten Garrison
Choose Well
This concept merged from my need for positivity during covid. During the middle of the pandemic and everything that was happening in the world I felt as though I needed to find a positive that came from this horrible world altering experience. From this I discovered the positive effect that COVID has had on the environment.
Due to the high restrictions and mandates that everyone experienced, research has found that we have reduced the amount of air pollution, water pollution, and noise pollution. This in turn has shown to have great effects, including but not limited to a rise in population of humpback whales, an increase in wildlife making a known appearance outside their usual territory, and an overall spike in animal behavior. This positive reaction gave me the thought of “how can we take this positive effect and further it along?”
To answer this question, I had to find a starting place. I myself have cared about the environment and have wanted to make changes in my life but due to lack of funds, my living situation, and my overall lack of encouragement I had not fully started to make those changes, and the ones I had I did not feel went very far.
This made me think, “There has to be other people like me.” So, I started my survey. I asked people questions that were focused on the environment but not biased. After receiving my results, I realized that my hypothesis was correct. People do care about the environment and want to make change; however, most people are not educated enough, have the correct resources, or lack encouragement just like me.
So therefore, this led to the discovery of a community I did not know existed. Beginning environmentalist who wants to make a change but needs a place to start. People, I learned need encouragement, resources, and knowledge to make a difference. With this, out of all my questions, one of the largest discoveries I made is 100% of the people I interviewed said with enough people environmental change can happen.
This project exists to better the environment, sealife, and wildlife. This project gives those who want to make a change in their life for the betterment of the environment and wildlife a chance, without it being life altering, or too difficult. I decided to take the beginning environmentalist with slight changes approach, because it is the most effective way to make change without it being overwhelming, along with it covering a community that has not been given the opportunity to make this change.
An engaging way that I can explore this topic is by experiencing this in my own life, and making these changes so that this topic is not only explored on a material level, but also a experiential way.
