Project 1 Rough Draft

Walking through the doors of my junior year of high school the administration told us to make the most of the year because it’s the most important year of your high school career. Up to that point I had only taken honors classes so I decide to take an AP class. The class that the counselor suggested was called Environmental Science. Other students told me that the class was one of the easier AP classes and that I should be able to pass it without too much worry. The other students were right it was not a hard class if you did the work and studied for the exams, but it was also a very informative class about many topics that are not normally taught in other science classes. The one chapter that piqued my interest the most was when we finally started talking about ocean systems and their environments. I was excited the whole two weeks while learning about this chapter due to my love for the ocean and scuba diving. It’s sad to say that didn’t happen very often in my high school classes. We would learn about the community of reefs and how reefs help us humans on land. As we were going through the chapter we got to a section where it talked about how coral reefs are dying. My teacher explained that the cause of the reefs dying was by human greed and lack of understanding and respect for the ocean. For me it was sad and scary to look at the differences between what our ocean reefs used to look like and what they looked like presently in some parts of the world. In diving all over the world I have seen the most beautiful reefs and now was aware they were dying.

During one of the lectures my teacher showed us a series of pictures from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the impact of years of abuse. It was a vivid depiction of the dying reef. I learned that in in the last decade the effects of climate change had slowly changed the temperature of the water and was causing coral beaching. The color of a coral comes from the algae living in the coral. An increase in water temperatures causes the coral to become stressed and this stress causes the coral expel the algae living on it. All of this is caused by global warming. But, that is just one reason the reefs are dying. There is ocean acidification, over fishing and the list goes on and on. After sitting in class and studying the reasons why the reefs were dying and how quickly it was occurring I was shocked. I also learned that the reefs in my home town of Palm Beach Florida were also starting to see the effects of these man made problems.

There are so many benefits to a healthy coral reef including them being the home to almost 25 percent of all fish that live in the ocean. When healthy coral reefs around the world are responsible for feeding millions of people. With the death of coral reefs the fish will either have to migrate to where they are able to live, or they will end up dying alongside the coral reef. The estimate that we learned in class was that sixteen percent of the coral reefs have been destroyed. Another major benefit of a healthy coral reef is the protection that it offers as a natural barrier against erosion. This of course will impact the cities and beaches along the coastline. But, without this natural protection and the erosion on the sea floor hurricanes become even more dangerous.

Unfortunately most people do not understand the importance of coral reefs nor do they know about them dying. Unless you snorkel or dive you would not even know what a healthy or unhealthy reef look like and I believe this is one of those things you need to experience to believe it is happening. The next generation of kids won’t have the chance to experience the beauty of the coral reef if something dramatic is not done soon. Through my class I did learn that there are some organizations that are working on fixing this problem so it is not 100% out of sight out of mind. This class may have not been the most intriguing class that I have taken, but it has represented and shown be the love for coral reefs. It has even brought me closer to some of my friends who share similar interests as me. We have to keep these things around.