Local Beach Guidelines and Recommendations for New Jersey

Please refer to the syllabus for details as to what to include in the Idea Book Journal. Primarily this Idea Book will include your responses to the book you are reading, your responses to the discussions in the "Resource Sharing" thread, as well as descriptions of the site visits that you have taken. There will be prompts and assignments posted here below with more details throughout the course which you will also include in your Idea Book Journal.
Note: The writing in your Idea Book Journal should be completed throughout the course of the term, not left until the last minute. However, when writing prompts are assigned for the Idea Book Journal, you do not need to submit your written responses until the Idea Book Journal is complete. You may submit any time once you have reached 20 pages.
As you prepare for your first non-virtual beach site visit, please take the time to be thoughtful about any precautions that you would need to consider. Research local beach guidelines and recommendations for the New Jersey beach you are planning to visit this week. Use critical analysis in your written response to create your own safety parameters for your own beach behavior. Write a two-paragraph analysis of how you have come to a sense of peace with your own sense of safety on your local beach this summer. (If you do not feel comfortable visiting a local beach, and are planning to only have a virtual visit, discuss your own interpretation of sensible behavior during a pandemic.)
For extra credit, see if you can find safety precautions in relationship to beaches on the CDC website.
Enjoy this video of California surfers. Then compare to surfers you have seen on your trip this week to a New Jersey beach. In particular compare the specific use of musculature, balance, aerodynamics, and water dynamics. Aim to write two to three paragraphs.(https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=mTc0ulqQdg8)
Check out this book preview of Joanna Burger's book A Naturalist Along the Jersey Shore. You will find the table of contents to be inspiring, as well as her approach to the beach critters of the Jersey Shore. After you have read and surveyed this preview do some research of your own to find a naturalist, such as Burger, who is uncovering other beach life on other shores and beaches around the world. Write several pages in your Idea Book which discuss how a naturalist sees the shoreline, in a similar way, or dissimilar to the perspective of a shore biologist, ecologist, ecoactivist, meteorologist, atmospheric scientist, etc. Once you have found the writings of a naturalist who is surveying other beaches around the world, record some differences between those shore creatures and the beach fauna of the Jersey Shore.
Then set off on a couple beach site visits of your own imagining yourself to be a naturalist on the beach shore. What are you now seeing that you didn't see before? How do you notice the way that humans interact with these beach creatures, or do they not? Notice also how the style and pace of your writing change as you observe the movement and pace of action of disparate beach animals. (https://www(dot)amazon(dot)com/Naturalist-Along-Jersey-Shore/dp/0813523001) (click "look inside" to read preview or order full book)
Enjoy this video of a yoga practice on the beach and let it inspire you for a virtual or live visit to the beach in which you notice how yoga will help you take care of your affective sensations and sensibilities. Write in your Idea Book Journal how some of these poses allow you the opportunity to be in a relationship with your own body, as well as nature. Aim to write two to three paragraphs. (https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=1-AJwAjoWR0)
Listen to and/or read this NPR feature that was published a year ago. Consider how much has changed in terms of our current understanding of Covid in relationship to warmer weather, and being outdoors. Choose two or three quotes that you would like to argue with in terms of your current understanding of warm weather and outdoor sociality in relationship to Covid. How does the activity of reflecting on a one-year-old analysis give you a clearer picture of how this summer might unfold in relation to Covid? Aim to write three paragraphs (one for each quote). (https://www(dot)npr(dot)org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/09/830297538/scientists-try-to-figure-out-if-summer-will-slow-the-spread-of-covid-19)
Read this brief article on flooding and beach erosion. Find one article on Superstorm Sandy, and one article on beach erosion in the last year of your favorite New Jersey beach. In writing describe your concern for the future of New Jersey beaches. (https://www(dot)app(dot)com/story/news/local/emergencies/2019/10/11/nj-weather-several-shore-towns-face-flooding-and-more-could-come/3941784002/)
Not many people seem to have heard about this 90-mile beach in Australia. Enjoy this video of the sunrise on the Ninety Mile Beach! Browse the site linked below and see if you can detect any ways that Australians are making use of their beaches in differing ways than what we do in New Jersey! Aim to write at least one to two paragraphs.
Sunrise at Ninety Mile Beach (https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=1MkPZ0UuPGQ)
Ninety Mile Beach Website (https://www(dot)visitmelbourne(dot)com/Regions/Gippsland/Things-to-do/Nature-and-wildlife/Beaches/Ninety-Mile-Beach)

Rachel Carson is considered to be the "mother of the modern ecological movement." Her book The Sea Around Us is not currently as well known as her more famous book The Silent Spring. Enjoy reading about The Sea Around Us, as well as five pages from that book which are included in the preview linked below.
Spend some time thinking about the interface between the beach shoreline of your favorite local beach and the scaled dimensions of the ocean as it impacts your beach. Consider, for example, the power and complexity of fluids and creatures one to two hundred yards away from the shoreline where swimmers bathe and cavort! Write a two-page response to your understanding of Carson and your observations on the relationship between recreational shore life and the larger dimensions of the ocean which easily begin two the three hundred yards out. (https://www(dot)amazon(dot)com/Sea-Around-Us-Rachel-Carson/dp/0190906766/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&qid=1623601933&refinements=p_27%3ARachel+Carson&s=books&sr=1-5&text=Rachel+Carson) (read the description and click "look inside" to read the preview, pages 3-8)
Enjoy watching this video of "beach culture" in South Beach (Miami). After watching the video write a paragraph in which you discuss how you understand "beach culture" after watching this video. Describe the rituals and activities you see taking place. What factors constitute cultural interchange and cultural signification? How would you consider "beach culture" to be different from what consider "high culture"?
(https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=XnnNNNrl6II)