Guided Reflection - Chasing Coral

   

     For this documentary project, I have chosen a documentary called Chasing Coral. I feel that the name really suits the documentary because as shown in a large amount of this documentary, they are literally chasing different coral reefs around the world that are beginning to die. Something about this documentary that really surprised me was how the divers were able to install these underwater cameras. The documentary shows many scenes of the scuba divers going underwater and installing cameras to take pictures of the bleaching process. The divers have to work together to hammer these cameras into the bottom of the ocean and it shows them fighting the gravity as they're trying to work. Their only way to communicate with each other is by sign language. At one point of the documentary, they realize that installing these cameras isn't working so they have to go underwater every single day to take pictures with a camera. The reason why I think that this caught me off guard was because sometimes it's hard enough to work with a group and you are able to speak to each other and you're not trying to fight gravity. They must work together to get the job done while also having little resources. 

    A specific scene that got to me was the scene where they showed that the coral reefs were fluorescent and not many people knew why. At this point of the documentary, the divers had to go underwater every day and some divers had about 60 sites that they had to visit. Over time they showed the process of the coral dying and it almost made me emotional. The coral would start out as a beautiful, colorful reef and as time went on, the coral began to turn white and then it would eventually die and grow algae. Coral reefs provide protection and food for tons of underwater creatures and now these beautiful corals are dying because of rising temperatures. They even began to become fluorescent which was their way of giving off a chemical sunscreen in hopes to reduce the temperature around them but even though its beautiful to look at, its actually dying. 

    Corals provide food for millions of people around the world and most importantly they protect us by absorbing the heat. Coral reefs absorb the heat so that the surface temperature of the planet can be lower. We continue to neglect coral and we fail to realize how much we are hurting the planet and how it affects us. The divers were taking pictures of corals dying every day and the people around them were oblivious to the things happening around them. It made me so sad to see how fast coral is dying and yet not many people know about it. I personally didn't know much about this topic until I watched this documentary and little did I know that coral plays such an important role in protecting the earth. It almost made me wonder what else I am oblivious to and what else surrounds me that plays a role in protecting us and keeping us alive. 

    A question that remained after viewing this documentary is, are these corals continuing to rapidly die to this day? I know that global warming is still happening and continuing to progress but are corals also continuing to rapidly die. What else are we doing to save the coral bleaching and global warming? We are are at a day and age where we have so much technology at our fingertips and so many resources but yet we continue to neglect the earth and one day we will reach the point of no return. I wondered how if my parents knew much about coral bleaching so I told them about the documentary that I watched and they were amazed by the information I was telling them. They had no clue that this pretty piece of coral could actually reduce the heat around us while also feeding its self by producing its own food and continuing to do all of this while protecting, and feeding the fish.  

    We might avoid including research in our summaries because unless you are writing a summary on something that was just recently produced, the facts may have changed from then. My documentary was created in 2017 and the facts shown in this are no longer the same as they are now. Our summaries are based on the facts in these documentaries and if you begin to include updated research then it can contradict what was shown in the documentary. The research may take away the point being made in the documentary by showing other views of the subject.