Chasing Coral: Guided Reflection

     The documentary I decided to watch for the documentary project was Chasing Coral. I love nature and the idea of learning more about the world we live on was mainly the reason I chose to watch this documentary. Marine life has always interested me; even as a little kid, I remember having a greater interest in seals and sea lions because they always reminded me of my dogs. The only sort of previous knowledge I had going into watching this documentary was from what we watched in class. I knew almost right away, however, that this would probably be the documentary of my choosing. Multiple scenes stood out to me, but I was most touched by people's reactions to the footage that these researchers captured of coral bleaching. These researchers put forth so much time, effort, and thought into how to capture coral bleaching with video footage. The documentary takes the audience through the process of placing specially designed time lapse cameras in these areas where they suspect coral bleaching would happen. 

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    These camera's were specially designed for underwater, because normal camera's wouldn't be able to withstand the pressure or film at such a high quality for an extended period of time. Nonetheless, I'd have to say watching the culmination of their work being presented in front of an audience and seeing their reaction's to this rare event of coral bleaching was the most touching part of the documentary for me. Some of the audience members were crying as their film was being played, which made me think of the researchers crying and the hard work they put in to even capture this film. It's touching to see how many people care, but also tragic to see little action and coverage on this immensely impactful species. That's one of many things that surprised me, however, I was most surprised when the coral was almost creating a sunscreen for itself to defend itself from the rising ocean temperatures. The fluorescent color they were giving off in the documentary was beautiful to witness, and knowing that the coral were trying to defend themselves gave me a glimmer of hope. 

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    I have many questions after watching this film, but I think the most important question would be what is the future of coral reef? I wonder if our future generations will be able to witness one of the most important factors of the ocean's ecosystem. I wonder when changes will be made to help preserve our Earth, not only for trees, coral, other animals, and so forth, but for the human race. Disappointment was one of the biggest feelings I had after watching this documentary, mainly because I feel like other species are being negatively impacted because of human actions. One can only hope that we find alternatives to preserve our Earth, because we only have one. Research shouldn't be included in one's summary because that's not work that the person writing the summary did, which then adds other people's perspective thus making the summary not entirely one's own.