Reflection

Reflection

Trips to the Santa Rosa Island Research Station with my school have instilled within me a great desire to promote the stewardship of natural resources and cultivate an appreciation for nature in its truest form. It dawned on me that we play a key role in promoting the welfare of our environment, and the beauty of Santa Rosa Island really opened my eyes to a world beyond the city life that I am accustomed to. The island has a rich and intriguing history and remarkable biodiversity, including its native species; the protection of these was a primary reason I dedicated time on the island to ensure the proper care of the ocean wildlife. The current restoration efforts on the island have showed me that there is hope in encouraging a society to change its current state of mind that doesn’t pay much regard to our ecosystems and their creatures. And with this in mind, I thought that drawing this picture, on the effects of oil spills, would be a great way to spread this message. My artwork, “Helping Hands,” depicts gloved hands trying to rescue a seagull trapped in the oil. As the oil drips from the orange gloves and strikes the water below, puddles of oil are formed. Trapped within those puddles are a sea turtle and a sand crab, two of the many innocent victims of the oil spill.