Living Shorelines: a Form of Coastal Management for the Future!

     For my final project, I chose to create an educational website revolving around the topic of green infrastructure or living shorelines. This project idea actually evolved from my long-term fascination with coral reefs and was inspired by the work conducted in two exceptionally influential courses I've taken here at Eckerd Coastal hazards and Environmental communication. This website was a continuation of my project produced in environmental education. Due to this, I decided to include this article on my website under the tab of additional resources. These factors all played a contributing role in my creation of this website and have caused me to become personally invested in advocating for the future of green infrastructure being at the forefront of coastal management efforts. 

Creating a website was a creative choice I decided to endorse as it was an entirely foreign form of communication that I had never attempted before. I liked the idea of being able to create a visually appealing interactive final product. While this did prove to be a more challenging task than anticipated specifically formatting wise I ultimately did genuinely enjoy learning how to construct one from scratch.  

Throughout the construction of this website, course concepts were incorporated and utilized to enhance the topic's compelling nature. In a broad sense, this website focused on providing the audience it attracted with a cohesive and accessible resource. In our course, we have discussed the positive influence doing such possesses when communicating larger and less acknowledged issues or solutions to the public. The website's array of incorporated media including brief easy to digest definitions, applicable examples, infographics, interactive maps, and links to additional reputable resources all contributed to this larger goal. Additionally, this communication foundation translated into the formatting aspect of the website with the educational tabs being presented as in conversation with one another. More specifically this project embodied the frames presented by Stoknes from the course's readings. Firstly, the Insurance frame was used within this project as it focused on shifting away from the typical approach of communicating these issues of identifying the associated cost coastal communities experience to highlighting the security and safety insured protectiveness that natural barriers have to offer. The usage of this allowed the website to “Tap into the desire of individuals to avoid future losses (Stoknes, 2015).” The losses incurred by property damages, the need to move, etc. as a consequence of coastal climate change is a common fear of coastal communities. Despite the truth of this, the website instead focused on highlighting the benefits that could be reaped from implementing living shorelines. Secondly, the Health and heart frame identified by Stoknes was used to move from destruction and degradation of coastal integrity to a more positive light showing what an investment in the health of natural resources can produce. Thirdly in this website's creation, I drew on the preparedness frame which allowed me to move from the uncertainty of onset weather damaging impacts to increased education needed to elevate the level of coastal preparedness and resilience. Each of these frames played a vital role in the creation of and the attitude through which the website's content was created (Stoknes, 2015). As discussed in class, the approach to communication relying on scaring people into action is ineffective so to mitigate this response these frames helped prevent the negative stigmas surrounding these coastal issues from overshadowing the positive potential solutions they have to offer. 

The strategy of promotion used to spread awareness of this website through creation and content among the target audience relied on social media. This website was therefore featured on multiple friends and my own stories urging viewers to engage with the link displayed. In addition to this and to increase the ease of visiting the website I created a scannable QR code. I then imported this into canva and created a flier. Although I was not able to get this approved in time by the school to be hung up, I did utilize it. I carried it around with me and when I saw people around campus that I knew, I was able to persuade them to scan the code and engage with the website due to the convenience of an available code. 

The finalized website product is divided into five sectioned tabs displayed at the top of the page including home, about, education, feedback, and get involved. Firstly, in the home section, the viewer is presented with a captivating image of a coastline, my mission statement, as well as three featured sections below. Secondly, the about section contains a short blurb disclosing my background and my reasoning behind the website as a whole. Thirdly and most importantly, the education section is the core of this website and contains the majority of sub-tabs and my research. This part is all sectioned into all relevant groupings falling underneath this topic. Following this, is the feedback section where viewers are encouraged to leave any anecdotes concerning the website, their opinions, and or remaining questions they wish to see. Lastly, I created a get involved forum section which was a more hypothetical idea I came up with. While I didn't particularly expect this section to receive much traction throughout this short-term project I do believe that in theory, it could generate a great response if it were to reach a larger audience than solely the target one of the students selected for this project's objective. 

Website link: https://orwogan.wixsite.com/livingshorelines

Ultimately I would consider this project to have been a success as I surpassed and over doubled my initial goal of obtaining 20 site visits and receiving a few comments signifying deeper engagement with the content. While all the comments made were kind and affirmed the work I put into this website's creation the comment stating “This makes me wish there was a direct call to action for Eckerd students like me who could maybe contribute in some small way. This website is definitely a good little tool for learning about these issues and initiatives” specifically stood out to me as I reviewed them. This feedback inspired me to add another highlighted article to the home page. This selected article was inserted as a response to this comments message and to serve the target audience of Eckerd College students as an inspirational model of living shorelines implementation here on campus. This comment additionally resonated with me as it validated that my efforts to inspire action and evoke feelings of personal investment were effective. As global climate change continues to ubiquitously impact coasts the relevance of this website's main communicated issues becomes evermore pertinent. If we truly hope to ensure that coastal regions maintain both their inherent ecological and anthropogenic values in the future we must invest in the concept and bring emphasis on the essential role of educational resources such as this website into our current spectrum. As Stoknes says in his book global climate change urges us to reform our mindsets “from seeing barriers to seeing solutions” with this project in mind and within the field of coastal management the types of barriers used can actually become the solutions we seek (Stoknes, 2015). 

Resources: 

Home. Livingshorelines. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://orwogan.wixsite.com/livingshorelines 

Stoknes, P. E. (2015). What we think about when we try not to think about global warming: Toward a new psychology of climate action. Chelsea Green Publishing.