CRP Individual Essay

The City College of New York

CRP Individual Essay 

Public Awareness Campaign for Ocean Pollution

Mavel Hidalgo

Writing for the Sciences (English – 21003)

Professor Matias

06 December 2022

My group members and I were assigned to create a Public Awareness Campaign using a word press site. The overall experience with this project was good. We all got the chance to learn new and valuable information about our ocean and how we make an impact as a society. We learned about the types of pollutants which invade our oceans, advertisement tactics, as well as ways in order to attract the publics attention. 

We started the process of our project by getting together and brainstorming on topics which would coincide with our prompt. Since we were assigned a Public Awareness Campaign, we decided to direct our focus on situations which are impacting our society as a whole. We discussed topics of poverty, homelessness, animal rights, then eventually decided on Ocean Pollution. This topic was our best option since ocean pollution movements aims towards educating the general public on the impact small things, we all do, have on the ocean, environment, and animals. 

Once we had agreed on the topic with which to base our project on, we went on to divide the workload. Based on the prompt, we were to make a WordPress site utilizing CUNY Academic Commons. Menus were needed in order to organize our message, because of this we decided to separate and categorize the information for the site by menus. This tactic made the processes of working and interacting with other group members easy. We also interacted through a WhatsApp group chat, and this helped keep communication ongoing throughout the entire process. 

Early into working on our project, we had discussed who the targeted audience was. It was determined this campaign was targeted towards the general public, climate change and animal rights activists, as well as decision makers. This is because our goal is to further advocate for ocean life and health. With the help of decision makers as well as the support of the public and activist we are able to raise awareness about ocean pollution.

I believe this is a relatable topic because the majority of the general public is guilty of aiding in pollution whether that is unintentionally or in mass amounts. Littering, even if on small accounts and poor waste management are examples of things, we do that causes marine trash to build up. It impacts humans directly too, not just the environment and animals. Land sources which are then disposed incorrectly like plastic bottles and bags are ingested by marine animals like fish. Fish which have ingested plastic are then caught and ingested by humans which could be potentially harmful. This is all a cycle and because of it, I believe that the topic of ocean pollution is relatable to me and the everyone in our society.

The rhetorical moves which we employed in our project was a professional and adaptive tone to our information. We provided our audience with enough information to understand the narrative with enough room in order to make up personal opinions. Logos and Pathos was used to persuade our audience with empathy towards ocean health and life. This helps in presenting the audience with enough to attract them to care more about the issue at hand with empathy. Objective data and statistics about the increasing rates of Ocean Pollution can help the audience in understanding the overall magnitude of the issue. The rhetoric moves which we employed in our project were successful. I believe that the objective information used, the empathetic tone as well as the general layout of the project presents that. 

All my group members cooperated well with each other, we all worked on our specific tasks accordingly and with no set back. If anyone at any given moment was stuck or needed help, they would announce it in the group chat and then we would try to help. I do not believe anyone worked harder than anyone else since we tried to divide the workload evenly and fairly. Ideas towards the layout of the site, color coordination and fonts were pitched as idea, and it was then decided. We all tried contributing the most at any given moment in order to make our project a success.