Global Perspectives Team Project Reflection Paper-

Varnieka Anil
For our GP team project, we decided to choose the topic of “Marine Conservation”. Our aim was the
spread awareness of how the Oceans are polluted through various means, such as Oil Spills, Plastic
pollution, how it affects humans and our lives every day, and how we wanted to contribute the finding
a solution by drafting our own creative solutions, along with monetary values and a project plan.
We conducted a seminar and displayed our research and efforts in a PPT, which we created with the
help of the software named “CANVA”. The presentation was created in a span of 3 days, all online,
and the research took 2 days.

Our PPT consisted of the following contents:

This clear cut list of topics went in-dept about the vast-ness of the subject, and in each slide, we belive
that we have explained these sub-topics in proper detail, while also making it understandable and
consise from the audience point of view.
These outcomes, collectively, elaborate on the fact that Marine pollution is a very
widespread issue and there is a need for awareness. Awareness will dissuade
Teenagers and young adults (Our target audience) from harming the environemnts and help
organisations to solve the issue.

Evaluation:
Analysing the strengths and weaknesses of our work processes

Looking through the experience, I would say we had our equal share of ups and downs during the
making of the presentation.

When we were first assigned the topic and project, we were equally all enthusiastic about the project,
but as time passed, things started to go in a different direction. For one, some team members were late
to meetings, or never attended in the first place, and our first few research sessions felt unproductive,
with our team constantly getting sidetracked. As my teammated were quite unserious during the
research, I felt it was up to me to take on a significant portion of the workload, along with the stress of
the deadline approaching. My focus was on making sure that the presentation, and the whole idea of
the seminar was done perfectly, with every fact properly researched, to a point where we wouldn't
need to even read the slides during the seminar. However, my teammates didn't express that opinion
and seemed less worried about perfecting the details, which caused tension. Admiteddly at the time, I
personally felt as though they were downplaying the whole assignment, which made me feel insecure
about caring too much. At one point i started to feel like i was overreacting, which made me feel like a
bad teammate.

As a teammate, I felt like I wasn’t being a good teammate because I ended up doing most of the
research and PPT work by myself, without collaborating as much as I wanted to, and as much as i
actually should have.. I also found myself brainstorming alone instead of asking the team for ideas,
which left me feeling isolated.

Still by the end of the project, the team and I did take the time to understand each and everyones
slides,and we spent a session modifying it to their on ideas and perspectives, which helped me
understand their opinions better. I belive this was a true personal learning moment for me, as I
realized how important collaboration and listening to others is in a team.

At the end, I did a good job of completing the work and understanding the topic myself, but I could
have been more open to sharing the workload and listening to my teammates earlier on.

However the rollercoaster wasn’t over, as we were hit with a challenge when one teammate
completely forgot what they needed to present. This stressed us out a bit, but we managed to pull it off
by helping the teammate and smoothy deliver the seminar.

Looking through our aims, I believe we achieved our desired outcome, but I do regret that we had not
collaborated more throughout the process. I also had alot of perosnal learnings, especially in terms of
being less controlling (Especially under the cover as a “leader”) and being more mindful of others
personalities. In the future, I will learn to find a balance between always attemtpting perfection and
embracing teamwork, while also respecting different working styles.

My personal Learnings:

Throughout this experience, I learned alot of lessons about teamwork and environmental issues.
As a teammate, I realized that listening attentively to others perspectives and accepting that they
might not align with mine and understanding how people work differently in a team are essential for
the overall success. I belive that this helped me in improving my communication and leadership skills,
in the future I hope to better guide the team and make collaborative decisions. I also gained deeper
insights into the environmental impact of oil spills and toxic algal blooms. Oil spills can cause
long-term damage to marine systems, while algal blooms can harm all and pose health risks to
humans (NOAA, 2020; WHO, 2021). Marine pollution continues to be a significant global issue,
affecting so many ecosystems and I learnt how harmful they really are. (European Commission, 2022;
United Nations Environment Programme, 2020).

I learned how to calculate the costs of environmental solutions and propose practically creative
measures to address these issues. By developing my own ideas I gained confidence in creating
solutions that balance environmental and economic concerns..

To conclude, this experience has taught me that effective teamwork, leadership, and a strong
understanding of environmental issues are essential to tackling challenges like marine pollution. I
hope to improve my communication and collaboration skills so I can contribute to team projects more
efficiently and understand other people who have different opinions and perspectives on the topic. I
also hope to combat more issues as a team and come up with more sustainable solutions in the future.

Word count of Reflection: 1000 words

Total word count: 1075 words (including the Title, and references)
References

European Commission. (2022). Marine pollution and its impact on the environment.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (2020). Oil spills.

World Health Organization. (2021). Toxic algal blooms and their effects.

United Nations Environment Programme. (2020). Pollution in the oceans: A global issue.

United Nations (2019). The human cost of marine pollution.