Part A - Identification of the lens

On pages 107  - 108 Cronon writes:

"... we need to embrace the full continuum of natural landscape that is also cultural, in which the city, the suburb, the pastoral, and the wild each has its proper place, which we permit ourselves to celebrate without needlessly denigrating the others. ... . In particular, we need to discover a common middle ground in which all of these things, from the city to the wilderness can somehow be encompassed in the word "home". "

and in the last sentence of the essay:

"If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can start get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world - not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both."



Part B - Exhibit to be presented through the lens - description in an (hopefully) evocative manner

Village of Ocean Beach, Fire Island National Seashore, Suffolk (or is it still Nassau ?) County, State of New York, USA

A week ago I visited with my girlfriend a settlement on a thin barrier island on the mid-southern shore of Long Island, called Ocean Beach. It's a kind of destination where I go to get away from the city, to find myself in a different, more beautiful and greener world. As a ocean-front beach, it has a unique feature - its a place where you can literally face the the thousands miles wide expanse of open space called the Atlantic ocean.


Part C - Application of the lens to the exhibit

Demonstration of how Ocean Beach meets the terms of the definition of the particular lens, e.g.:

>>To me, it is an exemplary case of successful mixing of natural and human factors in making of a place.<<

Could be also self-evident, if the descriptive part of an essay contained elements clearly identifiable to to the reader as either natural or man-made.

 Point out that (probably) all the species that existed there before the arrival of the Europeans, exist there know. The most striking example would be deer family strolling leisurely between the houses and the dunes.

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Notes (free-writing)

There is an esthetic and ethical aspect to our relationship with the environment.

The most imporatant measure of wealth of the poeple is in Earth/per capita. Earth is not growing. The less numerous we are, the richewr we are in the natural wealth.