I think a good subject for the class project can be based on the theme of recreation that can be found here in New York City. Each culture would have different ideas of what is worth doing on your free time. For example, some cultures, certain activities are even thought to have healthy benefits, so they would naturally have an inclination to favor that particular activity. In New York City, it would be moderately easy to find these groups and observe what exactly they like to do on their spare time. Recreational activities can be researched online, which can give us some background information from which we can build our observations upon.
I thought of this idea when I was on my way work on a Saturday morning. The bus I take to Flushing passes by a park called Maple Park and if I ever happen to look up as we pass by that park, one of the things I see is a crowd of people doing tai chi. Now, if we go into a different borough but in an area of similar culture, into Chinatown, Manhattan, there are also people in the parks there, coming and going, all doing tai chi. Another recreational activity that we can find in both parks is Chinese chess.
These activities can link back to our trip to Chinatown and what we saw in Columbus Park – the tables surrounded by older Chinese men gambling and playing cards or chess. As we were walking in, there were also a few people playing traditional Chinese instruments. This is also something that can we can consider to be a recreational activity.
Of course, in other neighborhoods with people of different ethnicities and cultures, there would be different activities going on. In Corona, an area of many Spanish families, there are many soccer games going on when the weather permits. Younger kids are also flying their vibrantly colored and uniquely shaped kites.
For our class website, there will be multiple ways in which we can integrate multimedia with recreational activities. With so many parks in New York City, going to a park to find some type of activity that happens there would not be too difficult and so we can easily take pictures or videos. These can also be found online. Charts can be used to organize the different parks and different activities in each one. Audio can be used if there is a certain type of music that goes hand in hand with the activity, such as tai chi and the music that is typically played in the background.
All in all, this topic would not cause any complications in terms of how to display our research and record our observations on an online platform using prose and visuals. To experience the recreations of the peopling of New York would not be difficult to access, which makes it a fair game for the class.
