Diana+Ahrens+Journal

**__Journal Entries__**
1) What educational outcomes are called for by sustainability problems and challenges? 2) What habits of mind, language and practice need to be undercut for sustainability problems to be recognized and addressed? 3) What experiences and learning are likely to provoke the (cultural) transformations called for by sustainability challenges?

__April 28th, 2014__ Yesterday's symposium went really well, I think. Many of the younger students didn't seem to know how to present very well, but they also seemed to care about what they were talking about. My mentee Maizie was so scared to present but she did it. She may not have done it very well, but she did it nonetheless. It was interesting to see how the older kids presented and then contrast it with the younger students. Just a few years can make such a difference. It really showed how age should always be a factor when planning any sort of educational activity. The five years of age difference means five years of growth and experience that makes a large difference. Some aspects of this course (e.g. ten pages of paper for homework for a nine year old) and other courses aren't age appropriate. A high school English class shouldn't have to teach basic grammar nor should an elementary class be learning about complex trigonometry. Some things need to be evaluated for their pertinence and accessibility and if more curriculums were aimed at appropriate ages then they might actually make more of an impact.

__April 25th, 2014__ The IPCC has recently [|released reports] and the general gist of them is that we are going to all have to adapt to an unknown climate future due to climate change. The IPCC in the new report backpedals from their original report and says that they cannot accurately predict which problems will occur due to climate change. As a result of not being able to accurately predict which problems will occur, our societies need to learn to be more flexible and more prepared for anything. Currently, places like the Adirondacks and upstate New York aren't prepared for hurricanes but within the past few years we've been hit by them more than we ever had before. We weren't prepared. Situations like this are only going to occur more frequently around the world as the climate changes more drastically. Governments are going to have to start setting more money aside for emergency aid and each community is going to have to learn how to prepare for new dangers. Currently within the United States, many communities are not well connected or prepared for disasters and this habit is going to have to change if people want to start living in these new climates but maintain their old lifestyle. It will probably take actually experiencing natural disasters for communities to learn from their past mistakes and to make a change and get more prepared.

__April 22nd, 2014 (Earth Day!)__ Today was EarthFest which is run by my favourite club on campus, EcoLogic (not biased at all because I'm a club officer or anything) and it was a total blast. It was hard work getting everything set up, but it was so much fun to just spend the day outside. Because of EarthFest I had to miss the discussion that happened during class time when everyone went to the Earth Week event, but I'm still writing my lovely paper on ethics of cloning so I'm sure I'm getting a similar sort of feel here. While all of EarthFest is really interesting and great and Earth Day is the best day to discuss environmental things, I think I'll discuss this new model that shows how life on Earth is all incredibly interconnected. I read [|this article] which discusses the Madingley model. The Madingley model is a computer simulation of life on Earth, composed of types of plants, animals, and ecosystems that are found on this world, although it is not exactly as accurate as to have different species that are found on Earth. With this model we can figure out how to deal with invasive species, climate change, and other threats to the natural state of being. The way this is created truly emphasises the EcoEd goal of everyone's actions having an array of proximate and far off causes because this shows what getting rid of the bees or the pandas could do. Something that doesn't seem like it could really throw off a balance actually can.

__April 21st, 2014__ It's getting down to crunch time and I've had quite a lot going on, so I apologize for the lack of journalling. It escaped my mind this weekend while writing my final paper for another class. The paper I'm writing is all about human cloning, the legal and ethical impacts of it. As I was contemplating what I should write for this journal, I realised that discussing my paper could actually be relevant, so that's what I'll do! Since my paper is for another STS course (21st Century Risks), it deals with many social science aspects of technology in a way that would make this class proud. After covering the basic science behind cloning, which is really interesting and tedious, my paper discusses the legal background of cloning and how laws can impact the future of human cloning. My paper also will discuss (I'm not quite there yet, it's a long paper) the ethical issues around human cloning and then what I think should be done about human cloning so that it is dealt with intelligently and democratically. This analysis is similar to many of the goals of EcoEd, like the goal of understanding government at various levels, mainly state, national, and international or the goal of understanding the history of disaster or decision making failure. This paper format would be useful for older students using the EcoEd goals because it requires students to analyse things in a way they might not have considered before. Honestly, I hadn't even thought of the legal implications of human cloning until I came across so many papers on it while doing initial research for my paper. It really shows that human factors for so many things are important for decision making and for planning for the future.

__April 18th, 2014 __ Oops, it's been a few days since I've journalled. I meant to yesterday and I had the page open but then I forgot to actually write. In my class for today, we talked about positive psychology. It's an interesting idea, focusing on people's strengths and positive aspects to make their functioning better. It seems like positive psychology would be a useful tool when it comes to teaching. If a student is struggling with one aspect of school, using positive psychology can help them focus on what they are good at, not what they're bad at. When students feel, as Maizie did that one Thursday, that they can't do their tasks, they'll end up shutting down. All it takes is some positive encouragement for students to feel a bit better.

__April 14th,2014__ I read an article this morning about how parents are being lied to by the anti-vaccine movement. And I fully agree with the article because I know that vaccines are helpful and that science has proved time and time again that vaccines don't cause autism. But, the anti-vaccine movement does show just how anti-science the general public can be and also how easily swayed they are. So many people are afraid of their child being autistic (which is just stupid and wrong, but that's a journal article for another time) that they won't protect them from actual deadly diseases that could've been completely eradicated if these people actually vaccinated their children. This problem is clearly around in the sustainability movement. Many people (looking at you, Republicans) feel that climate change either isn't real or it isn't a real threat to our existence. If we want students to be more sustainable, we have to get over this anti-science idea that permeates throughout the culture in the United States. The best way is to just start teaching students from a young age that the scientific method works well, but that there are biases and that students should always look for peer reviewed scientific studies and shouldn't believe anything they read. And they should also be incredibly skeptical of anything that is not scientifically backed (e.g. the anti-vaccine movement).

__April 12th, 2014 __ I was writing up some elaborations (relating real life situations to concepts in class) for an assignment in another class and one of the words I came up with an elaboration for was "epiphenomenon" which is quite a mouthful. An epiphenomenon, according to my cognitive psychology textbook, is "a phenomenon that accompanies a mechanism but is not actually part of the mechanism". The example the book gives is of flashing lights on a computer that signal that the computer is working and doing things. If those lights weren't working, the computer would still work. Another term I've heard for such a thing is "vampire energy" because these lights tend to suck up energy like a vampire sucks blood. If we were to make more electronics without these unnecessary epiphenomenon, it would help conserve just a little bit of energy and help out just a little bit. If my laptop didn't have seven different lights to indicate different things (battery life, caps lock, num lock, etc.) then maybe my battery reserve would last a bit longer when my laptop was unplugged.

__April 10th, 2014 __ Today's session with the younger students was a good lesson in how to deal with the students. When Maizie broke down while trying to write, I learned that some students just need space when they're feeling poorly. I also learned that younger students need much more help with the work that we give out and that, while I tried, I wasn't giving enough work because Maizie wasn't speaking up enough to let me know she was having more troubles. This was a lesson in teaching and understanding that certain students need to be looked after better and that not everyone is capable of doing the same work. These lesson can transfer over to sustainability lessons because it shows that not all the students will be able to fully grasp the concepts or really comprehend what they're learning.

__April 9th, 2014 __ Happy GM Day! I read [|this article] today, about how the drop in planned EPA evaluations is concerning high environmental risk communities. Many of these communities feel threatened because the EPA is turning it's focus to high impact cases instead of continuing to evaluate smaller cases frequently. This article shows the difficulties that government poses to making the world more sustainable. To help our future generations keep the planet habitable, governments need to accept that sustainable action must be taken and stricter environmental regulations need to be put in place and also enforced. Students need to recognize that while people have the power to petition and protest, governments have a higher authority. One of the EcoEd literacy goals is to have students understand government at various scales and to understand that government uses many decision making processes, and showing students that the EPA has a large say in environmental regulations and inspections could enforce that, unless there is some sort of major revolution, the government is in charge of things and we need to have the government listen to us.

__April 8th, 2014 __ Today's talk brought up the idea that when white intellectuals attempt to understand POC peoples in underdeveloped countries, they tend to project onto them expectations they already have. This reminds me of the TV Tropes "Mighty Whitey" and "White Man's Burden" which show that white people tend to feel that it is their job to protect and convert the "non-civilized" native peoples. This, in turn, reminded me of one clip from the film viewing of EWB's clips. One of the guys in Africa kept talking about how "special" and "happy" the people despite their circumstances. It seems like he had this idea that people in Africa couldn't be happy because they don't live in our modern society. For people to understand other cultures and learn how to respect them, we need to stop perpetuating this "White Man's Burden" idea because it's only hurting POC and underdeveloped countries. Thinking that people without wifi can't be happy hurts those without wifi. Only individual people can evaluate what they truly need. Clearly, taking the trip to Africa didn't really help that boy in the EWB clip understand that Africans are happy, they just don't always have clean water or food on the table. The best way to comabt this way of thinking, when it comes to education, is to take this stereotype out of media and show that POC can be happy, but they just need financial and technical support on how to live with cleaner water and produce food more efficiently.

__April 7th, 2014 __ Today, I was browsing through some documentaries on education, to see if there was one that sounded really interesting and worth annotating. The film "Race to Nowhere" sounded very interesting but when I googled it, all I could see were poor reviews and critiques on the methods used. Forbes said that it was bad because it focused mostly on upper-middle class white folks who are stressed about getting their children into good colleges, which in turn is making their children stressed. There's such a blatant bias when the film focuses on just one subset of society, and many films tend to only focus on one economic group, usually the middle class. This causes problems when actual educators are trying to figure out how to get to the root problem of the American education system. Some argue it's funding, some argue large classes, some argue just higher pressure to get into good schools. These biases are bad but also important when looking at all the problems and symptoms of the school system. The high school I went to didn't have much pressure on its students to go to Ivy League schools. In fact, I don't think anyone had been accepted to an Ivy League school there in years. I felt pressured by my family to do well and I internalized the pressure, but I usually didn't have problems in high school, not in the public schools. My problem was commonly that the things I was being taught weren't challenging enough. I transferred schools for my junior year and that school put much more pressure on doing well. There was an increased need to achieve in that schools, partly because otherwise money was being wasted on this education. But, all of this view on pressure is just from my perspective. Many of the people I know who have anxiety problems due to school work tend to be from upper-middle class families. Usually, the poorer people I know aren't as concerned with getting into an Ivy League. But, my bias is my limited experience and the problem of coming from an incredibly small school. Biases make understanding everything much more difficult, since everyone brings their own biases to understanding data and research. There are biases in research related to sustainability. Companies have a large bias in making their products seem greener so that consumers are more likely to buy them. Bias is in everything.

__April 5th, 2014 __ There's this interesting [|article] about geoengineering in relation to oceans. A German scientist discovered that the warmer it gets, the less viscous the ocean will get and then the ocean will be able to absorb more CO2. The ocean absorbing more CO2 will help regulate climate change and the temperature. Of course, this won't completely avert climate change, it'll only help keep the temperature down by a small percentage, and it will also be bad news for many ocean creatures. But, it would help humans out, which is always nice. But, relating to sustainability education, it is good to take this new study, which the scientist claims has never been examined before, and show students that there are still so many unknowns about the future of climate change and the effect it's going to have on the planet and on people.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">April 4th, 2014 __ Last weekend, I bought some plants at the farmer's market. I bought basil, parsley, and cilantro because I love to cook with those herbs. Unfortunately, not even a week has gone by and the cilantro is basically dead and gone (I used up all the basil in a pistou sauce). I've been watering all the plants and trying to keep my window open so they can get sunlight. But, alas, they're not doing so well. It's a struggle, trying to keep plants alive in a small apartment. I can't even put them on the side of the house that gets more sunlight since my roommates hate having the shades open. This is a lesson that can transfer to a lesson for students. Life is hard. Well, that's not the lesson I really meant by this, but it is true. Living sustainably and trying to keep things fresh and local can be very difficult. Instead of being able to have my own garden, which is nearly impossible in an apartment, I have to try to grow things inside under very difficult conditions. Instead of growing my cilantro, I have to buy it from the store. That cilantro isn't likely to be from the area, it's more likely that it was transported from hundreds of miles away and now I also have some plastic bits I have to deal with. We, as a society, need to make it easier to get fresh, local foods that will last longer than a few days.

__April 3rd, 2014__ Tonight was a great teaching experience. In the Upper Elementary group, we had one-on-one (or two, in my case) time for about an hour. I wasn't quite prepared to talk with them for an hour, I'm not very good at small talk, and I have two of the quietest kids in the group. It was great experience, trying to figure out how to keep the kids engaged and talking the whole time. I ended up finding out all about the sports that they play and I learned that one of my mentees is nearly a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, which I thought was pretty awesome. But, it also got me thinking about how difficult it must be to be a teacher. Teachers have to try to constantly keeps students engaged and active and with some topics, it can be boring. Many students don't like math because, for many, it's too difficult. For teachers to be able to keep the students interest during the boring subject, it's impressive. And, admittedly, some of the subjects surrounding sustainability can get dull at times. It's important to keep subjects fresh and interesting, and all the different topics around sustainability and environmental problems can help keep the material interesting. It's common to focus in on one topic until all of the aspects of the topic are covered. As a student, I can confirm that after a while my interest will start to fade because it will all seem very redundant.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 31st, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Today I read this [|article] that discusses how switching the type-font of government documents from the common Times New Roman to a very similar Garamond could save the government millions of dollars alone in ink costs. Not only would it cost less, it would also reduce resource usage because less ink would be needed and, possibly, less paper would be needed because the type font is slightly thinner and takes up less room. This calculation was discovered by a 14 year old student named Suvir Mirchandani and it's something many people wouldn't think about. His project shows that it's easy to be more sustainability-friendly without much effort just by switching some minor changes in habits. This example shows beautifully how anything could be made to be more sustainable and it doesn't take much effort to get it there. If we were to allow more students the opportunity to explore and do science calculations, it would make the world much better. [|Many teenagers] have done surprisingly amazing things and invented useful tools and equipment. Using these students as inspiration, we could let teenagers use their young and active minds to invent things and make the world more sustainable. We need to also show teachers that students should have their ideas taken seriously, since many teenagers aren't taken seriously at all and they need encouragement and support, as well as possible funding.

__March 29th, 2014__ I'm just going to start this journal entry off with this: I strongly dislike Freud and the majority of his theories. This isn't what I intended to discuss today, but the reading for this week seems to use Freud and his psychoanalysis to show how to transform pedagogy. And I just can't take anyone seriously if they take Freud very seriously. Most of modern psychology has shown that his theories are incorrect and a very small minority of modern psychologists actually follow Freud's theories and apply them. His sample size for his case studies and theories was incredibly small and limited (a small number of middle aged, upper middle class Victorian women is not a good sample size in any scientific application) and his theories have created a public misunderstanding of the whole field of psychology. So, within the first page of the reading for this week, I already was annoyed and frustrated because they were calling Freud a great teacher. In one part of the article, Freud admits that he has not truly put psychoanalysis with education, only that he thinks putting the two together could result in good things. The author of the article takes this as Freud just being humble. I take it to mean that Freud openly admits that he is not an expert on education or how psychoanalysis applies to education. I know that the main topics of these journals are to be about sustainability education and I can firmly say that Freud isn't going to help anyone with sustainability education.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 28th, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I've been so busy lately studying for an important test, I haven't had time to journal very much. I apologize for that. Since I've been studying for psychology, I think I'll talk a bit about psychology and how it relates to sustainability efforts. We learned that source misattribution, when someone states that they know where they learned something and when a memory developed but they are incorrect at its source, is pretty common. This seems logical, since we have a tendency to go "Oh, I know that but I forget where I learned it." This can be a problem for sustainability efforts because people could hear something on, say, Fox News about how climate change isn't real and then they could mistakenly think that it came from a more, um, reliable source. If this were to happen for many aspects of sustainability, it would be difficult to have the truth and scientific facts be heard. The best way to avoid such problems is to promote truth in the news and try to limit everyone's exposure to sources that do not have proper credentials to discuss sustainability issues.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 25th, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Today in class, Donna Haraway was briefly mentioned. Having never heard of her, I decided to look her up. Her wikipedia page mentioned that she wrote about feminism and technology in the twentieth century, which reminded me of the topic of ecofeminism. Ecofeminism, to me, appears to be something combines the desire for society to treat people (specifically women) better with the desire for society to treat nature better. It's a good blend of humans and nature. It made me think that in our sustainability education efforts, we must also focus on people, not just wildlife and the environment. If society and laws aren't always doing right by the people, it's unlikely that they'll be doing right by the earth. This sort of idea, the combination of humans and nature, was also talked about in class. Someone brought up that we should be teaching children that nature has an intrinsic value and that's why we should be respecting it and not causing it such severe harm. To change the habits of mind that don't give nature an intrinsic value, we need to show the extrinsic value of it, first. If the students can understand that it has an extrinsic value, they may be able to better grasp that it has intrinsic value. Showing people that we need nature to survive because we are a part of it may also be the spark that lights the fire of understanding.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 24th, 2014 __ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Lately, I've been trying to find new and alternative beauty and household products. I've been using a vinegar solution to wash the counters, baking soda for deodorant, and I've also been trying to have a more vegan-friendly diet. I've been trying make my impact on the world less. And I've found that it's incredibly difficult. It's much easier and convenient to buy a bottle of two dollar shampoo and three dollar deodorant and if it doesn't work I can just send in a complaint to the company. But there are so many sketchy chemicals and they pollute the water system. This is an important lesson because it shows that society aims for convenience and a money back guarantee. Children growing up are growing up to be used to instant gratification and satisfaction. The best way to shape the growing generation is to make the better, sustainable solutions the easier ones to use and get. If children learn that instantaneous solutions are not always the best, they'll be able to think about all things that are meant to be instant and critically analyse how good what they are doing is for the environment and for themselves.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 21st, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Over break I finished reading //No Impact Man// by Colin Beavan and I really enjoyed it and it got me to really think about how I live my life. It made me realise that just turning off the lights and unplugging things isn't the only way I can help out. I could be eating more sustainably, using less water, not producing so much waste. It definitely dealt with the EcoEd literacy goal of showing how there is the potential for alternate ways of living. I think if more people were to read the book or watch the documentary (which I haven't done yet) then they would get a different perspective on sustainable living and good community life. The way that this project shows how different things can change habits of minds and that the habits of mind that are most prevalent in the United States are not always the best ones to keep around.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 19th, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Unfortunately, I won't be able to make the Vasudha speaker today, as I got the e-mail too late to be able to time manage around it and it wasn't in my calendar. But, I will speak about other things. Today in one of my labs, we discussed watersheds and water usage, mainly in New York City. Talking about how the old pipes would leak, leading to over 100s of gallons of water to be leaked showed just how careless and wasteful our society can be. But, in the 1980's, there was a large movement for water conservation as well as a movement to restore the pipes lead to a reduction of water usage to about half of what it was previously. It showed that, if people put their minds to it, they can make a big difference. This lesson was powerful because it can sometimes feel like trying to make the world more sustainable is hopeless because so many people just don't care. But, since people need water and if the residents of NYC didn't reduce their rate of consumption they could destroy their watersheds, they actually cared. Now, making all efforts to cater to show that a bad environment = bad health/living/etc wouldn't be the best route, but until that habit of mind can be shattered, it is a good approach to get people to care and, hopefully, act.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 18th, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Today, I'm going to talk more about schooling in general, since the discussion in class really got me thinking about it. I have a pretty different schooling experience: I started school at a hippie, artsy-fartsy school in western Virginia and continued there until my family moved to upstate New York. I had to make a transition from calling my teachers by their first name, taking highly advanced math courses (sixth grade level when I was seven years old) to the boring public school system. I continued at the public school from fourth grade to tenth grade, when I decided I couldn't take the public school system anymore. I moved back down to western Virginia to live with my dad and I was re-enrolled at the high school equivalent of the artsy fartsy school. My public school was pretty small (only 46 students in my graduating class), but this hippie high only had about 50 students total. The classes were much more college preparatory than my public school education. While I enjoyed a good amount of the way the hippie school was run, living with my dad didn't work and I was struggling to make friends at the new school, so back to New York to finish off high school in public school again. I'm glad I got to have a rather unusual experience because it showed me two different ways of schooling and gave me better perspective on how teacher-student relationships can change how students deal with school. In public school, I didn't feel very close to any of my teachers and I never felt like I had an adult to talk to at school if I needed one, but at the public school, where the classes were very small and the teachers got to know the students, I felt comfortable talking to my teachers about problems I was having. Having small classrooms and creating a friendlier atmosphere made getting through the two-hour long classes much more bearable. Students sometimes need that personal relationship with teachers if they're going to feel comfortable in school and if they're going to get through it in one piece. Now, after that long tangent, I'll get to my point. To get anywhere with education, there needs to be some sort of personal aspect to school. Treating children like you can't get to know them will alienate them and dehumanize them. If a student is afraid to talk to a teacher about a problem, they'll hold it in and let it fester which only make problems worse. Now, too personal an environment isn't good, either. But teachers who treat students (especially high schoolers) like adults, instead of treating them like their opinions and thoughts aren't properly developed because they are younger isn't the way to go about it. Yes, younger students shouldn't be treated like adults because they aren't adults, but they also shouldn't be treated like infants. Creating a welcoming environment that doesn't dehumanize the students will foster a better environment to teach things, things like sustainability and EcoEd.

__March 17th, 2014__ Aaaaand, we're back. It was a nice, relaxing spring break and I got to take a break from school work, which also meant taking a break from journaling for a bit. But, now it's time to get back to reality. I'll start by talking about this [|article] which talks briefly about the deal that Mexico and the United States have about the Colorado River. Since the 1960's, the Colorado has not run it's natural course through the United States and then through Mexico to get to the ocean, but now a deal has been struck that both countries will take the water and the drought and allow the Colorado River to work more naturally. This deal shows how governments can share natural resources peacefully, and sanely. Many problems with sustainability and environmental issues now is the government interfering or not enforcing rules to help protect the environment. This governmental rule shows that governments that are at times unwilling to protect environments and share things (looking at you, USA), will keep peace and resolve issues peacefully. Showing students that governments are willing to keep the peace could show them that peace is a good idea and that sharing resources benefits everyone. Students need to be taught that governments have the power to be sustainable and to use natural resources smartly, but most of the time the government does not do this. To change this, we need to recognise that some of the students will one day be the leaders of the world and those who aren't going to be leaders will still make an impact. Teaching them to encourage governmental change could help with the sustainability problem of water usage, among other things where the government has the largest hold.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 6th, 2014 __ Today's session with the kids was awesome! The kids were pretty responsive and they seemed pretty into the topics we covered. After the sustainability results, I found that there was only one child who seemed to be in a rather anti-sustainability and many of the children were unsure about many of the topics. It seems that many children are rather unaware of political issues. Children need to start learning about politics, and not just democratic politics, at a young age if they want to start to understand what is going on around them since most everything is fueled by politics. I think just exposing the kids to the political agendas behind the things that happen will get them to start questioning things around them and will get them more politically involved.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 5th, 2014 __ This [|lovely article] discusses how if corporations were to begin using more sustainable practices, they can save a lot of money. The article (although it's rather short) states that if CEOs and business funders don't care about the environment, they should care about the business economics of it. For many companies it would require some interesting infrastructure change, but in the end it would all end up benefiting them. If schools were to teach that environmentalism is not just good for the planet, but good for the economy, it would help encourage sustainable practices. Many people don't seem to care about the environmental impacts but care about the amount of money they're making. This could convert even the more anti-environmentalist business man, because Americans are known for being greedy and wanting a large profit margin.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 4th, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After working on the research lesson plan for Thursday's group of kids, I finally understood just how difficult being a teacher is. They have to come up with what to teach, how to present, how to get the kids involved, and they have to do this for everyday of the week for nine months out of the year. It makes sense that so many teachers don't try to expand their lessons too beyond what is required, because the required materials must already take up a large amount of planning. But, that doesn't mean they shouldn't try. If sustainability practices were to be placed within required materials, it would make teaching such things much easier for the teachers who already have so much to do. I believe that if we give teachers the tools to create such plans and the ability to meld the minds like that, it would work out in favour of sustainability.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 3rd, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The films from last night about EWB and all that they do made me realise that I could be doing so much more to help the environment and to help communities. I sign petitions online occasionally and I turn out all the lights in my apartment, but I just don't do enough to make a difference. It's easy to see that there could be many people out there who care but just don't have the motivation or resources or time to really partake in things that will make a difference. But, this isn't all bad. Even small differences make small impacts. We should teach children that they can start by making small differences because turning off unused lights is better than leaving them on. Then showing them that they can make bigger differences when they're ready and able to. Seeing other people's accomplishments is likely to provoke the notion that one needs to do more, since I know that's how I felt and from what I see it does make other people feel guilty about not doing enough. A transformation into a society that promotes helping each other and thinking collectively would also help keep things sustainable and happier.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">March 1st, 2014 __ [|This article] shows how framing is important and something that needs to be taught to students. The framing of this article gives the GMO rice an angle of being economical, but avoiding talking about what sort of effects this new strain of rice might have on human populations. One very adverse effect I found was that rice is a common food for those who are gluten-intolerant, but when adding a gene from the barley, is it possible that this rice would cause adverse effects to those with Celiac's disease? I'm personally not familiar with what would and wouldn't trigger a gluten intolerance reaction, but it would be something that should be considered before this rice is put on the market. I, personally, am skeptical of many GMOs because they are not thoroughly studied by independent groups, but if science were to prove time and time again that this rice is just as safe as unaltered rice, I would happily eat it. I think it's this sort of scepticism and critical analysis that students need to learn. Would a typical student even think about what allergic reactions might occur when mixing genes? I find it unlikely, unless that particular student has many allergies and constantly needs to think about these things. Food production and sustainability is definitely a sustainability problem, and well-tested GMOs could help with food scarcity problems. But the possible cost of this is loss of biodiversity. We, as a society, need to weigh the pros and cons and figure out ways of preventing the cons. It's hard to teach these sorts of lessons to kids, because they might not understand how something like GMOs could reduce the different types of plants out there. The best way to teach this sort of thing would be to show kids how everything in many fields looks the same, when it shouldn't since that's a poor farming technique. Teaching kids that there are many different ways of doing things, but some ways are better than others, would be a valuable lesson.

__February 28th, 2014__ Working with the kids last night was really enjoyable! Figuring out how to help them understand big concepts and words was challenging at times, but very rewarding. Being a part of their game of Counties Bingo was a good way to become a part of their group and to connect with them as well. It showed me that there are many sustainability issues that really aren't as hard for kids to grasp as many people would think. The one term I noticed the children struggling with the most was "biodiversity", which is admittedly a large word for a typical 3-5 grader to understand. Working with the kids also showed me that playing games and making things fun like that is the best way to get through to kids. If the kids aren't enjoying themselves, they won't be interested and are less likely to want to learn this new information. It also showed me that kids are already thinking about certain topics. One kid, Dimitri, I believe, was really interested in pollution and its relation to cars and he looked to be about ten. These students already have been exposed to these topics, if only very limited exposure, and have already started to form opinions. Last night showed me that I have a lot to learn from these kids.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">February 25th, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After reading [|this article] about how drug companies got Americans inadvertently hooked on heroin because of the use of OxyContin for patients in pain, I thought about how there are so many unexpected consequences to things that are meant to be helpful. Many people don't think about consequences of their actions, unless their very large actions. But, there is also the problem of people knowing full well what they are doing, as Purdue did with OxyContin's addiction risk, and purposely mislead people for their own gain. Students need to learn to think about their actions and what might happen, but also think about how to look at information critically. If the doctor's hadn't just trusted the company and actually wanted to check for addiction risk, this problem may have been prevented. While this specific example might be a tad depressing for younger students, there are many examples like this that show how we need to think about our actions and think critically. It relates to sustainability because students have to think about what throwing out the soda can would do when it could be recycled, and they also have to think about all things they'll be presented with when it comes to something like climate change. Since the USA is rather divided on the topic, they'll probably see pro and con sides of the "debate" and they'll have to figure out which of the arguments has faults and they have to think about what is being presented to them.

__February 24th, 2014__ I recently found [|this article], published in 2011, that states that research shows we could have the whole world running on renewable energy alone by 2030, if we politics were to allow it. The study was conducted by two engineers from California who studied how feasible it would be to run all of the energy demands on solar, wind, wave, and geothermal energy alone. They left out biomass because of land use and pollution concerns and left out nuclear most likely for the toxic waste problems it creates and the general fear that many people feel for it. The study shows that there are many building projects that could be implemented and jobs to be had if we were to implement all these new projects soon. This relates to sustainability education in that students need to understand that alternatives exist and our current system isn't always the best. We need to cut back (or completely cut out) fossil fuel use to make the world more sustainable.

__February 23rd, 2014__ Yesterday my roommate was watching TV and I could hear it coming through while I was making dinner in the kitchen and a certain commercial came on. This commercial annoyed me greatly with it's content. Now, it wasn't a bad commercial and the product probably isn't a bad product. But the commercial was so completely greenwashed and it also used an environmental problem to promote it's own agenda. The commercial starts out with something along the lines of "There's definitely an energy crisis in the US. A human energy crisis" and then continues on to promote something like granola or cereal. The commerical trivialised something as big as an energy crisis, poked fun at it, and then used the term to promote itself. Hearing this commercial made me even more sure that greenwashing in the media is everywhere and that it can be very hard to figure out good products from bad ones.

__February 22nd, 2014__ Today I'm taking a defensive driving course online to help lower my insurance premium, and after reading the statistics on how likely it is to get in a crash and how many fatalities occur because of reckless or aggressive driving, I began to contemplate why the USA doesn't depend more on public transportation and bike riding, the way that many other countries, especially European ones, do. I know that it has to do with an infrastructure that was built to appease big corporations, one of those being Ford. We love our cars because they are part of the American ritual of growing up. Turning 16 is a big deal here because it means you're allowed to go try for a driver's license. There are people who spend massive amounts of money to get fancy cars that they end up never driving for fear of hurting it. Americans are obsessed with cars. And cars aren't good for the environment. They spew greenhouse gases while being produced and when being used and then they end up in a landfill once the user is done with them. Cars are also really expensive (see: I'm trying to cut my premium). Cars aren't something that Americans should be so proud of. Yes, having something shiny and pretty can feel nice, but jewelry can give the same feeling with less of an environmental impact. I am guilty of owning a car, but I rarely use it. In fact, I haven't driven it since August of last year. It's been a while. We need to start working on a better public transportation system in America if we ever want to live a bit more sustainably.

__February 21st, 2014__ Ack, it's been a while since I last journaled. Oops. Well, I've been thinking about many things, but mostly about studying for all the exams I had going on this week. But, in relation to the three questions our journals are supposed to address, I've been thinking about consumption. We live in a society that is very into consumption. I'm currently working on finding an apartment to live in next year, and I had to discuss with my roommate which utilities we want and she said that she //needs// to have cable television. Meanwhile, I grew up in a household that for many years only owned a television so that we could watch reruns of British comedies on DVD (Blackadder was like another parent to me). I never watched spongebob and until this year I'd never seen anything on TLC. It is an interesting correlation (although, I won't say it's a causation) that my two roommates of this year who love to watch television also love to spend money and buy new things. They love to consume. Given that this is a societal trend that also leads to a trend of large heaps of waste, it is safe to say that our consumption culture needs to start being limited. A good start would probably be limiting how often people are exposed to the idea that "More is better" and "You need to buy things to be happy", which is frequently shown on television (Extreme Couponing, I'm looking at you). People will always need things like food and shelter and clothing, because those things help us survive. It's the unnecessary things that tend to cause problems. If we teach kids that consuming isn't going to make them happy past a certain point, while also limiting their exposure to the idea that consumption culture abounds by limiting exposure to commercials and television shows, it would help alleviate the pressure consumerism puts on them. Waste is undeniably a sustainability and environmental problem, and cutting back on consumption would definitely help alleviate some sources of the problem.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">February 18th, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After watching the film at the Media Literacy workshop about greenwashing, it does make all the commercials seem much more manipulative. I always tend to view things skeptically and consider the real impact of things. Before the film, I knew greenwashing existed, but I never realised just how prevalent it is. I remembered once seeing a commercial for natural gas and fracking that was primarily shots of corn fields and similar type fields, promoting how natural and eco-friendly this resource is. Knowing that it is, indeed, not all that friendly made me scoff at the whole commercial, with increased scoffing when it showed that the commercial was sponsored by some gas company or foundation. The media literacy workshop is very important, because children are commonly bombarded with commercials and adverts and they need to be better at thinking critically and forming their own opinions, not only about sustainability problems but about all issues. Starting with one problem, like the BP oil spill, will get them to step into it easily and not be overwhelmed. Along with that, society should stop making "green" a trend and instead make it a lifestyle, the best way to live. If it is seen more seriously, people and companies are less likely to want to fit into a trend.

__February 17th, 2014__ [|This article] talks about how people in the UK are starting to become more and more accepting of climate change and are becoming more willing to reduce their carbon footprints if they've been hit by major flooding. Since the UK is seeing some of the worst rain and flooding in 250 years, it's slowly shifting how residents of the UK are seeing climate change. This whole "I'll believe it when I see it" type of attitude is what causes so many people to not be concerned with climate change and unwilling to do anything. People need to be taught that it's not going to be incredibly obvious at first that something's happening, that everything is going to be subtle and take time. Teaching people to err on the side of caution when it comes to the environment, they'll be much better at taking care of it. People shouldn't be changing their mind just because their house was destroyed, they should be learning about how to protect their house from bad weather by making bad weather not as powerful.

__February 15th, 2014__ These past few days have been quite tiresome! So much snow, so many tests to study for, so much discounted chocolate to eat (Yay, day after Valentine's Day)! Valentine's Day is a rather ridiculous celebration, honestly. People buy large boxes (or small, depending on how much they like the receiver) that are then thrown away. Most things that chocolate come in are not recyclable and many of them come with a plastic wrap. Yes, I am guilty of this myself, but I try to keep my trash down to minimal levels. This is something that is seldom addressed when talking about sustainability issues in general, since most focus is about fossil fuels and climate change, but not usually about all the trash that one person creates. I'm not saying it's never discussed, but it's less frequently a main topic when talks of sustainability occur. Our culture needs to shift from throwing away trash and buying so many disposable items to recycling and repairing things and buying products that are reusable. Not many people are willing to do this sort of thing because disposablity of products is more convenient and recycling can be easily forgotten. Making it easier to recycle and emphasising that buying reusable items can save money over the lifetime of the product would be the best ways to convince adults to do such things. Americans grow up in a culture that encourages convenience, so making being green convenient would help Americans buy greener products.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">February 12th, 2014 __ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While reading an article about 3-D printing and it's sustainability impacts, I realized that I had never thought about the sustainability aspect of 3-D printing, mostly because I didn't know much about the process behind it. It made me wonder how many things go on in my life that I don't even think of the sustainability impact they create. This thought is also applicable to children. Many children don't think about the consequences of their actions, nor do they think about the sustainability of their actions. For society to start truly addressing environmental and sustainability problems, we need to teach children how to think about the sustainability behind their actions. The article I was reading argued that 3-D printing won't be as sutainable, despite the products being usually recyclable, because people will make multiple copies of things until they get it just right and then they'll throw away all the copies they don't want. There are also issues with air quality and energy efficiency that are even less likely to be thought about. IF we start teaching kids to think analytically and to think about all aspects of something, not only would society become more rounded, but people would start addressing and considering their impact on the world. To teach the kids these things, all one would have to do is show them something their familiar with, like a computer or iPod, and then show them the environmental impact that thing has.For most children this would get them to think about other things and make connections. We would need to stop avoiding talking about the environmental impacts that society has and start addressing them.

__<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">February 11th, 2014 __ After reading about the toxic fish in the Michigan lakes, teaching children about proximate and far off causes and effects seems very necessary. The lakes in Michigan still have mercury in them which is bad for the fish and for the water supply, but most of the mercury isn't coming from Michigan but other places. Showing the children that they need to think about what their small action, like throwing away something plastic instead of recycling them, and what that small action can do would help them understand that they can have a large impact in the world with a small action. Showing them that these actions can be both negative and positive would allow them to think about all their actions and also not make them feel like everything they do will be bad for the environment. As for the Michigan problem, the article said that PCB emissions would need to be cut by 94% globally and mercury emissions to be cut 82% globally for the lakes to come down to safe concentrations of mercury and pollutants similar to that. This could teach children that sometimes you need more than a small action, you need to make drastic changes to make a difference and make the world better.

__February 9th, 2014__ After stumbleupon brought me to a small little article called "18 eco-tips to help you save money and the environment", I started thinking about how easy it is to be eco-friendly with a few small changes. My roommates love to keep the lights on at all times (even when they aren't home). I, as well as my boyfriend, have to go around and turn off the lights behind them because I hate the waste of energy and it's also just how I was raised. If these girls weren't taught that turning off the lights when you leave a room is the best thing to do, how many other children were deprived of the lesson? It wouldn't take much to change this habit, just flipping a switch. Yet, it's a constant struggle every time I address how wasteful they can be. From experience, I know that just saying they're wasteful isn't enough to provoke a change. Possibly showing them how much coal is being burned, or how much they're contributing to pollution by keeping all the lights on, would work. The amount of energy they're wasting is much more of a sustainability problem than they probably realise. Along with me teaching my roommates how to be more eco-concious, we need to teach children that there are little things that they can do to help ease their burden on the environment: turning off the lights, unplugging unused electronics, doing full loads of laundry, etc. Possibly just being taught that it's that simple would help.

__February 8th, 2014__ After reading about the Common Core and the issues that exist with the program, I had two thoughts: 1) I'm glad I graduated when I did and 2) I feel bad for my nine year old brother who has to go through this. Children should learn how to read words and comprehend words, yes, but it is ridiculous to want them to not bring their own perspective. Also, the emphasis on reading is rough on kids (like my brother) who prefer math and are a bit more inept with reading comprehension. Schools need to listen to the teachers and the students for what needs to be done, not a company that doesn't consult teachers. It's hard to relate the idea of the common core back to sustainability, but the idea that teachers can't really choose what they teach because everything is supposed to be test prep. If teachers can't teach things about sustainability since it won't be on a test, then the students won't have a capability to learn these things unless they are pursued outside of the classroom. This goes for any subject that the students might be interested in, but won't be tested on. Also, the sentence that mentioned that some administrators wanted instruction on how to deal with vomit covered tests made me so upset. These students are young, probably only about 10, and they're already having such bad anxiety about tests that they are throwing up on the tests, and probably at home as well. Students shouldn't have to deal with this stress, they've got growing up to deal with.

__February 7th, 2014__ After reading an article about how the Governor-General of Australia calls himself a "walking example of skin cancer" due to his unawareness as a child of the dangers of UV rays and how they can lead to melanoma. Now that he is older, he needs to constantly self-examine his skin and have regular doctor's visits to check for signs of skin cancer. He says that, while Australian youths have the highest occurrence of malignant melanoma, they don't want to listen to advice on how to protect themselves and consider themselves bulletproof. Lessons like that, lessons about how no child is bulletproof and bad environmental harms can hurt anyone, are something important to teach the kids of today. Not only do they need to know about the harmful effect of ozone depletion and UV rays, but they should also know about other things like toxins in water and how certain plants can harm them (ex. poison ivy). Now, children shouldn't come away from a lesson about these harmful effects traumatized and completely afraid of the environment. They should just be taught to be more aware of their surroundings and of things that can harm them, as well as being aware of ways to prevent harm. One good way to make this lesson real is to make it personal for the children. Asking them if they know someone, for example, with skin cancer or any other type of cancer. Some children might not really understand the concept of cancer, but most children above the age of 12 would surely understand, and chances are that they know someone who has or has had cancer. If teachers show them that anyone can get it and that if people they know can get it, they can get it, it would make it feel more real for them. And if students are more likely to understand that many environmental hazards (such as toxins in water) are caused by humans, they'll be more likely to want to prevent toxins from ever getting in. If we teach kids that they aren't guaranteed to be safe, they'll want to fight to be as safe as they possibly can be.

__February 6th, 2014__ After reading an article about how the trees in the climate are reacting very sensitively to climate change, more sensitively than scientists expected. This made me think about how students need to understand that science isn't always correct, but they should be taught in such a way to show that science has good ideas, but they can't always predict things accurately. Students should be taught to think critically and analytically when given new information. It's hard to tell what would show this to students and avoid leaving them completely untrusting of scientific reports. But students need to understand that things should never be taken at face value.

__February 5th, 2014__ For another class I'm taking this semester, we recently had to do readings about radical life extensions. The article we read discussed how the Pew Research Center put out a survey for American adults asking for their opinions on life extensions and how they would feel about living to 120. I, personally, would not want to live to be that old, for multiple reasons. But, one main reason that I would not desire life extension has to do with the sustainability of it. If all of the people in our generation were to live to be 120, or even 150, that would put a huge strain on natural resources. If middle age adults of today lived to be that old, it would be a strain on natural resources. We would have to deal with overcrowding and overpopulation and food scarcity. It wouldn't be pretty. There could also be a number of other problems with life extension, such as lack of new jobs as older and older people keep their jobs and don't retire and problems with social security. At first, I wasn't sure how to tie this into any sort of sustainability education sort of idea, but then I realised that it dealt with the literacy goal of how individual actions can have proximate and far off effects. If everyone were to live to be 120, the far off effect would be that food sources would have to stretch even farther, while a proximate effect would be that there is less room for people to live in. While many of the people who answered the survey said that they personally would not want to live to be 120, it's possible that scientific advances will allow our generation to live very long lives. Children should be taught early on about how they have an effect on the environment and how they should consider things like that when buying something or taking a long drive.

__February 4th, 2014__ I've been thinking lately about the influence of religion in science and how the facts about science can be skewed from a religious view. Now, this isn't to bash religions or anything. The whole idea came about from the debate that is going to occur tonight between Bill Nye (the Science Guy) and Ken Ham about the evolution and abiogenesis vs. creationist view. America has a very large amount of people who deny the scientifically backed idea of evolution and favour the religious view on how life arose and has changed, and some of these Americans have children in schools. The town I grew up in had a very large religious population, so large that we weren't really able to talk about evolution in our biology class without parents getting annoyed. This science vs. religion debate challenges science education greatly, and can definitely give students contrasting frames for viewing scientific data. I grew up in a household where religion was part of life, but since my mother is a biologist by profession, I was never brought up to deny science, only to question things and find new things to learn. This debate can also be brought to the frame of sustainability, since many children are taught by their parents (again, a phenomenon occuring primarily in the USA) that climate change is phony and that they shouldn't listen to anyone who talks about it. There aren't many ways to change this sort of thinking, because it is so heavily ingrained in how a large section of the population thinks. What would need to happen would be an entire cultural shift in how we view science and how we should teach science to our students. We need to teach students that they can have religious beliefs and views and that these views do not have to conflict with science.

__February 3rd, 2014__ Last night was the superbowl, something I've never been very interested in because I honestly don't care about sports. But the superbowl is something interesting to look at from a sustainability perspective. The superbowl is a very large part of American culture, so changing any sort of mindset about it would be incredibly difficult. The superbowl requires very powerful lights at the stadium, even more electricity for the halftime show (especially Queen Beyonce's) airplanes and buses to get the teams there, cars to get the stadium filled, televisions on for those who can't be there in person, cars for superbowl parties, and microwaves to heat up all the snacks. The superbowl is incredibly power heavy, which means a lot of fossil fuels are burnt to let this tradition continue. It would be very difficult to convince children that this American tradition is so terrible without breaking it down and addressing all the individual problems. We'd have to teach them first about how fossil fuels are bad for the environment and then teach about how fossil fuels would be connected to the superbowl. None of it would be very easy to achieve.

__February 1st, 2014__ The farmer's market is a great place to reflect on things about sustainability, especially in relation to food. I love going to the farmer's market for the good quality fresh produce because I love to cook and I really love to eat. But it can also help me think about how to get sustainability education going. Another thing from today that reminded me of food sustainability was on an episode of "Chopped" on the Food Network. One of the contestants works with the White House committee on bringing food sustainability curriculum to schools and he was talking about how he works with children to encourage them to plant their own food in a garden and eat that, promoting sustainability and being more green. This sort of sustainable food source would be a good way to get children to do something productive and fun, that they can bring home, and it can also help feed them. One major challenge to this would be places where gardens are harder to create, such as in apartment buildings. But children can pretty easily keep a potted plant growing, as long as they keep watering it and keep it out of the way of pets. Bringing children to a local small farm, if possible, would be a good field trip to teach children new systems that have to do with farms, along with educating them about where food comes from. To change the common habits of mind, they would need to be exposed to how small local farms produce high quality food and how dangerous industrial farms can be for the environment.

__January 31st, 2014__ Another article on EHN talks about how sweetener contaminants have been found in the highest concentration ever to date in a Great Lakes river. This news shows just how poorly the waste water treatment facilities are keeping up with all the new contaminants that are being added to the water. It is interesting to think about how a problem like this, with such unknown and unstudied consequences, is happening currently and how it is something that will clearly affect the students we are teaching. We need to encourage the government to revise the Clean Water Act and constantly be updating the list of contaminants they should screen for. Teaching the students that we need to be careful about what we allow into the water ways is a start. Encouraging them to think about the consequences of their actions, such as drinking many sugary drinks will end up leaving sugar in the water system, will help them shift their perspectives and be more concious of their actions. The students need to understand that everything has a consequence. Some consequences are positive, and some are negative, but everything does have a consequence.

__January 29th, 2014__ After reading the article on Environmental Health News about a common chemical, BP-2, which is found in many soaps and laundry detergents, is killing coral reefs and preventing them from properly reproducing, I began to wonder how to prevent this problem from continuing on further. In society, being clean is always considered a good thing and soaps and other products ling many shelves in supermarkets. To suddenly shift so that we no longer pollute the water with BP-2 would be unrealistic. What would need to be done would be a transition from using such chemicals as BP-2, to other non-polluting chemicals. There would need to be more regulation about the sort of things that industires can put in their products. Beyond that, we need to educate children on the importance of ecological systems like coral reefs. If the children see the importance in the coral reefs, they'll fight harder to protect them. We'd also have to teach them to look for products that won't add as many (or, none at all) pollutants to the water. Seeing pictures of the coral reefs would likely help students attach some importance to the reefs. Brining in an aquarium that replicates life in a coral reef would also teach students how important and beautiful they are. If the students can attach themselves to the coral reefs, they'll more likely try to save them from destruction.

__January 28th, 2014__ While visiting the emergency room today with my boyfriend who had sprained his wrist, I started thinking about all the lights and energy that the hospital creates. Clearly, the hospital does need some of these machines to keep people alive, but the extreme amount of light, and the fact that the lights were on in every room even when not occupied, seemed very wasteful. It has made me wonder since, if we can teach young children about reducing energy consumption. My current roommates are very bad at not consuming energy and constantly leave lights on. If they had been taught from an early age to turn off the light when leaving a room, the way my mother always did so we could save on the electric bill, I wonder if they would be less wasteful now. To get people, students in particular, to turn off the light, they'd need to understand that the resources we have are precious and finite. To achieve this, the idea of systems would be useful, particularly the industrial system. But more than just learning about the system that uses these finite resources, people would have to break the habit of being wasteful. There is a pretty common habit of mind in America that using our resources won't effect the environment, that our resources are infinite. This would have to stop. It would take quite some time to convince people to use less resources, but if we start with young students and teach them how to be less wasteful, it might just work.