Alexandra's+Journal+Entries

General questions to think about... (here as a reminder for myself) 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?

__January 29, 2014__ I think a solid understanding of systems thinking is important as an educational outcome called for by sustainability problems, especially regarding ecology and chemical cycles within the environment (such as the carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous cycles). What is even more important for earth systems, however, is for the student to understand how THEY fit into the system. Maybe have them reflect on their lives and see where they act as fluxes into and out of ecological processes? If they can picture how they influence cycles and systems, it would be easier for them to be able to mentally extrapolate that idea to try to understand how great a force humanity can be as a whole on the environment and how we manage to interrupt natural balances. I feel it’s harder to envision how you fit into a system than learning about the system arbitrarily, but it might produce a more profound effect and help make it an “enduring” lesson for the students. I was shocked to learn from the SRI 2006 Consulting reading that less than 15% of the “American public” understands the causes of global warming. How can people be willing to make cultural changes without understanding the reasons as to why they are necessary? At first I wanted to blame the education system, but then I thought that it was not a reasonable conclusion because global warming was not necessarily a hot topic or known of at all during older generations’ schooling. I do not consider this an excuse, though; there should be a way to reach out to the general public and teach them the basics of the science behind global warming. Some may say that it is too complex of a topic for the general public to understand. I think this is a cynical view – people are not stupid. Some people are just too busy to take the time to understand or have no interest. The situation would get a lot more attention if people understood how they individually fit into the bigger picture - what I was getting at earlier in the entry. We need to make it interesting and simple to mentally digest. Also the amount of misinformation out there is astounding. Media literacy is definitely another learning outcome necessary for sustainability problems – to be able to look at a news source and figure out who the intended audience is, who it’s funded/sponsored by and be able to identify the associated bias, etc. Side Note: Dominoes may be a good visual aid for an activity. Don't know what to do with them yet, but I was recently reminded that they existed. __January 30, 2014__ I participated in developing the 3rd grade curriculum for systems today. I'll admit it - I underestimated how complicated it can be to write a lesson plan, especially when it came to simplifying content so that it could be easily understood by the elementary students. At first I thought it was crazy to even think about teaching aquaponics to kids, but then I realized you really don't need to get into the aqueous, geo-, and biological chemistry of the setup in order to explain it in terms of systems. Using phrases like "fish make poop, the plants use the poop to grow, and the bacteria eat the poop" are reasonable statements that third graders may giggle at, but it would still get the necessary relations across. I guess this is one of the key skills teachers should possess: the ability to convey complex topics to various audiences in an appropriate manner given the audience's previous knowledge. As I learned today, this is a difficult feat to accomplish... I have a whole new respect for elementary school teachers, especially regarding scientific topics. Also, I found a quote I liked in one of the environmental blogs I read from time to time: "We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great." It was said by Vivienne Westwood, a fashion designer of all professions (I mean, I don't normally associate fashion with sustainability insight - I guess I shouldn't limit the possibilities. That's a lesson within itself.), but it spoke to me. It gets at the deep cultural transformation that needs to take place in order to establish a sustainable society. What we consider ethical, economical, valuable, even fun need to be examined and reflected upon... I also found a cool article about the number of increasing jobs available in the solar industry: http://www.enn.com/climate/article/46962. They say as the nation seeks cleaner, renewable energy resources, as many as 56 new U.S. solar jobs per day are being created. Sounds to me like the solar industry is helping the US economy by employing Americans. If there's one way to help make the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energies, it's to entice people with the incentive of potential new job openings and a growing economy. The article states: "... the latest report from the Solar Foundation reveals that the U.S. solar energy sector continues to create jobs at a much higher rate than the economy overall". Many environmental attitude studies (I've read many in the sustainability courses that I've taken) reveal that the pocketbook is the best incentive to create change - change that could be beneficial to the environment and to sustainability efforts overall. Reference: Burger, Andrew. "US Solar Employment Growing at 10 Times the National Average". //ENN: Environmental News Network//. Web. . __January 31, 2014__ I was reminded of Sustainability Education during my General Psychology reading. We're learning about all the different branches and applications of psychology, and developmental psychology and education came up in the text book. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) designed the "Montessori Method" for teaching children, which was based on her belief that children matured through stages and emphasized individual instruction. This implies that they are sensitive to different kinds of instructions at specific age ranges, leading to the conclusion that education is best when when it provides exercises that match the competency of the child at that stage (Carlson, 15). She also believed that movement was closely related to thought, so she encouraged her students to be active and move around in the classroom (Carlson, 15). This is different than the current education system in place in the US; we group students by their birth year and not within a range of ages. This also reminds me of the paradigm education video we watched for homework at the beginning of Sustainability Education ("We group kids by age. It's like a manufacture date. Why do we do that?"). There is also not much movement in the typical US classroom (I'm thinking of Professor Fortune telling us her daughter doesn't have recess during the winter and sits for hours at a time). I'm not saying the Montessori Method should be adapted to in the US - it is only one of many education theories described in just the general psychology textbook and not necessarily the best - but it caught my eye because it mentioned physical activity and age groupings. I think there is something to be said about the importance of allowing students to move around the classroom during lessons, especially for younger children. Not only does it keep them alert, but it also would most likely keep their interest better than simply sitting at a desk. I imagine this creates a better environment for active learning and mental engagement. This is a great idea to keep in mind when developing effective lesson plans and modules for sustainability curriculum. Good thing we incorporated riding a bike into the third graders' lesson plan for systems, especially towards the beginning of the lesson. This will help them get excited about the lesson and wake them up. __February 3, 2014__ I was thinking about how important developing a sense of community is regarding sustainability issues and started wondering if there were ways to help develop empathy in students as a learning outcome. In the readings this week the topic of framing was discussed and how situations can be framed in such a way to help individuals reason to the "right" conclusions from facts. In the Lakoff reading, he mentions how empathy has a "physical basis in the mirror neuron system, which links us physiologically to other beings and to things in the natural world" (Lakoff). He also mentions how repetition of ideological language strengthens the circuits for that ideology in the hearer's brain (Lakoff). Does this mean that we can design lesson plans that strengthen the circuits for empathy in students' brains? This would most definitely help sustainability issues, but I wonder if that's really an ethical thing to do. Is it appropriate to be taught in a school (We encourage students to share in elementary school)? Or is this a topic to be entrusted onto the parents of the child (Then again, we wouldn't have child services if that was safe to assume...)? These questions remain, but for now I'll go with my opinion that the world would be a better place for everyone if teaching empathy was feasible. It's an interesting concept. It would help establish local communities, and through extrapolating develop a better sense of a global community. Externalized economic costs wouldn't seem so externalized. It would really get at the roots of the sustainability debate described by David Orr: "Issues of sustainability are primarily ones of fairness and inter-generational rights... No human has the right to diminish the life and well-being of and no generation has the right to inflict harm on generations to come" (Orr). It would be revolutionary. __February 4, 2014__ We restructured our lesson plan about systems for the third grade class today (We're lucky the snow gave us more time!) and decided to incorporate a climate system station during the station rotation session. As an environmental science major, I was appointed to work on it. I'm really excited about the opportunity - I can introduce young students to the climate system and the issue of climate change, beginning to give them an understanding of one of the most significant problems the world has faced. I have an idea of how I would fill out the 5 box system model, but I'm trying to think of an activity or a demonstration that would be more effective than just giving them a diagram and a worksheet alone. I really want to make an enduring lesson that will surprise and intrigue them (Kind of how the bike station has the ability to show kids how much work actually goes into lighting a bulb). I want to focus more on the science side of the system but also incorporate human influences and how they impact natural cycles, which results in global warming. Whether or not I can actually achieve all of this in 10-15 minutes will be a challenge, so I'll be looking for ideas on education resource websites. With a system as large and as intricate as climate, it will be hard to put limits on how "far" to go in the system model. I'll have to talk with my partners about setting constraints. During class we had a short discussion on this week's readings and the "Class Divided" documentary. I agree with one girl's statement in class - that it would be close to impossible to perform a lesson like that in today's public school system. Too many parents would be calling, complaining that the lesson is psychologically damaging to the child. I think this is a shame; the activity seemed to have instilled very valuable lessons within the students that they held onto later in their lives. If only it was possible to teach through experience without encountering the potential negative psychological consequences. Lessons seem to need to be more experimental and progressive nowadays to leave an enduring impression on the student - to make them meaningful and memorable. Learning through experience is one of the most effective ways to learn, at least for me. That's why learning from mistakes is so effective. __Febraury 5, 2014__ I was thinking about how politicized the "science" of climate change has become. It's really frustrating when people associate politics with my undergraduate major and assume things. Environmental scientists - earth scientists in general - conduct experiments and research to learn about the physical world around us, not to found political beliefs that can be agreed with or not. This is definitely one of the habits of mind our society (especially in the US) possesses that needs to change in order to make progress regarding sustainability issues. Debating whether or not observable phenomena occurring within the environment is actually happening or not by misinforming and lobbying to defend damaging habits is a waste of time. There's a separation of church and state, why not a separation of natural science and politics? This not only applies to the evermore unnecessarily complicated topic of global warming, but also to pollution, land use, water consumption and quality, etc. Regulations would be easier to set if the science behind them wasn't so fought against (And by "fought against" I do not mean "scientifically examined and debated"). Side Note: Curriculum planning regarding climate as a system has been trickier than expected! I catch myself using bigger words and assuming the students have knowledge of chemistry. It's hard to remember what it was like in third grade... but it's nothing that can't be overcome by looking at more example curricula online. __February 6, 2014__ So my group attempted to run through the first draft of the climate system station plan. It didn't go as well as we thought it would when we had it out on paper - topics got brought up too early and it was hard to keep the flow of the conversation the way we wanted to clearly make connections. I also think it was a little challenging to pretend the classroom full of college students was a group of third graders. It was more like giving a presentation than a small group activity. This may have set the wrong tone for the plan. Either way it way more difficult than expected. We need to think of a better way to explain greenhouse gases and emphasize the "system in balance vs. unbalanced" concept. Instead of using a literal greenhouse as an example (which I assume many of the third graders will not have encountered) someone suggested that we use the example of a car warming up during the summer so when you opened up the door to get in you could feel the heat trapped inside by the glass. I think this is a more familiar situation that they can relate to. That's one of the key ideas that needs to be considered in all sustainability curricula in my opinion - to relate the lesson to the students' everyday lives so it really sticks in their heads (i.e. they'll be reminded of the lesson when they engage in daily activities). The idea of predictability regarding the weather and climate change also was more emphasized during the practice run than originally planned. Maybe that's an idea we can channel - make connections about not being able to grow food as well, etc. We also need to explain to the kids how serious and threatening the phenomenon of climate change is without scaring them too much. Empower them and give them hope, but tell them the disastrous consequences of continuing to put greenhouse gases into the air. Also - the cloud demonstration works!!! It's actually wicked cool - I tried it out a bunch of times trying to get it to produce the most water vapor so the kids will be able to see it easily. I'll probably bring some sort of black background to "puff" the cloud out in front of so it is contrasted against the dark background. I hope they find it as cool as I did... __February 7, 2014__ I found a really cool article: http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/46996. The article is about how climate researchers at the University of East Anglia have for the first time made the world's temperature records available on Google Earth. Users can see some 20,000 graphs of temperature from 6,000 weather stations around the world, some of which show temperature records dating back to 1850. Specifically, the Climatic Research Unit Temperature Version 4 (CRUTEM4) land-surface data set is now visible - it's one of the most widely used records of the climate system. This is the kind of data that needs to be out there for the public to access in order for sustainability issues to even come close to being resolved. People can go online and see for themselves how temperatures are changing. Instead of simply being told that it is happening, they can see it for themselves. This is empowering - people can begin to make connections with real information and learn about what's really happening in the world that they live in. The layperson can become the scientist. Reference: "Global Temperatures Now Available on Google Earth". //ENN: Environmental News Network//. Web. . __February 9, 2014__ I just read Karp's "Problems with the Common Core" and I have to say it really intrigued me. It brought up points about the standardized curricula and testing that I had never thought of before. Joanne Weiss' comment especially got me thinking: "Common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale." That deeply disturbs me. The feeling was only emphasized when Karp mentioned how Pearson included corporate logos and promotional material in reading passages. Students - and the teachers who educate them - are being brainwashed into becoming perfect consumers. This has to stop. Not even just for sustainability issues regarding consumerism. This is wrong - a violation of human rights, an unethical abomination. It's deceit. I have more sympathy towards the struggle to assess educational progress. How do we figure out whether or not a student has "achieved" the learning outcomes of a lesson plan? To me, the answer is not standardized tests. Students are too diverse in their cognitive abilities to accurately assess them using one testing model. I haven't thought of an alternative (yet...) but I'll definitely be thinking about it when creating my own modules for students. Also: how are lessons to help solve sustainability issues to be taught when there is no flexibility in the standardized curricula to include them?! Who is to say that the content included in the standardized curricula is of more importance to teach than other topics?! The whole situation is rather frustrating. (My personal opinion: Why don't we teach more about dirt?!) __February 10, 2014__ Walking to class today, I thought about public health in the framing of sustainability issues. I believe that the preservation of our own health (not animals or other implicated parties with more altruistic undertones) is one of the greatest motivators to fight against pollution. The damage to the environment is becoming more of a human rights issue than a concern revolving around caring for "Mother Earth." People are starting to make the connections that what we, as a society, put into the the environment comes back to us - we are inhabitants of the environment that we pollute. Therefore, what we do to prevent the environment's destruction helps keep us healthy and happy and does not just benefit the planet (I find it strange how some people can talk about "the planet" as if its a separate entity). This is going off of some concepts I learned in psychology recently. Altruism is - on the surface - a seemingly selfless act. However, altruism is much more likely to take place when the favor is more likely to be returned (reciprocal altruism). When humans are able to get some benefit out of altruism - whether the benefit be seemingly indirect, mutual, or in the future - they are more likely to help. Incentive is key, and what I'm thinking is that preservation of health can be a strong incentive. Healthy communities are also much easier to maintain than unhealthy ones. Not only is a sick population generally unhappy, but it puts a stress on the environment by excreting unprocessed medications and metabolized byproducts into sewage treatment plants that are not yet capable of processing all the chemicals out, as well as the many resources it takes to run hospitals and medical facilities. Maybe kids can be introduced to this connection at a younger age - that a healthy body leads to a healthy environment, and vice versa. __February 11, 2014__ I really enjoyed listening to the first grade teacher who came into class today. He answered many interesting questions, including how the children entering his class have changed over the years he has been teaching. He mentioned that kids don't like to go outside anymore, that they're more materialistic, and that they have greater difficulty reading other peoples' emotions and other nonverbal communication. He suspected that this is most likely from the technology and media that children are increasingly exposed to and how it's only one-sided communication - the TV to them. I agree with his suspicions. I find it very interesting that kids are, as a group, showing difficulty in socializing - a symptom of many mental conditions, such as Asperger Syndrome. This makes me wonder how many kids are falsely diagnosed and that deeper cultural causes are the root of the problem. The guest speaker also mentioned that the best things members of the community can do - especially if they have children in public schools - to help the school system is to get involved and volunteer. It was mentioned that some parents may not be able to get involved for a variety of reasons (i.e. work, poverty, irresponsibility for the child). I think divorce rates have a big role in this problem. My parents are divorced, but my mom somehow managed to still remain active in both my brother's and my public education (She's amazing and would volunteer whenever she could). I realize that some parents may not be able to (seemingly magically) pull this off and thought maybe there could be some sort of program to help single parents stay active in their child's education. Maybe school cafeterias could offer free lunch to parents who donate their time - provide some incentives other than "good parents do this". Parents could also encourage academics at home and help their children learn. I don't know, I know there are some parents who just simply can't get involved as they would like or just don't care. It's hard. __February 12, 2014__ Today we went to Tamarac Elementary for the first time. My station members and I had to alter the lesson plan in an emergency - our expected time slot was 15 minutes but when we got into the classroom it was cut down to 10 minutes. Three groups went through the station in total. Due to the sudden time restriction, the first group wasn't as organized as it should have been. We didn't get to the cloud demonstration with them, but they did fill out the 5 box model (with less emphasis on the "work" boxes, unfortunately). Even though it was rushed towards the end and slightly disorganized, I feel that they understood the general concepts of the climate system. The second group went wonderfully. They made the connection in the cloud demonstration that the smoke from our cars/trucks goes up into the atmosphere (layers of air around the earth) and can make clouds - illustrating to them one way how humans can alter the climate system. They also managed to fill out the "work" boxes very well. They made the necessary connections to list "more severe storms" in the negative effects and "nice climate for growing food" in the positive effects. One kid in the second group even made the connection that the water cycle was part of the climate system, telling me how "water from the ocean goes up into the air to make clouds, then gets rained down onto the land again". The third group was run in the same manner, but they didn't make the same connections the second group did ("So one way to help the climate system is to not light matches?..."). I don't really know what we could have done differently with the third group to help their understanding with the limited time we had - it wasn't apparent that some of the group didn't understand the concepts until we had one minute left or so. Overall I think it went well, especially considering it was the first time we went to the school and were exposed to the kids in the classroom. I was really surprised at the variety in cognitive development throughout the class. Some of the kids were able to pick up things so quickly while others struggled - it really showed me how difficult it is to make a lesson plan that would achieve its learning outcomes across the entire class. It was also really interesting to hear their responses to some of the questions from the other groups. When the class did the aquaponics box model on the board together they were asked about where our electricity comes from. It took a while for one of them to answer "burning coal"; most of the responses consisted of renewable energies such as wind, solar, and hydro. It's strange - I'm excited to know that they're hearing and learning about renewable energy, but at the same time I find it concerning that they didn't know where most of our energy comes from and that it's causing severe environmental problems. The first graders were quite the experience. Besides being extremely distracted by my hair (I'll bring a hair tie next time...) they did seem to understand the "Step Up to Solutions" model. They were even able to figure out the "causes of the causes" of air pollution ("we go to far away places", "we produce electricity", etc) and figured out solutions such as carpooling, not just riding a bike instead of driving a car (Although they did come up with that one, too). It was surprising because I thought they weren't paying attention to the presentation at the front of the room at all (talking, giggling, bothering each other in general), but they knew what they were doing when I worked with them on the model. It was a fun experience, and I think the first grade sustainability education group did a wonderful job putting their first session together. The kids seemed to have enjoyed it and learned a lot. I will say that I guess I didn't really realize that misbehavior may be a problem until I sat down with the kids and had a hard time getting them not to fight over the pens, pay attention to the speaker, etc. I have a whole new appreciation for first grade teachers. __February 13, 2014__ Today I found an article (http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/47030) about how a drought in California may cause higher food prices all over America. The San Joaquin Valley is considered the "agriculture center of the world", producing many of the nation's fruits and vegetables as well as cotton, dairy, and produce from cattle ranches. The drought it making it more difficult for farmers to achieve their normal yields, lowering the supply of food and thus raising the prices of their goods across the nation. The article mentions that a California Farm Water Coalition study found that Americans spend 6.2% less for groceries than other high-income countries, so it may be difficult for certain socioeconomic groups to be able to buy food once the effects of the drought are felt in the economy. It's important for the general populace to make the connection between the drought and higher food prices, especially in areas far away receiving goods from the valley. As climate change takes place, the nation will most likely have to endure severe weather events and unpleasant climate changes - including droughts. If people can see that climate change will effect their ability to obtain food, more people will be interested in sustainability issues and how to solve them, especially climate change as a result of human perturbation. It's important for people to make the science-society connection regarding sustainability issues. Reference: Cheesman, Gina-Marie. "California Drought May Cause Higher Food Prices For All Americans." //Agricultural and Biofuel News//. Environmental News Network, 12 Feb. 2014. Web. . __February 14, 2014__ I went to some stores today to look for a Valentine's Day card for my boyfriend and I couldn't help but get a little annoyed at society. I find the concept of Valentine's Day a little strange to begin with, but when you take a step back and look at the holiday you notice how it promotes materialism - one of the cultural "flaws" in our society that makes it hard to resolve sustainability issues. The little tacky gifts, the cards (I ended up making my own), the candy and chocolate, all the things that come with Valentine's Day enforce the general American belief that love should/can be expressed through material gifts. I don't mean to be a downer - I love holidays - but something about Valentine's Day doesn't really sit well with me. You also look at where all these little gifts are coming from - China, Indonesia - and think of all the energy and waste that goes into making these little knick knacks that most people end up throwing out anyway (Unless it's fine jewelry or something to that effect - but even then a lot of the metals and stones require pollution-producing mining techniques and processing). It's tricky because on one hand you have the "YOLO" mentality and people want to celebrate with rituals associated with the holiday, but on the other hand you could recreate Valentine's Day to be less materialistic and make new traditions. I've also noticed that lot of people have trouble showing affection without gift giving, which could make recreating traditions difficult. A lot of the points I've made can also be made regarding other holidays - such as Christmas. Oh man, even birthdays involve traditionally materialistic gifts. Maybe our cultural methods of celebration in general need to be reformed to be less materialistic. __February 18, 2014__ I attended the showing of the "Greenwashers" film with the BP Workshop today and stayed for a short presentation on the "7 Sins of Greenwashing." It was really interesting to see the kids' reactions to the film and how they analyzed the ads for the "seven sins" afterwards. They seemed to learn a lot from the film based off of their performance analyzing the ads. The ability to see through advertisements and having competent media literacy are critical skills for people to possess in order for sustainability issues to be overcome. Not everyone is able to devote all their time and energy to solving sustainability problems (even though it should be a priority, but daily living gets in the way) so it's important for people to be able to help by "voting with their money" (not as effective as other methods, if at all, but I guess it's one theory) by purchasing products that support sustainable production and products. In order to do this, corporations need to either be honest (won't happen, profit's too big of an incentive) or the public needs to be able to see through these tricks without growing cynical of the whole thing. The BP Workshop helped to teach the students who participated these skills, enabling them to begin their journey to become informed consumers. I thought the way the film was done was very clever. Watching the reactions of the representative's of greenwashing companies realize what was going on was priceless, and their attempts at justifying themselves was just as good. The one company that made "swag" (like the stuff given out at career fairs) with their tire rubber jar openers particularly caught my attention, especially when the "greepers" pointed out that they dumped the eco-guilt of burning the tires on another company to look good giving out the product. There really was no way their representative could defend the production of the jar openers. Makes you think about "recycled/upcycled" products in a different light. __February 19, 2014__ I found a news article today entitled "Obama Moves Ahead to Increase Fuel Efficiency Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles" at http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/47060. According to the article, "the new standards require combination tractors to achieve a 20% reduction in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 2018, and require heavy-duty pickup trucks, vans and vocational vehicles to achieve a 15% reduction in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 2018". Also according to the article, "Obama pointed out that although heavy-duty trucks only account for 4% of all vehicles on the highway, they are responsible for about 20% of the carbon emissions from the transportation sector. They are also responsible for about 20% of on-road fuel consumption and haul about 70% of all domestic freight". The article then gives details on how much money the nation will save by implementing these statistical changes. But that's the problem - the article only mentions the statistic, not the means of how this change is going to occur. Is the government simply promising too much than it can deliver? I want to see a plan of action, not just numbers thrown in my face. Even then, only 20% and 15% reductions? Sounds like the trucks are going to keep doing some significant environmental damage to me. Despite my doubtfulness, this is a step in the right direction, and governmental regulations are one of the only ways thus far that real positive change has come about. I think the public needs to push for more significant changes, and show willingness (if the majority is willing, that is) to accept the consequences of the necessary changes. I'm impressed by Obama that he is increasing fuel efficiency standards. This is an extremely hard feat to accomplish, especially with our current infrastructure and existing political opposition. These are the sorts of daunting problems that need to be tackled in order to achieve a sustainable society. Reference: Cheeseman, Gina-Marie. "Obama Moves Ahead to Increase Fuel Efficiency Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles." //Global Pollution and Prevention News//. ENN: Environmental News Network, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. . __February 20, 2014__ So for the past week there has been an internet phenomenon underway known as "Twitch Plays Pokemon". Twitch.com is a streaming site mainly used so people can view games being played online. Someone made it so that the chat window next to the video stream is capable of inputting commands into a Pokemon Red emulator. As a result, ~80,000-120,000 people are trying to play the same game at once. It's been amazing to watch. They've actually made astonishing progress (4/8 gym badges) and only recently had to implement a democracy vs. anarchy game mode (If enough people vote democracy, the game switches to weight inputs and act on the most voted for command within 10 seconds, if enough people vote anarchy the game follows any command put into the chat window). A whole culture has grown from the game, even two "cults" (although not serious, it's still interesting). Multiple internet communities have tried to create "strategy" pages to try to get people to work together. It's fascinating to watch so many people - THOUSANDS of people - trying to accomplish a single goal. It's a great social experiment. It also shows just how difficult it is for people to work together - especially when there's part of the population involved that doesn't fully understand what's going on or is apathetic/trying to mess it up. Maybe it's just me, but I see many parallels to the social problems faced when dealing with sustainability issues (i.e. trying to get everyone on the same page, trying to inform everyone of what they can do to help/make it work, people misleading and misinforming people, problems with governance, etc.). It even illustrates the emergent negative consequences of everyone trying to accomplish different things at once (For example, accidentally releasing a pokemon from the pc because someone happened to input the "a" command at the wrong time). Link to the stream: http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon. __February 21,2014__ I went grocery shopping today and was torn between three options for salad dressing. I could have (a) bought an organic, vinegar-based dressing, (b) bought balsamic vinegar and olive oil separately and combine the two on my own (costly, but most healthy option), or (c) bought the price chopper brand dressing (the nutrition label was a little scary). I ended up buying the organic dressing, since it was only a couple more dollars than the price chopper brand and way cheaper than buying the ingredients separately. It was interesting - with what I know about where our food comes from I felt guilty considering purchasing the price chopper brand, but at the same time I really don't have the money to buy fancy dressing. It's hard to buy environmentally-conscious, healthy food on a budget. Over the years I have noticed that as the organic industry has grown prices seem to have come down, but still not enough to be considered affordable for everyone. I have to pick and choose which products are the most critical to buy organic knowing the potential pesticide exposure (i.e. apples are really bad) and environmental impact. I think it's important for the general public to know this information, too, to be able to know what they're putting into their bodies and be aware of the consequences of their purchases/which farming practices they want to support. I think the "yuppie chow" label on organic food also needs to be seen through. Eating healthy food shouldn't be just for the rich folk. In Andrew Szasz' book, "Shopping Our Way to Safety", he explains the real environmental benefit behind buying organic food and the positive farming practices it encourages. __February 24, 2014__ I try to journal every weekday, but today I had to study for 2 tough exams tomorrow. So I'll continue my journaling tomorrow. __February 25, 2014__ Today I found an interesting article about the controversy of banning plastic shopping bags: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/us/plastic-bags-come-under-siege-in-california.html?ref=earth&_r=0. It's really interesting. California is trying to ban plastic shopping bags statewide. San Francisco and many other cities and towns already have anti-plastic bag rules. They've been banned at many facilities, including liquor stores, grocery stores, etc. The stores still provide more easily degradable paper bags for 10 cents in case people forget their reusable bags. The laws have stirred a mix of reactions. Some people are frustrated, with one woman stating that the paper bags easily fall apart and are inconvenient, and says that the new laws are making it harder for people on a budget. Others are all for the ban, and realize how much cleaner their cities have become without bags caught in trees and littering the streets. Some also promote the ban for environmental reasons, realizing that a plastic bag that's only used once or twice can last "up to a millennium". The plastic bags are also hard to recycle because they get caught in the recycling equipment and have to be separately sorted. To be honest, I'm surprised that the movement has so much support. People are willingly sacrificing convenience to improve their homes and help protect the environment. As for people who oppose it - especially the lady the New York Times quoted at the beginning saying that paying for the paper bags makes it harder to afford groceries - they seem to be rallying against it because of the responsibility to remember to bring their reusable bags to the store. The lady would not have to pay the extra 10 cents per bag every time she shopped if she remembered her bag(s). I assumed when I saw the article that more people would share her opinion, but apparently not. I hope California is successful in their endeavor to ban plastic shopping bags. It means a lot for the future of sustainability for a large mas of people to be willing to give up convenience and accept addition responsibility (remembering their bags) to help protect the environment. Reference: Lovett, Ian. "California Endangered Species: Plastic Bags." //The New York Times//. The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2014. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/us/plastic-bags-come-under-siege-in-california.html?ref=earth&_r=0. __February 26, 2014__ We had a meeting today to tie up the loose ends for the start of the EcoEd research program for the 6th-9th graders. The main problem was figuring out the timing for all the different topics we wanted to cover, plus introducing them to the EcoEd program in general and familiarizing them with Zotero (and getting them accounts). It's a lot to fit into a 2 hour block. I'm really worried that if one section goes a little over time it will have a magnifying effect and that we won't be able to finish the counties lesson with them. If that's the case, we decided to assign the rest of the lesson as additional homework on top of the memo 1. We had to take a step back and figure out what we're trying to accomplish with them in the long run to decide which parts to put emphasis on in the first day. It's amazing what we're expecting from these middle school students. A research paper and a presentation seems like pretty legit assignments for students their age. I'm sure they're capable of accomplishing everything; I'm just a little jealous. I wish I had the opportunity to participate in a program like this when I was younger. We're providing them a wonderful opportunity to start developing research skills and learn about current environmental issues that pose obstacles to sustainability problems. I'm excited to meet the kids tomorrow - it'll be interesting to see the jump in development from 3rd grade to middle school (albeit it's a pretty big leap, and even further if there are freshmen in high school participating). I have this feeling that I'm underestimating them... It's hard to remember what it was like to be in middle school. __February 27, 2014__ We had our first RPI EcoEd research program meeting today. I think it went very well - we even (somehow) finished everything we wanted to cover within the 2 hour time constraint. That way the kids only had to take memo1 for homework instead of also finishing up lesson1. We were a little rushed during the lesson, but it worked out. I don't know how the Zotero overview went. They signed up and made accounts with no problem; I just hope everyone is okay going home and installing the plugin on their computer and getting set up there. It was interesting to work with the students to help them research the different counties. Some of them didn't really know how to make searches on google that would bring up the precise information that they wanted. After a couple examples they seemed to get the hang of it though. I guess the amount of computer/internet exposure kids get varies from household to household. You could tell some kids were more comfortable logging in and using the computers than others. I think it's really important that kids know how to effectively and safely get information from the internet; it's a powerful research tool. I think it's critical to sustainability education that the students are able to access the internet and all sorts of information from all over the world. It helps put things in a global perspective. In my opinion, learning how to use the internet as a research tool is one of the greatest skills these kids will get from the RPI EcoEd program. I already had a nice discussion about Wikipedia with one of the students, explaining that they shouldn't use it for the content but they could scroll down and look at the sources and see if any of them look legit/useful. Everyone should be able to educate themselves, and the internet is a great way to do so when used properly. On a side note, I am a little concerned about the students' motives for being in our program. One student let it slip to me that they were only there because the program would look good on an application. I told them that although this is most likely true, that I hope they get more out of the program than simply resume material. __February 28, 2014__ I found an article today from the Environment News Service about the tar sands environmental and health impacts: http://ens-newswire.com/2014/02/27/alberta-md-canada-lying-about-tar-sands-health-impacts/. It's an extraordinarily frustrating discovery. Turns out the governments of both Alberta and Canada have been lying and covering up the health impacts of the Canadian tar sands industry on northern Alberta. A family physician from the area, Dr. John O'Connor, came forth and exposed the situation. There are published and peer-reviewed studies that indicate the governments have been lying and misrepresenting the impact of the industry. There are very convincing statistics, as well. The physician cited that statistics for rare cancers are now 400 times more frequent than would be expected in the tiny community of Fort Chipewyan, which lies just north of the oil sands. He also mentioned that Fort Chipewyan Councillor John Chadi fell ill last fall and was diagnosed with rare, incurable bile duct cancer - also found in other people living nearby. This is disgusting. These are peer-reviewed, scientific studies. It's the government's job to protect its people - they shouldn't be fighting against these studies and ignoring the sick but instead working with them to create new regulation. I'm not even mostly concerned about the tar sands issue itself - I'm more concerned for the environmental justice that is owed to the communities surrounding the tar sands. How can sustainability be achieved when the government is blatantly ignoring strong evidence? The problem doesn't stop in the communities surrounding the tar sands, but continues to the cities - like Port Aurthur, TX - that have the refineries to process the tar sands. Issues like environmental justice, not only like the scientific issues presented by the tar sands, need to be considered in order to achieve sustainability. Reference: "Alberta MD: Canada 'Lying' About tar Sands Health Impacts." //Environmental News Service//. 27 Feb, 2014. Web. . __March 3, 2014__ Yesterday I attended a sustainability film session and viewed a series of small movies about the program Engineers Without Borders. It looks like a really cool program; the clips depicted college students of all different majors working together with developing communities in third world countries to install systems that would provide them with clean freshwater. The various systems included rain water catch systems to wells. The groups would make sure their project was sustainable for the given community. This means that the community was involved with the design and build process, learning about the benefits of the system and how to recreate it. The group also made sure to use local materials to ensure that if the system broke or they wanted to make another that they could get the supplies to fix it or build it again. This seems like much more effective "charity work" than simply giving communities temporary freshwater sources, such as disposable water filters. What was even more impressive is that the majority of the program is student-run. These students are not providing quick, temporary fixes to serious problems, they are going all the way to ensure that their project is sustainable and will continue to benefit the community. It's inspiring to see such motivated, devoted, and altruistic students students working to help others in need, especially given how far away some of the communities are. Learning about other cultures and areas helps develop a sense of global community, and the Engineers Without Borders program helps enable students to do just that. All of these are reasons why this program is truly making headway on confronting sustainability issues where it matters. We need teachers to help establish the sort of values that would lead students to get involved in programs such as this. Perhaps this can be done by creating lesson plans that foster a sense of stewardship and citizenship on the global level. __March 4, 2014__ Today I found an article about the effects of noise on fish behavior: http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/47115. It's seems like an interesting study; two different species of fish are exposed to noises that are commonly produced by humans, like boat engine sounds, and their change in behavior is observed. When sounds are emitted on a social species such as minnows, their social behavior decreases, which lessens their rate of survival. When other species of fish are exposed to the noise, such as sticklebacks, their food foraging habits either decreased or they made more errors. Errors could lead to the fish ingesting something toxic or hard to digest, leading to death or health issues. Sound pollution is not a form of pollution commonly discussed. Many sounds of human civilization are emitted into natural environments and affect many different species. Think about all the things we use/do the create sound: cars, trucks, planes, construction, alarms, bells, etc. These noises can interrupt a variety of animal behaviors, including socialization, mating (mating calls), foraging for food, hunting, migration, etc. I think areas like cities probably produce the most noise pollution due to the dense human population in those areas. It's important to consider all forms of pollution in order to achieve sustainability, including noise and light pollution that are often left out of the equation. We are still learning how humans affect the environment around them, and more abstract effects are continuing to be discovered. Reference: "Noise Levels Can Affect Fish Behaviors." //Sustainable Ecosystems and Community News//. Environmental News Network, 3 Mar. 2014. Web. . __March 5, 2014__ We went to Tamarac for a second visit today. The third grade session went amazingly! Every group that went through our station understood what was going on. We talked about cities as a system, and what makes a city happy/healthy or sad/unhealthy and what are the effects of each type of city. We made the connection from energy resources that energies may use to global warming, explaining to the kids how the gases released from coal and oil go into the atmosphere and trap heat from the sun while renewables do not release gases and therefore do not contribute to global warming. We also showed them pictures from Scott's "Energy" book of tar sands, coal power plants, and animals in oil spills and explained that not only are fossil fuels contributing to global warming, but the also destroy the environment in a much more visible way - it's just that sometimes the places being affected are far away from where the energy is going (used example of Canadian tar sands). I was really surprised with how they kids made sense of what was going on. One student even said some along the lines of "but we can start at a local level, work our way up to towns, counties, states, and the nation to help change things!" I was so pleasantly surprised. One girl was also confused/disgusted that people would continue to use these sources while knowing about what the effects of their use are. We made sure that each group talked about what could be done to improve a bad city (i.e. changing energy resources, recycling, etc.) and understood that people are //choosing// to live the way that we do - we can still make different decisions and change for the better (sort of drawn from the "Story of Broke" video). All in all, the third graders impressed me and I think it went very well. I hope the worksheet we gave them about global warming works out and that they reinforce what we talked about in class and have the opportunity to learn even more. I cannot, however, say the same for the 1st graders. At least not for my group. I had some serious behavior problems with 2 of the 3 girls in my group that would refuse to participate and act out. They told me about how they didn't like school and how they didn't care about what they were learning about, or how they didn't see why school was important. One of them was excessively rude and would sass me, but to be honest I'm more concerned about their general apathy about learning than their misbehavior. If they cared about school and were interested in learning, they would behave because they would want to participate. I feel terrible for the third girl in my group. She seemed genuinely interested in the activity and would simply say "I'm compromising" when the other two would fight. At one point another RPI student came over to help me, but it didn't really solve anything. Brandon sat down with my group to try to help, too, but he ended up leaving after a bit. In hindsight, I should have tried harder to get their teachers' attention, but they seemed really busy with the other groups at the time. It looks like we'll potentially resolve the issue by splitting up my group and distribute them into the other groups, making sure the 2 that were acting out are not placed in the same group. The experience with my group was really frustrating and a little discouraging, but I've gained some insight into some of the problems I've read about in class. How do you effectively get young students engaged and fight apathy? Getting students to be enthusiastic about learning is so critical to effectively teaching EcoEd as well as achieving sustainability. If the students don't care about learning and bettering themselves, how can they understand the complex issues posed by environmental problems and care to solve them? It's also hard to teach students when others are misbehaving - the poor third girl in my group didn't get as much out of our visit as she could have if the other 2 girls had behaved. It has inspired me to try to write a memo for young students something along the lines of "why being a nice person is important"/"the not-so-obvious consequences of being mean" focusing on general good manners. Or maybe I could focus it more on "why learning/school is important" and make the objective more about fighting the development of apathy in students. I'm not quite sure how to do it, but I'm thinking about it. It was just so disheartening to learn how little they cared. I mean, it could just be a 1st grade mentality of wanting to do fun things like play outside and such instead of doing work, but it didn't seem like it. __ March 6, 2014 __ The first graders who misbehaved yesterday wrote me apology letters. They're adorable. I still feel a little uneasy about the situation, but I had a good conversation with Professor Fortun about it and it seemed to have worked out. I think I've also been thinking about this the wrong way. I should be considering how to approach relationships from the framework of authority, not necessarily focus on academic motivation at such a young age. It was hard for me to manage my group because the 1st graders didn't see me as someone who had authority over them. It's a tricky situation. We're college students with our professors - probably a type of group of people they've never interacted with before - trying to work within their school environment that already has authoritative structures in place (students listen to teachers and principal). We need to figure out how we fit into that preexisting structure and how we relate to the students and teachers, as well as what does it mean for us to be working with them. Even though it didn't go so well last time with my first grade group, I'm looking forward to working in the first grade classroom again after break. I can't wait to see the stories that the other groups came up with. __March 7, 2014__ Today I found an article about the chemical spill in Elk River in West Virginia: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/13/22293313-west-virginia-chemical-company-facing-tough-questions-after-spill?lite. The company at fault for the spill, Freedom, is facing difficult questions regarding the protocol they were supposed to follow during the spill. They may be okay due to loopholes in current laws. The chemicals stored at Freedom's facility are not considered especially hazardous, so they may not have had to follow the state law requiring industrial facilities to report an emergency within 15 minutes. It was hours after people detected the licorice smell in their water when the company reported the leak, and by then the Department of Environmental Protection had already traced the spill to a leaky storage tank on their site. The DEP never inspected the facility, either, because it was essentially considered a storage shed and didn't actually produce chemicals. This just doesn't make sense to me, having some knowledge of LUST (leaky underground storage tanks) and storage facilities from my classes and my own curiosity-inspired research. The storage facilities seem just as important as the facilities producing the chemicals. I feel like everyone in the DEP is taking crazy pills to not inspect storage sheds. But what really is the problem here is the loopholes in the laws. They say in the article that if anything good comes out of this incident is that it'll lead to the reformation of some important environmental regulation. This also tells me that environmental regulation and law is an important component of EcoEd. Maybe an exercise could be developed where students look at case studies and see how companies used loopholes in regulation to get off severe charges, as well as looking at fictitious laws made for the exercise and students could try to find potential loopholes within them. Reference: Hechesky, Lisa. "West Virginia Chemical Company Facing Tough Questions After Spill." //NBC News//. NBC, 13 Jan. 2014. Web. . __March 10, 2014__ So I'll be honest, this week is my spring break so some of my journal entries may be a little lacking compared to normal. I'm trying to keep up the habit. I read Gerald Conti's letter of resignation - for the lack of a better word - from his teaching career. The points he makes in his letter have many parallels to the articles we have read in class about the common core, such as Karp's "Problems with the Common Core." Some of my favorite quotes from his letter follow: "The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair." "We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven. Process has become our most important product..." To read Conti's words really saddened me; he lived for his profession and found joy in it, yet common core took it away. It's as if standards have taken the teacher out of teaching. __ March 11, 2014 __ Today I went to my old high school to vote on some issues on the ballot regarding education and town projects. We were electing new school board members and decide whether or not to increase the school system's operating budget as well as many employees of the school (custodians, cafeteria ladies, teaching assistants, etc). There are a lot of elderly conservatives in my town that don't have children in the current education system, so it's difficult to increase any spending on it. However, I've heard new rumblings in my town of why even people who have children in the education system do not want to increase spending - and it has nothing to do with simply being against tax increases and not wanting to give up their pay checks. Apparently 25% of the school's operating budget goes to children with special needs. This is a big chunk of the school's money towards a very small group, and many people do not want to increase the budget if the budget is continuing to be spent in this way. It's a tricky situation. In one hand it makes sense that this sector of students requires the financing that it does (specially trained staff, etc) but I think they need to have a public forum or something so people can speak their minds about the situation, otherwise people are simply going to vote to cut spending on the schools - which doesn't help anyone in the education system. __ March 12, 2014 __ Today I found an article about McDonald's potentially looking at more sustainable meat sources: http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/47154. The article is pretty vague, but it still gives some interesting statistics. For example, according to the article, McDonald's sells 70 million hamburgers every day and is responsible for 2% of the world's beef consumption. According to a 2009 article in Scientific American that the article sited, the meat industry was responsible for somewhere between 14 and 22 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. This means that if McDonald's were to switch - even partially - to a more sustainable meat source it would make a significant difference regarding carbon emissions. The article did not give specific details as to how this would be achieved, however, and only mentioned vague options such as soy alternatives. I find it highly unlikely that people who eat McDonald's are going to be keen on switching their mystery beef to soy. This means that the method of producing the beef for the burgers is probably easier to change than the actual ingredients. More sustainable meat production would lead to an increase in prices - at least to my knowledge (It's more expensive to raise animals in a sustainable way than factory-like settings). It's exciting to now that something has triggered McDonald's to consider environmental issues into their production, but until more specifics are released I wouldn't bet on McDonald's changing any time soon. I'd be quick to call myself cynical, but in my defense I really think they're releasing these ambiguous statements as a publicity stunt with no backing than something that is actually indicative of any progress towards sustainability. Maybe there's a media literacy lesson here. Reference: Siegel, RP. "Is There a Sustainable Big Mac in Your Future?" //Sustainable Ecosystems and Community News//. ENN: Environmental News Network, 12 Mar. 2014. Web. . __March 13, 2014__ I have an interview tomorrow for an environmental educator internship at the Seacoast Science Center at Odiorne State Park in Rye, NH. Even if I don't get an internship position I'm planning to volunteer at the center for a couple weekends over the summer. I remember going there during elementary school and middle school to learn about the ocean and the ecosystems found in coastal environments. The field trips we took there were a lot of fun - I remember them to this day. We went out on the rocky shore and searched for different sea critters such as star fish and sea urchins, and we learned about how the critters interacted with each other as well as how human influence could change their rate of survival. I'm excited to provide this experience to kids visiting the center. As an environmental educator/volunteer I would be working with the staff to develop and present environmental education programs interpreting the natural and cultural histories of Odiorne State Park. This means I would be researching, developing, and presenting new programs to visitors and school groups - similar to what we're doing in the RPI EcoEd program. I plan on taking the sustainability education aspects I learn from this class to the ocean programs I'll be developing/presenting at Odiorne. Maybe I'll develop an ocean-themed sustainability memo for this class to use over the summer. To be honest, I'm surprised at how excited I am by the opportunity to teach visitors at Odiorne - I guess the RPI EcoEd class is sparking interests in education I never knew I had. __March 14, 2014__ Today I had my interview and it went very well! Looks like I'll be working with the wonderful educators at the Seacoast Science Center this summer for a number of weekends. They might want me to run a table similar to the one SGE did for the EcoPrincess Festival last semester looking at fossils and past climates. I'll look through my rock collection and see what I can do - this one has to be coast-themed. I'll definitely bring in fossils of trilobites and other ancient sea critters. I also found an article today about how cities all over the world are becoming "anti-car": http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/47167. Turns out the USA isn't doing as well as other countries, especially those in Europe. This is due mostly to the given infrastructure of the different cities, however. In a city such as Amsterdam, having a car on the road is a nuisance. There is an abundance of bike paths and other things that were considered during city planning that make it easier to be "anti-car." There is also a large fee that drivers need to pay in order to get into the city, which discourages vehicle use. The USA, on the other hand, does not have many cities that have an infrastructure that makes them bike/people friendly. Getting around by car is too convenient and often times the only logical way to get into and navigate around the city other than vehicle-based public transport. The article suggests a number of ways The USA can "disincentivize" driving. These suggestions include raising the unusually low fuel cost in the USA compared to global rates, increasing taxes to more effectively reflect actual road maintenance costs, eliminate parking spaces, and replace some width of roads for bike paths and sidewalks. Although the recommendations are appealing to the environmentally-oriented, I feel that if these ideas were pursued there would be an uprising from oil companies and automobile manufacturers as well as a lot of lobbying. I see a lot of environmental news articles about the problems that cars create. In order to achieve sustainability these problems need to be tackled, but in order to do so people are going to need to stand up to the big corporations that enjoy the profits from the current infrastructure. Construction is also expensive; people would need to figure out where to get the money to install bike paths and side walks in current cities (taxes?). Reference: Smith, S. E. "Making the United Stated 'Anti-Car'." //Global Pollution and Prevention News//. ENN: Environmental News Network. Web. 14 Mar. 2014. . __March 17, 2014__ So I'm back from spring break and we're hitting the ground running. We're going back to Tamarac Elementary Wednesday and there's a lot of planning to do. The third graders are going to be working on their scripts for their system videos. I'm a little confused as to how that's going to work in the short station format we have been using. Is each kid assigned one topic and responsible for one script? Or are they responsible for a script for each system we've discussed? I also don't really know what's happening with my first grade group. Are they being split up or are we trying the same group together again? I'll make sure to understand what's going on and sort everything out by the end of class tomorrow. I'm excited to look at my middle schooler's response to the memo that was due last week. I hope we're still going to use Laura's lesson plan 3, I was looking forward to seeing the responses from the memo I designed for it, too. I really appreciated the email Brandon sent out about his uncle's passing away. I feel so sorry for their family and am hoping that they're doing as okay as they can. I cried when I read about his uncle's generosity - it seems like the world has lost a wonderful man. Maybe we can incorporate a character development aspect into lessons not just about civic knowledge or the obviously related subjects, but in all subjects. Character plays an important role in everything you do, whether it science, politics, education, medicine, homemaking, business, etc. We can teach students how they relate to others and how important it is to be a good person - how it makes the the world a better place for everyone when you're a compassionate human being. It was really inspiring. __March 18, 2014__ Today I found an article about air pollution in France: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/world/europe/paris-suffers-a-spring-smog-attack.html?ref=earth. Apparently France had been warned by the European Commission that they were not complying with Europe-wide restrictions on air contaminant levels. The level of particulates in the air is extremely unusual for this time of year and the sheer amount of pollution. People have been asked to stop exercising and people with asthma and other respiratory diseases have been at the most risk. One doctor has seen several patients the last week with asthma-related issues, stating that the particulates' effects are worsened by the pollen that is also in the air during this time of year. Paris is of particular concern, and although the city has been on the forefront of efforts to bike and carpool there have not been any serious efforts to reduce the amount of air pollution from cars and trucks. Once the severe air pollution occurred, the government requested that the speed limit be lowered and that industries are to produce minimum goods to help reduce the pollution being put into the air from the factories and trucks that transport their goods. The main problem seems to be that France ignored the European Commission's warnings and continued to pollute. Had they listened, the pollution may have been prevented. The article also points to the uncomfortable truth that even though biking and car pooling and alternative methods of transportation are popular in the city, the pollution from the cars and trucks on the road was significant enough to create the situation. Maybe this could lead other cities and countries to adopt more of a precautionary principle approach and will cut down the number of cars and trucks on the road before it's too late. I think there are 2 main lessons here: one on the precautionary principle and one about obeying government regulations (or at least why they exist and why they are important to follow). I feel like some sort of role playing activity would be effective to teach students about the precautionary principle. If we can teach students about the precautionary principle and to weigh risks and benefits appropriately with more of an environmentally-conscious mindset, it may be possible to prevent future environmental problems. Reference: Rubin, Alissa J. "High Levels of Pollution Spur Paris to Action." The New York Times, 14 Mar. 2014. Web. . __March 19, 2014__ We went to Tamarac Elementary again this morning. I worked with both the first and third graders. The third grade session went amazingly well! It was wonderful to see how they could connect the different systems we went over together in detail. They knew what a model is and why models are helpful in studying systems, using lego city as an example of a model and the worksheets they have been filling out for each system. My group was responsible for giving a general introduction into systems and models (What is a system? Why are they important? etc) and the climate system. They needed a little bit of prompting for the introductory questions, but they were really excited about being responsible for the climate system and were able to tell us a lot about it. They got nervous in front of the cameras, however. I don't think the video footage reflects how solid their understanding of the material is, but I guess there wasn't really much we could do other than re-film it, which we simply did not have time for. I asked them if they had fun making the video and learning about all the systems and all of them said that they did. One boy was relieved to learn that the RPI students were not coming back to teach them more stuff - not because he didn't like us, but because what we were teaching them is really hard (But he did have a very good understanding of the different systems and how they affect each other). Overall I really enjoyed working with the third graders and look forward to seeing the final video. The first grade session went much better this time around. There was still a little incident where one girl in the group tried to steal another girl's lunch box and in the process hurt her eye with a pencil and had to go to the nurse, but she wasn't seriously hurt and I had them apologize to each other. The two girls who were disruptive last session were MUCH better this session. One of them was still a little sassy but it was manageable. They seemed interested in writing the story but required prompting; they seemed to be much more interested in illustrating the panels (even if nothing was written yet). I let them write and illustrate on the poster (taking turns of course, but there was still a little fighting over who got to write/draw what), but this seemed to be really time consuming. I didn't realize until after the session that some groups had operated by letting the kids illustrate first and then have the mentors write the sentences after. This would have made the process much quicker and still have been the first grader's work. They simply would have written the sentences themselves in their final book. We didn't finish the story line line on the poster, but at least they were interested in doing the activity this time and cared about it. The third grade participation in the first grade session seemed to help a lot, too. It was fun to see the first graders explain what air pollution is to the third grader. They referred back to the step up to solutions model, which means to me that the model worked and helped to improve their understanding. __March 20, 2014__ My mentee for the secondary research program was absent today. I hope my email to her explains what we did in the session well enough to help her stay on track. Professor Fortun did a nice lay out of how the rest of the program is going to work and I wish my mentee saw it. I forwarded her the prezi that was shown in class as well, so she can flip through that too and get an idea of what she missed. I learned that her brother is also in the course, and he said that he was going to explain to her in person what she missed. I think she'll be okay. They were assigned a lot of work today, including two rough drafts of parts for their paper, 3 annotations, and a memo. I hope we're assigning them a realistic amount of work. I remember being a freshman in high school and being stressed about work from my honors level courses (or at least my 14-year-old self thought it was a lot of work, not so now in hindsight lol...). I assume the kids in the program are dedicated students and are in reasonably difficult classes at school, so I hope they can balance out the workload. I know some of them voiced that they were a little overwhelmed by the work that we assigned them, so we'll have to see next week if they actually manage to complete everything or not. I don't know what we're supposed to do if a student falls behind. Extra work time outside of the program sessions? Like meeting with them in the union? I guess we'll figure it out if it's necessary, but we should maybe start talking about it ahead of time so we know what to do if it starts to become a problem. __March 21, 2014__ So I came across a very interesting (more like crazy) project today... It's called the "icecycle project": https://sites.google.com/site/icecycleproject/explanation. I still can't tell if it's an artsy thing or a fake project to raise awareness. I don't think it's an actual project - but if it is, someone should stop them. Like I said though, I'm pretty sure it's an awareness thing. It's an interesting approach. I came across the project while looking for environmental news articles. A lot of the news sources freaked out and criticized the project, explaining how shipping ice cubes would release greenhouse gases and make the problem worse, etc. I couldn't find any sort of comment section, which was disappointing. It would be interesting to see how many people think it's real or think it's a good idea. The founder of the project made an interesting point when challenged that the artificial glacier would just melt, he said that metaphors and symbols promote more action than facts. I don't necessarily disagree, but I think it's not a sustainable approach to solving the problem. People need to have a good understanding of what's going on to know why change is necessary and what needs to be done. I feel like change inspired by a project such as this would be short lived - the issue would trend and die out in media. If it is a fake project to inspire action, I feel that it's fun and edgy but doesn't really address what needs to be done to fix the problem, and knowledge/awareness of an issue doesn't mean that people will be inspired to fix it or care. __March 24, 2014__ Today I was walking to class with one of my friends and they stopped by on the way to pick up what appeared to be someone's McDonald's wrappers that they threw out of their car onto the sidewalk. It was such a small gesture but it made the street look much cleaner without the brightly colored bag, french fry holder, and burger wrapper on the side of the road. It made me start thinking about how such small gestures could add up and produce a much more significant effect. I know there are more complications with deeper issues involving sustainability, but litter is one of those easy-fix problems where such small gestures could add up and really help keep everything clean. All people have to do is put their garbage in garbage bins. Keeping litter off of the ground would make a big difference for wildlife. I've seen so many squirrels in Troy running around with pieces of garbage in their mouths - it can't be good for them. I've noticed an abundance of litter on my street, especially since the snow is finally melting and revealing all the trash that has collected in it over the winter. I remember doing events in Girls Scouts where we would wear gloves and use sticks to collect garbage around our town and put it into bags to be properly disposed of. Maybe we can do a similar event during Earth Week for Troy/around campus. It may be a little tricky with biohazards (I've seen some used needles in downtown Troy laying around...) but I think even just making sure paper garbage and cans are picked up would make a huge difference in the area. It could even be capable of fostering a sense of civic pride for the people living in Troy. __March 25, 2014__ Today's discussion in class about the Bateson readings was very interesting. I feet really bad because I was dozing off towards the middle of the discussion, but that was more due to my lack of sleep last night and the lights being shut off in the room than my lack of interest in the topic. I'm definitely going to reread sections of it, keeping my notes from the class discussion close for reference. However, what I planned on writing about today is not the Bateson readings but rather a very interesting article I found about paintings from different time periods and how scientists can use them to approximate the amount of pollution in the atmosphere at the time they were painted: http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/47206. Apparently the colors of sunsets that famous painters have painted over the years correspond to different environmental events. For example, the paintings reveal that ash and gas released during major eruptions scatter the different colors of sunlight, making sunsets appear more red. This is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to examining past pollution levels, artists and scientists working together to provide a record of pollution. Normally such an interdisciplinary approach would be overlooked - the fine arts and sciences tend to be highly segregated in schools and society. Revealing connections between the arts and sciences would help people of various perspectives work together to achieve greater understanding of many issues. Making schools more interdisciplinary and challenging the old factory-like model of the school system would make achievements such as this possible. Reference: "Paintings Help Chart History of Air Pollution." //Global Pollution and Prevention News//. Environmental News Network, 25 Mar. 2014. Web. <http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/47206>. __March 26, 2014__ I've been communicating back and forth with my secondary research program mentee. I'm a little worried about her falling behind due to her absence last session. She emailed me asking for the paper draft outline around 7:30pm today and I didn't see it until 10:30pm or so. As a result, I doubt that she will have drafts for the introduction of her paper and the lead poisoning case. It's a lot to do between the time I emailed her (I don't think she'll even see the email until the morning) and tomorrow's research session - she has to go to school. Maybe she has a study period or something where she can work on it, but it's understandable if she doesn't get it done in time. I told her to do what she can and not to panic. It sounded like her brother failed to give her the copy of the outline that he picked up for her last time... I have a brother, too, and know how it is sometimes lol. I think I'll offer to hang out in the union or something if she needs some help getting caught up. It sounds like she completed the memo due tomorrow, so there's that. I'm a little stressed thinking about how our students are going to finish a research paper in the next few weeks and present, especially since they're not necessarily being "graded" on this or it counts towards their actual transcript and as a result they may not put as much effort as they would into their normal school work. My mentee seems to be into it and working hard, though. I wish I understood how we're planning these sessions more. I feel like I have no idea what we're doing even if I look at the "master plan" posted on the secondary research program page. We've been talking about the readings in classes on Tuesdays, which is necessary for the course, but I feel like the grad students are more in the loop with what's happening than the undergraduates. __March 27, 2014__ Today there was another secondary ecoed research session. I mentioned earlier how I was concerned about my mentee not finishing her work, but she pulled through! Apparently she worked during her lunch break at school. I'm pleasantly surprised how much effort she's putting in. One issue is that she's behind in setting up an interview with the soil person for her county, but she's going to send the email and hopefully set something up before the soil case study is due. I know people who have had to call environmental departments to interview government "experts" and typically they're really hard to get hold of or work with. So I guess we'll wait and see for a reply. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that we're having the kids interview experts, if not to get information but to learn about how it is to interview/try to set up one and the challenges that they may face. Side note: today in environmental geology we talked about the Fukushima reactor meltdown and how quiet the Japanese government is being about any information pertaining to the incident or the site. It's really frustrating to be a scientist in such a closed society. Anyways, my mentee seems really interested in water quality in her county and asked me about dioxin contamination. I told her about some possible sources she may want to look up and explained to her that she might want to look at cancer rates in the county as well. She seemed pretty into it. I'm pretty happy with how the research program is going thus far. She even seemed to understand what to do with the timeline and its purpose, but we'll see once she starts putting information into it. __March 28, 2014__ Today I found an article about surveying consumers about food choices: http://www.enn.com/business/article/47223. According to the article, the results from a poll of more than 1000 people from "a broad cross-section of the shopping public" showed that 77% of respondents said sustainability was an important factor in deciding what to buy while 74% percent said buying locally was a significant factor. The people who supported buying locally did not have environmentally-conscious motives, however, and showed that they were more concerned with supporting local businesses and communities. Only 54% said buying organically was even a consideration. 93% of shoppers valued food safety, slightly outweighing the concerns over nutritional value, which 92% of the survey respondents claimed was an important consideration when purchasing food (So the food's safe to consume but not nutritionally good for you?... I don't understand). I was personally surprised by the high percentages of people who considered sustainability and locality when purchasing food. It sounds like people - whether from being informed or simply following trends, etc. - are changing their consuming habits for the better. I was also surprised how many people were concerned about financially supporting their local communities. It makes me wonder more about the details of the survey, such as where exactly the survey was conducted, who made the survey, etc. The article describes the surveyed group simply as "American consumers," making no mention of socioeconomic class or location - which could affect the results significantly and their interpretation. Results like these could give people false security, like assuming that the numbers reflect people from all socioeconomic classes and that therefore they should feel better about what's being done on the consumer front to better sustainability efforts. Reference: Covington, Phil. "Sustainability Is Important to Most American Food Shoppers, Survey Finds." //Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability News.// Environmental News Network, 28 Mar. 2014. Web. <http ://www.enn.com/business/article/47223>.// __March 31, 2014__ I realized that we're going to Tamarac this Wednesday to see the kids' finished projects. I can't wait to see how they turned out! I think the first graders are reading their books to one another and the third graders are presenting their systems show to the rest of the 3rd grade class. I wonder how my first grade group's book came out. I wasn't able to go to Tamarac the last Wednesday we went when they were asking for people to help the parent volunteers work with the kids to finish their books. I hadn't finished the story board with them last time I was there, so I hope the parent volunteers weren't too overwhelmed. If I'm not mistaken, this Wednesday is the last time we're going to Tamarac, so now all our attention can be put towards the EcoEd research programs and Earth Week activities. I need to talk to Lisa about that - another girl in SGE is in a sustainability class and I think the three of us were planning on doing a booth on Earth Week similar to the one we had at the Eco Princess Festival. We basically made a poster and everyone pooled their rock collections together to make a hands-on exhibit of different fossils and rocks - some that were from upstate NY. The kids seemed to love it last time. We had a couple kids who kept coming back to the booth to touch the rocks again and tell us about which is there favorite and what they learned from the exhibit, etc. I had a lot of fun doing it, so I'm looking forward to putting it together again. I think we're going to make a better poster this time, but other than that we pretty much have it set. __April 1, 2014__ I got a lot more out of today's discussion about Felman than expected. I'll admit - I really think Freud is outdated and no longer really applies to modern psychology, but I really don't think the psychology discussed in the paper was the main point trying to be conveyed. But to be clear, a lot of psychoanalysis (dream interpretation, introspection, etc) has been deemed pseudoscience by the psychology community, or at least that's the grasp I have of the situation and what my General Psychology professor has drilled into the class throughout the semester. So I kind of struggled getting over that to see the educational themes in the paper. I did find some of the points very interesting, such as presumed knowledge of a subject, ignorance as a central component of knowledge, and nonlinear learning. I like the idea of teachers still playing the role of student even though they're considered an expert in their field. I feel like it takes a special type of person to be able to admit that they're still learning while holding status as an expert - it seems really humbling. I also enjoyed Brandon's explanation of the relationship between incite and subconscious; the idea of "incite bubbling up from the subconscious" is appealing. Overall I felt it was a good discussion, even if towards the end it felt a little rushed due to time constrictions. In other news, I'm still waiting on hearing from my mentee about the interview scheduling. I'll shoot her another email tonight and see how things are going. I have to make sure to go over what she has posted on her wiki before Thursday. I'm a little nervous about trying to piece everything together. I'm not convinced that we have enough material yet in the memos to cover everything they need to cover in their papers. __April 2, 2014__ Today I found an interesting article about a new type of college course about climate change that is being offered: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/education/using-the-arts-to-teach-how-to-prepare-for-climate-crisis.html?ref=earth&_r=0. The course isn't about finding evidence of climate change - the existence of climate change and its effects are a given. Instead, the course is about the cultures surrounding climate change and focuses more on an arts perspective. Professor LeMenager, the professor teaching the course, says, "The time isn't to reflect on the end of the world, but on how to meet it. We want to apply our humanities skills pragmatically to this problem" (Perez-Pena). The course is based in Oregon, where much of the climate activist activity was pioneered. Instead of the science of climate change, the class discusses "climate fiction," an emerging genre of writing focused on the potential disasters of climate change and how society will face them. I think it's a very interesting approach to discuss climate change - on the focus of culture rather than scientific occurrences. I think understanding the cultures around climate change is very important to overcoming the problems that the world faces, making it possible to see ways to push the developing cultures around climate change in the right direction to bring about positive change for the environment. I do believe, however, that the course shouldn't necessarily be 100% focused on fictional writing. I have to wonder if these literature students have sufficient scientific knowledge to be able to see how the "climate fiction" is indeed fictional or exaggerated and not simply take the works to heart and develop an alarmist-like view of what is happening. When I say alarmist I'm not saying that this situation should not be taken seriously and cause people alarm, it's just that I have seen how some people tend to act in counterproductive ways by taking part in misguided extremist activities when inspired by such literature. Reference: Perez-Pena, Richard. "College Classes Use Arts to Brace for Climate Change." Education. The New York Times, 31 Mar. 2014. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/education/using-the-arts-to-teach-how-to-prepare-for-climate-crisis.html?ref=earth&_r=0>. __April 3, 2014__ I feel that my mentee's paper is in a lot better shape than I originally expected. She scheduled an interview with another representative from Herkimer about the soil and water quality in her county. A lot of case study #2 for her paper is banking on this interview - other information resources have been unreliable in finding data related to the questions posed in memo 7. I don't think this will be a problem. We also thought of some questions to ask the representative that may be useful for potentially using chromium contamination from a superfund site as case study #3. Even though I feel like today's session went well, I'm still slightly concerned that I may have confused her/overwhelmed her. She didn't panic when we passed out the various packets of paper to all the researchers, which is a good sign. I told her to just break down the workload - work on it a little bit everyday, maybe at different parts throughout the day, so that the work is spread evenly and doesn't feel so daunting. Her county's scorecard was very interesting. The cancer rates are one of the highest in the country, yet the air quality and environmental emissions specific to the county are some of the best in the country. That just doesn't make sense... maybe she'll find some answers when she finishes the county memos for the week. __April 4, 2014__ I found a really short but attention-grabbing article today in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/epa-faulted-for-failure-to-report-risks.html?ref=earth. It's about how the EPA failed to mention cancer risks during an exposure study to soot and diesel exhaust emissions. 81 people were involved in the study. So as bad as this sounds, I think people really need some perspective on what really went down. The article states, "The EPA said risks associated with cancer in the study, which only briefly exposed participants to the pollutants, were so minimal that they were not included on consent forms obtained from the subjects." It's the last line in the article. To me this seems like poor reporting. The title is misleading - the EPA did technically fail to "report risks" during the study, but if the risks were that minimal (not statistically significant) than they really didn't misinform the participants. In fact, informing them of a statistically insignificant risk may have caused false alarm in the participants. I can understand why the risk wasn't included in the consent form. Laypeople, however, hear "cancer risk" and don't care whether it's minimal or not. It's a very scary potential outcome and is an emotionally-charged issue, so I can also understand why participants may be upset by not being informed of even the slightest chance of it occurring. The EPA probably should have informed the participants of the risk, but made sure to emphasize that it's extremely minimal to the point of being considered left out of the consent form. The risk of cancer only becomes significant during long exposures to soot and diesel exhaust, not short-term exposures like the participants experienced. Reference: Davenport, Coral. "E.P.A. Faulted for Failure t Report Risks." //The New York Times//. The New York Times, 02 Apr. 2014. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/epa-faulted-for-failure-to-report-risks.html?ref=earth>. __April 7, 2014__ I found the reading for this week to be pretty confusing. I understood the majority of it, even though it took a couple times just to put her words together... I found myself repeatedly reading sections without anything sinking in. I'm really looking forward to the conversation tomorrow in class because I really don't "get" how it relates to sustainability education. Maybe teaching literature and how language affects our perception of the world? I was especially confused by the whole widow self-immolation example. I'll be honest - I ended up distracting myself from the reading by googling "sati" and reading some of the wikipedia page on it. The whole concept is pretty hard for me to wrap my head around. Like I said, I'm looking forward to the in-class discussion, because I'm having a somewhat difficult time piecing it together. On a different note, my mentee's paper is coming together very nicely. She had some trouble coming up with a case study #3, but she just sent me her rough draft for it so she must have figured something out. I'm looking forward to reading it. I've been editing her paper in pieces as she writes it. The movie for the sustainability film series yesterday was also very interesting - I enjoyed it much more than the Engineers Without Borders film. The limits on various contaminants in our foods has always seemed to make sense to me until they pointed out in the film that the small quantities combined could potentially have harmful effects. Total all the small doses up and it's suddenly a dose of major concern, with effects we know nothing about because contaminants are normally studied separately (if at all). I found it also very interesting that film was based in Canada. The situation seemed pretty bad there; I can only imagine the undetermined health effects Americans could be suffering from. __April 8, 2014__ I really enjoyed the class discussion today. It was a lot to lay down, but it kept me thinking after class was over. I liked the point about education that was brought up: how do kids learn that their problems are so shallow compared to the global community? It reminded me a lot of an experience I had my freshman year of high school. I was in an honors literature class, and we were studying some branch of philosophy and related writings. I remember covering transcendentalism, but I don't think that is what I'm referring to with this story; I think it may have been some form of Nihilism. Anyways, my teacher started the class period by telling us how unimportant we are. Of course no one in the class had ever heard this from a teacher before, so there was some laughter in response like it was a joke. But he continued and explained how in the grand scheme of the universe, you are one human being out of billions living on one planet of multiple planets in one galaxy of multiple galaxies that make up the universe. We then went outside, laid in the grass, and wrote about how small we felt compared to nature. Needless to say, I experienced a sort of existential crisis for the next week or so after the exercise. It was a really eye-opening experience that I am thankful for - to have things put in perspective like that. It also reminds me of the time we read and discussed Percy Shelleys' "Mont Blanc" in European Literature. The poem can be read here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem /174397. It's a powerful poem, describing how humans attempt to relate to nature and the limits of human comprehension. I guess I realize that numerous poems and pieces of literature have shaped my relationship to the world I live in - including the people in it. I've always thought that literature was essential to gaining perspective, but I guess I never really realized just how important it was in shaping mine. Also, I enjoyed the article Brandon sent out about "connectedness." It's not that I thought Spivak's writing wasn't related to our class - I've taken too many environmental courses to fool myself into thinking that things aren't connected - it was that I was struggling to see the connections. Today's class helped clear that up for me. __April 9, 2014__ I was so impressed with the third graders today! They did a wonderful job with the opening to their systems show. The presentation came out nicely, too. Overall, working with the third graders has been extremely rewarding. They seemed to have actually learned a lot from our sessions with them. I also found an interesting article today about the ecological effects of fences: http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/47266. Wildlife fences are built to prevent the spread of diseases, protect wildlife from poachers, to help manage populations of threatened species, and to prevent human-wildlife conflict. One study published in the journal Science discussed the pros and cons of wildlife fencing and how fences are actually ecologically damaging and she be turned to as a last resort. The article says, "When areas of contiguous wildlife habitat are converted into islands, the resulting small and isolated populations are prone to extinction, and the resulting loss of predators and other larger-bodied species can affect interactions between species in ways that cause further local extinctions, a process which has been termed 'ecological meltdown.'" My question is, if not fences, what other sorts of barriers can we use that won't trigger an ecological meltdown? It's a tricky problem. The article also mentions how fences provide poachers with easily accessible wire to create snares in areas where poaching is illegal. Better development planning may be able to help the problem, but I still can't think of any sort of urban/rural planning that doesn't involve fences of some kind. To get rid of them would require us to rethink how we divide up and manage property. On an entirely different note - I heard about the school stabbing spree in PA today. I don't even know how to think about it. Just... why? Everyone described him as a really shy kid, who wasn't mean or anything but just wasn't that outgoing. I haven't read about any sort of motive the kid may have had; as far as I know he just snapped and brought two kitchen knives to school. How do you handle this in education? How does the school recover from it? I can imagine that it causes a spike of mistrust and paranoia within the community. There weren't any warning signs that the kid as going to do anything malicious. I read somewhere that there may have been threats on social media last night, but the coverage of it wasn't clear. I think a lot of school violence can be prevented if we rethink mental health in schools and in adolescents. An article from PBS (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/cryforhelp/episodes/reso urces/wake-up-call/22/) describes interviews with kids who have committed crimes such as the one today and say that if someone had asked them about what they were feeling or what was going on in their heads that they would have talked about it before committing an act of violence. I don't know if I entirely buy this approach, however, because there are some kids like the boy today who were never perceived as a threat. How would a teacher know to ask him about any potential violent fantasies if he had not shown warning signs? It's a very complex, emotionally-charged problem... extremely overwhelming. __April 10, 2014__ I'm really happy with how my mentee's paper came out. We're still working on the final draft, especially nit-picking things like the citations, but overall she pleasantly surprised me. She came up with a sociological aspect for her case study #3, looking at unemployment rates and the migration out of the county as a result from the taking over of smaller farms by larger ones and other factors. She was also able to draft a quick conclusion during our session, part of which ties soil and water health to farms and employment. It was hard for her to diagnose her county - the only significant environmental problem in her county was the health of the watersheds, and at that I don't think it's far off from the New York State overall conditions. The air quality was improving, the county uses a lot of nuclear and hydroelectric energy, and the soil concerns are minimal with only experts being concerned about erosion and compaction. We had a discussion about whether the county was in good or bad health, and she and I came to the agreement that it was surprisingly healthy. My only concern is the superfund section. I really feel that the two superfund sites in the county are not covered adequately in the EPA's website. The remediation for a chromium contamination site from an old tannery supposedly only took two years. That CAN'T be right. I've worked with cores with chromium contamination. It just seems a little fishy - maybe the USACE rushed the job or something. She seems like she's confident in making her presentation, which I'm excited about. I'm really looking forward to the practice presentations. __April 14, 2014__ I found an article about the EPA's proposal to remediate river sediments in the Passaic River in NJ: http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/47285. It's supposed to be the most expensive cleanup the EPA has proposed to date, as the river is contaminated with ridiculously high levels of dioxin, PCBs, and other severe contaminants in the lower 8 miles of the river. Apparently people have continued to eat fish and crabs from the river even though it was known to be contaminated. This cleanup has taken too long to even be proposed, let alone implemented. It's just crazy. Remediation processes take such a long time. There are complicated processes, but something like dredging doesn't seem like it should take as long as it does. People are being poisoned while money is being shuffled around and people are dragging their feet. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that the EPA finally announced that something large scale is going to be done, but I still maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. The article did mention that the cleanup is going to create more jobs, some of which I imagine would employ environmental scientists and geochemists... good news for me. As more and more companies are held responsible for their pollution and being required to help fund cleanups, more environmental-oriented jobs are opening up. And I guess places are becoming remediated - slowly but surely. The article also emphasizes that the Superfund program holds the companies responsible for the pollution to also be responsible for the funding to clean up the site, and not pass on the costs to taxpayers, which is pretty awesome. Definitely a big step in the right direction in the name of sustainability. __April 15, 2014__ I listened to a very insightful talk given by Jack Gleeson (from GoT) about celebrity culture and its significance in society: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uKboLTwzFTs. Apparently he's even quitting his acting career after his role in Game of Thrones. He outlines three possible explanations for society to "worship" celebrities including an economic, evolutionary, and sociological theories. I was blown away by his thoughts. I'll admit it - I did not expect that sort of eloquence and intelligence from an actor, especially one his age (But who am I kidding? I'm his age...). But then again, that's the whole point of his talk. He argues that we need to be more choosy when selecting who we put in the spotlight of society, else we start to copy the "town drunk." I thought about how celebrities can play a role in the development of sustainability. By either having current celebrities endorse sustainable living in a genuine way or choosing new celebrities who are environmentally-conscious, society can be pushed in a more sustainable direction by knowingly or unknowingly mimicking idols who engage in sustainable lifestyles. I know some celebrities try to do this, but not in a way that is accepted by the masses. It was also really interesting to hear him talk about the privacy issues and becoming democratized. I'll definitely be watching this again. I also watched the Q&A session after Gleeson's brief talk, and I have to say it was extremely disappointing, especially for such an educated audience. They could have had an incredible discussion with the basis that Gleeson provided, but instead they just wanted to ask him stupid questions about the show. __April 17, 2014__ Today I found an article about how electricity prices have fallen in Europe: http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/47290. The article states, "For the fifth consecutive month, electricity prices in countries neighboring Germany have decreased, recently released Platts data reveals, due in large part to increased solar and wind generation in Germany." What a powerful economic incentive for the general public to push for more renewable energy. If people realized that renewables had the capability to lower their electricity bills, I feel that many more people would advocate for them. I know a lot of people argue against them due to their relatively high installment costs - especially regarding the rare earth metals used in the magnets for wind turbines and other technologies. You also have to consider international politics/markets because almost all of the USA's rare earth metals come from China (at least last time I checked). But I feel that when you look past all the "shallow" complications, if Europe can have lower electric bills, there's really no reason why the US can't. I feel like our love and devotion to coal/oil/gas companies is the one main obstacle holding us back. I've lived off campus for about a year now and man, I would love to have lower electricity bills to pay. Even better if it's better for the planet. __April 20, 2014__ So I've been reading a lot lately about the anti-civilization movement that has been growing among environmentalists (authors such as Derrick Jensen and Paul Kingsnorth). I don't necessarily agree with it - a lot of anti-civilization writings are very extreme. I get where they're coming from with their desperation and cynicism. If you have thorough knowledge of current environmental issues it is hard not to turn cynical, depressed, and in general transform into what people may call a nihilist. I found a long a long article from the New York Times interviewing Kingsnorth about Dark Mountain, a new environmental group that has "given people a forum in which to be honest about their sense of dread and loss":http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-he-feels-fine.html ref=earth&_r=0&module=ArrowsNav& contentCollection=Magazine&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article. It's an interesting concept. Rather than forcing groups to exude optimism, Dark Mountain allows environmentalists to recognize the true severity of the situation and indulge in their negative emotions for a while. I think it's healthy to allow yourself to express those feelings - especially with other people that can relate (That is as long as they don't dwell in it. So for people in the anti-civilization movement this activity may be just reinforcement of their - what I come to believe as - unrealistic, harmful, extremist views). It's a lot to digest reading about these ideas - after all, it is pretty doom-and-gloom - so I copied and pasted some quotes from the article below in case I want to comment on them later. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">~ "“Everything had gotten worse,” Kingsnorth said. “You look at every trend that environmentalists like me have been trying to stop for 50 years, and every single thing had gotten worse. And I thought: I can’t do this anymore. I can’t sit here saying: ‘Yes, comrades, we must act! We only need one more push, and we’ll save the world!’ I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it! So what do I do?”" <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">~ "“Whenever I hear the word ‘hope’ these days, I reach for my whiskey bottle,” he told an interviewer in 2012. “It seems to me to be such a futile thing. What does it mean? What are we hoping for? And why are we reduced to something so desperate? Surely we only hope when we are powerless?”" <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">~ "Instead of trying to “save the earth,” Kingsnorth says, people should start talking about what is actually possible." <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">~ "Movements like Bill McKibben’s 350.org, for instance, might engage people, Kingsnorth told me, but they have no chance of stopping climate change. “I just wish there was a way to be more honest about that,” he went on, “because actually what McKibben’s doing, and what all these movements are doing, is selling people a false premise. They’re saying, ‘If we take these actions, we will be able to achieve this goal.’ And if you can’t, and you know that, then you’re lying to people. And those people . . . they’re going to feel despair.”" <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">~ "...neo-environmentalism — the idea that, as he put it, “civilization, nature and people can only be ‘saved’ by enthusiastically embracing biotechnology, synthetic biology, nuclear power, geoengineering and anything else with the prefix ‘new’ that annoys Greenpeace.”" <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">~ "Stewart Brand, the 75-year-old “social entrepreneur” best known as the publisher of the " Whole Earth Catalog,” has put it: “We are as gods and have to get good at it.”" <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">~ "For Kingsnorth, the notion that technology will stave off the most catastrophic effects of global warming is not just wrong, it’s repellent — a distortion of the proper relationship between humans and the natural world and evidence that in the throes of crisis, many environmentalists have abandoned the principle that “nature has some intrinsic, inherent value beyond the instrumental.” If we lose sight of that ideal in the name of saving civilization, he argues, if we allow ourselves to erect wind farms on every mountain and solar arrays in every desert, we will be accepting a Faustian bargain." __<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">April 21, 2014 __ <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Kicked off Earth Week today by attending the first presentation! "How the gene got its environment" presented by Mike Fortun. I unfortunately only planned to attend the talk portion of the presentation. I wasn't aware there that there was an accompanying movie until I got there, and by that time I already had to meet people for a project at 3. I've heard that "Do the Math" is a good movie - I'll have to find it online somewhere and check it out sometime. But as I mentioned, I did stay for the whole talk. I have to say that I enjoyed it - which I wasn't necessarily expecting, not having much of a genetics background. I figured most of it would go over my head. Instead of what I predicted, it turned out to be a very interesting talk about the history of genetics and how its "dogma" is making scientists resist acknowledging the environment's role in genetics. I didn't realize that there was such controversy over the topic. As an environmental scientist, I have familiarity with all sorts of environmental factors that can affect genes, such as radiation, various chemicals, etc. I guess it only made sense to me that the environment would play a role in genetics, but as mentioned before, I may not have enough knowledge of the subject to understand why some believe this is not the case. It was also very interesting to learn about "asthma susceptibility" in genes. I've always thought that asthma was caused by pollution and never really considered a predisposition to developing it. After this talk I find myself wondering how genetics plays a role in epidemiology - if at all. I'll do some googling around later, because quite honestly I've never thought about it before. I know he mentioned during the presentation how it's really hard currently to measure exposure, but I'm not as interested in the logistics behind it as I am in whether or not it is widely accepted that genetics should be considered in epidemiology. I'm really excited to attend more of the Earth Week presentations! __<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">April 22, 2014 __ Today's talk about inter-generational ethics went way better than I thought it would. The amount of participation by the audience really surprised me - it was great how so many people were willing to speak up. I didn't know ahead of time that the younger kids from the elementary research program were going to be there, so it was a pleasant surprise to see them presenting. I found the discussion about whether or not students should receive grades to be particularly interesting - especially how the students reacted to the question. Most of them argued for grades, saying that grades showed them where they needed to improve as well as provided proof that they were doing well in school. While I don't agree that you need grades to know where you need to improve (any sort of feedback would be able to do that), it was a fair point that it provides some sort of gauge to know how well they're doing in comparison to other students and how well they are learning the curriculum in general. To get rid of grades would require school funding to be completely reformed. Someone mentioned during the talk how schools are funded according to how well their students perform on tests - in short, a grading system. If grades were removed at a school, how would its funds be decided within the current larger system? Removing grades would have to be a none or all deal. One man in the audience did describe how his university did not have a grade system and instead the students received written evaluations. I don't know if this would be achievable in the public school system - especially since it would take so much longer for one student's evaluation to be completed, assuming the teacher does an adequate job. However, I feel that the letter grade system isn't necessarily at the top of the priority list for the public school system and it would be more productive to focus on other matters, such as fighting against the common core standards and for better teacher salaries. Overall I felt it was a good discussion and thoroughly enjoyed listening to what the kids had to say, as well as how they responded to the adults' questions. __April 24, 2014__ I've found all of the earth week events I have attended so far to be extremely interesting and inspiring. I absolutely loved Yuri's presentation today about water contamination and fracking. So eye-opening. The pictures of the people who are suffering from the pollutants really emphasizes the importance of the problem. I left wondering about what I can do to help, and if raising awareness was really the right thing to focus on. I think Yuri's right about raising awareness - not many people I have talked to outside of RPI (even outside of the earth science and sustainability departments) know anything about the negative impacts of fracking. It seems like most people I talk to are more concerned about earthquakes being caused than the highly toxic chemicals being released - priorities are seriously out of order because of misplaced fear ... I think raising awareness is a necessity if the people in West Virginia and areas undergoing fracking are going to be helped. But how can we effectively raise awareness of these issues? Yuri's talk was fairly technical. People without a solid scientific knowledge basis may find these concepts harder to grasp (sulfur oxidizing bacteria being a concern in fracking, for example). The pictures and the proximity of the people's homes to the wells seemed to be a strong message, but even then it's more of a scare tactic than to provide people with an understanding of what's happening on a deeper level. It's a difficult situation. Scientists need to be able to speak up and openly about their research regarding such new technologies. I feel that so much of new technologies are "proprietary" that they cannot be effectively evaluated for potential damages to the environment and its inhabitants. It's extremely frustrating. __April 26, 2014__ So I saw this article today, conveniently after the "Triple Divide" screening...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/major-oil-gas-firm-list-drilling-chemicals-23459651. I wonder if this is actually going to happen (proprietary fracking propant formula being made public). It would make research on the environmental and human impacts of fracking go much more smoothly and efficiently. Scientists would actually be able to predict the consequences. Watching the documentary today really made me start thinking about how serious the problem is we (the global community) have set up for ourselves with our incredible energy consumption. I think it really has gotten to the point where the question needs to be asked, "If not West Virginia, Pennsylvania, etc. with the fracking, then where else?" One way or another people will demand energy resources, and if renewable resources can't catch up fast enough I fear that we will be discussing 'sacrifice zones' and debating over who should get the short end of the stick. Along with climate refugees we'll have energy refugees - people who have been forced to move out of their homes due to the pollution released from energy resource extraction projects like fracking. What's happening regarding the fracking sites is disgusting. People's rights are being undermined. Excessive amounts of highly toxic pollutants are being released into the environment. And worst of all - the state government meant to help isn't stepping up. Agencies are rejecting predrilling tests and abusing science. It's almost impossible to counter that. I mean really, what's going to help? More regulation? How about REAL regulation. EFFECTIVE regulations. Even that unfortunately won't solve the problem. There's an inherent flaw with the technology that people seem o breeze over when discussing the pros and cons of fracking: the pressure bulbs. Rockbeds do fracture from the pressure of fracking, and once those are made there's no way to prevent radioactive gases and other pollutants from migrating. Migrating into peoples homes and into the air they breathe and the water they drink. I don't see how that can be avoided with the current technology. __April 28, 2014__ I'm very happy with how the presentations came out yesterday! It was a lot of fun to see all the researchers present their work. I was really surprised at some of the detail in the upper elementary students' presentations. I felt bad that there was a mix up with her slides, but she handled it very well and didn't let it shake her during the presentation. The postering session on Saturday also went well. I was a little worried because my mentee brought her poster home to do herself. We made the slides together, but she had to put it together and make sure it was ready for Saturday. It came out wonderful! SGE's (earth science honors society) table also went over very well on Saturday. We had a bunch of rock and mineral samples out for people to touch and look at. Both parents and kids seemed to really enjoy it. We got a lot of compliments, including how it was really neat to touch and examine specimens that some had seen at the New York State Mueseum. We also educated people about the many different jobs that earth scientists do. People were really surprised to learn that it's not all about collecting and identifying rocks (I mean, we did have rock collections there, but talked about why certain specimens were significant and how they tied to their everyday lives - such as coal). It would be awesome if people didn't blow off geologists and earth scientists right away. Many people don't realize the field's significance until you tie it to energy resources or health. No one was like that at the earth week finale, but I've encountered people off campus who don't understand why sediments or rocks could ever be relevant. I'm really happy that I participated in the EcoEd program and was able to help educate kids about these important topics. In general, the weekend was extremely busy but went smoothly. __April 29, 2014__ Today I read this article about how France is shifting away from nuclear power to adopt more wind power facilities: http://www.enn.com/energy/article/47327. The article does not necessarily discuss why there was a shift in the populace's opinions. I wonder how much potential France has to produce wind power. The article says that they currently only use 3%. To shift dominantly to wind resources would be a dramatic change. I think the shift may be inspired from the recent Fukushima accident and potentially an increase of awareness of the difficulty to store the radioactive waste from the nuclear power plants. I'm happy that they're making the change, but if you consider nuclear power to be a cleaner energy resource than fossil fuels it's a little strange how they are opting so fast to abandon their current technology. I would personally, with my views on nuclear energy, be much happier if another more fossil fuel dependent country switched to more renewable resources. Maybe there's an economic advantage to the shift not mentioned in the article. I really think it just boils down to France reacting to the Fukushima meltdown. It'll be interesting to see how the decommissioning of the current plants goes. I also wonder about the extent of wind farms that are going to have to be developed on the French countryside in order to produce enough power for the country. __May 2, 2014__ Well I'm considering this to be my final journal entry. It's been such a long - but rewarding journey - through this course. I've learned so much about myself and about the current conditions of the school system through working with students of various grade levels. I have to say, I think working with the third graders was the most rewarding. I'm very proud of my mentee and what she accomplished, but she didn't have that look of awe that the third graders have when they finally understand a difficult concept or the passion for learning that the third graders possessed. Maybe it's just how "caring about school" is socially viewed in middle schools nowadays, or it could have just been that she was a bit shy. It was amazing to see how the third graders could connect things once we put them in the right framework. It was also amazing to see my mentee's project slowly come together and see her present. The first graders were a bit challenging for me, but I am very thankful for the experience and have a whole new appreciation for elementary school teachers. I have a new appreciation for teachers in general. Prior to this course I had no idea about the struggle against the Common Core standards and the difficulties that teachers on all levels deal with on a regular basis. If society even hopes to solve sustainability problems that threaten our future, it is so critical that we have passionate teachers in schools. I've been inspired by this course to continue being involved in education - maybe not to the level of becoming a teacher, but definitely volunteering my time and efforts to help teachers and help educate students. I have an environmental educator volunteer position at the NH Seacoast Science Center over the summer to continue to educate kids about the environment. I'm planning on bringing the same sort of goals as EcoEd's literacy goals to the lesson plans I will develop at the center. It's been an awesome experience participating in the various opportunities this course presents, an I'm very thankful for the experience.