Eye Opener: Environmental Learning Activities

Here are the answers and observations I was able to complete for who was done with their activities!

 

 CARLY

Carly did a crossword puzzle and I thought this was a great way to put information together and to really get us to think about what was going on.  She also included a quiz and some other links in her post that taught us even more information about food borne illness. As Carly said in her post, this illness effects over 76 million people a year....which is a lot!  It is important that we are aware of this and understand what it is so that we can hopefully never have to experience something like this. Thank you for sharing this knowledge with me Carly in such a beneficial way!

 

 JD

JD had a crossword puzzle that he wanted us to complete. I thought this was a neat way to go about doing this and I enjoyed trying to find some of the answers. His crossword puzzle was ways that we can be more eco-chick! I found a bit of them to be a bit tricky, but overall they went well :)

 

MATT

Like my own post, Matt's post dealt with the dangers of smoking cigarettes. He had us play a game where we used a picture of us and there was a glass Popsicle and we tried to get it into our mouth and when we missed it would make us bleed.  I feel like this was equivalent to how harsh the effects of tobacco is, but some of the more serious effects we do not see until way later in our life so people at our age do not always take the risks as seriously as they should.  This was an interesting game that opened my eyes up about how "gross" smoking really is. I am almost 100% sure that if this is what happened to us every time we smoked, people would NEVER smoke!

 SAM

Sam who was in my group had an activity where we took a quiz that was about asthma. Like I stated earlier to Sam, Asthma is quite common and can be pretty serious.  My dad has asthma and it can really affect someones life. I found Sam's quiz to be beneficial and I did okay, I got 3 out of 6 so there was certainly things I can improve on! There was a flyer that Sam contained in her post as well that she wanted us to take a look at. When I was doing this I learned some more information like where I can go to find out more information about this or how air symptoms can trigger asthma to be more serious than normal.

DANE

Dane had a post about the oil spill and wanted to to write a reflection on what we had learned. I think this was a good idea because it got us to really think about how this spill would affect us and our life because we do not always think of it in that way because it does not always directly affect us at first.  This is kind of similar to smoking in the way that sometimes people do not always consider it a huge problem if they are not seeing the effects of what is going on first hand and immediately.  This is not a good way to go about thinking about things because it can end up catching up with you and really hurting you in the long run! His post was pretty detailed and in depth. 

 

HOW MY JOB WOULD BE INFLUENCED:

My job is to work at Boulder Ridge so I do not feel that the job that I currently have would be affected anytime immediately by this.

 

FREINDS AND FAMLIES JOBS:

My friends and family do not have any jobs in that location so I do not feel like they would be directly affected either.

 

PLACES I GO AND THE THINGS I DO & HOW THEY WOULD BE INFLUENCED:

I like be around nature and doing activities outside. If this area was blocked off I feel that it would take a lot of excitement away from the activities that I enjoy doing most.

PERCEPTION OF DULUTH AND HOW IT WOULD BE AFFECTED:

If there was a lot of pollution in an area I feel that it would end up keeping a lot of people away. People would more than likely not want to vacation in this area anymore because I know I sure would not want to.  Not only would Duluth be polluted then, we would be losing a lot of tourists who bring in money and all of this would end up being pretty harmful. The people of this area would also be affected in unhealthy ways!

--THANK YOU FOR SHARING THESE EVERYONE! YOU ALL DID A GREAT JOB:)

Reflections: Weeks 13-14 & Overall Course

Over the past few weeks I have learned a lot in this class.  Some of the things I enjoyed the most over the past two weeks would be the trip that we look to Goodwill!  The tour was very interesting and eye opening.  I was never aware that they did so many things there and I thought this was a good experience that we were able to have.  I thought that the activity that we did was also fun and a good way to have a chance to look around the store.  I also enjoyed being able to find "junk" around my apartment and turn it into something new and something that I can still get use out of.  I found it interesting to be able to see what everyone else in the class made as well.  It was really neat to see how unique all of my classmates were. 

Throughout the entire class I learned so many new things that I did not know before.  I made more of a conscious effort throughout the semester to try and be more environmentally friendly and make sure that I was recycling whenever possible.  The goal that I made "forced" me to drink more water and make sure that I was not doing so out of a plastic water bottle.  So many of the documentaries that we watched were really eye opening and made me realize things and look at the environment in a way I never had before. I am happy that I was able to have this class and get such a wonderful experience and learn so many new things that I can continue to apply to my everyday life.  I will take a lot of the information that I gained in this class with me and continue to pass it on to those around me. :)

-picture from here

PICTURES FROM WHAT I MADE:

The first picture located above is all three of the items that I made and the second picture is more up-close of the candle holder that I made from a recycled fruit can.  I decorated it and then used part of the old garbage can to make a bottom for the holder.  The other two items are also recycled pieces that I turned into something "new and improved." What was once a garbage can I turned into a lamp shade and something that broke off of my air conditioner, I decorated and turned to into a picture frame.

Share & Voice: GREEN Ideas for the Holidays!

Hey guys, I thought this would be beneficial to share with you all for the holidays. It is some green ideas for the holidays :) It has a lot of interesting unique ideas and tips if you want to take a closer look it is pretty neat! Let me know what you think...!


Take a look.

Picture from here!

Advocacy Project:Smoking is HARMFUL for your HEALTH!

-Title: If Smoking is SO Harmful, Why Start!?! NOT to mention, why would you put other people in danger with your second hand smoke?
-Purpose: To hopefully encourage people to not even try to start smoking because it is so harmful for people and not good for the environment and also very harmful for those people around the smoker who are getting the second hand smoke.
-Background/Reasoning/Evidence:I want you to know a little bit more about smoking and all of the harmful damage and effects that it causes people and the people around then who smoke or use tobacco products. Also, me and my grandma were really close all trough my childhood and she was a heavy smoker.  Despite me and my mom's numerous attempts to get her to stop, she would not.  Sadly, my grandma was diagnosed with severe lung cancer and died a few months later. This is not something I would ever wish on anyone and think that it is important you understand the dangers and risks. If you know how bad and harmful smoking is for you...I would hope that there would be no chance that you would even want to start! IF you are a current smoker, I understand it is addictive....but would hope that you would make every effort to stop because it is so dangerous and harmful to the people who are around your second hand smoke.
-Instructions: Please watch some of these videos and let me know one fact that they taught you or something they made you aware of that you did not know. If you knew this stuff, please share a feeling that you had when watching these. Thanks :)



VIDEO LINKS:

-VIDEO 1--SECOND HAND SMOKE
-VIDEO 2--QUIT SMOKING IF YOU CURRENTLY DO
-VIDEO 3-- SMOKING IS HARMFUL!

Share & Voice: Smarter Appliances

My parents just bought a house in St. Paul because my sister will be attending college at the U of M next year.  They looked for a nice and reasonable priced house for her that her and some friends could rent from them.  One issue was that the house needed all new appliances. When my dad was looking I mentioned to him to try and find some appliances that he could buy that would be better and more beneficial for the environment. My dad thought this was a really good idea so we looked into some options online.

I decided that this would be a good idea to share this with this class considering it is beneficial to the environment and some of us may be getting houses on our own soon.  If you guys need any additional information I will attach a few of the websites that we were looking at! :)


http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/03/06/ge-to-deliver-smarter-appliances/
http://www.hitachi-ap.com/company/environment.html
http://www.42u.com/environmental-monitoring-appliances.htm

Let me know what you think!
PICTURE

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 5: Final Weekly Review & Overall Project Reflection

1. What was your SMART goal? How did you do in achieving your SMART goal: My smart goal was do drink 12 oz of water daily and not drink out of any plastic bottles!
2. Address successes & challenges. What strategies helped you to be successful? What challenges did you face? How did you deal with them? My successes were that some days I did drink 12 oz. of water which was good. Some days, unfortunately, I did not quite get all the way up to 12 oz!  The challenges were that I went out with a few friends and on the way home we were all thirty and hungry and stopped at a gas station and I was really bad and bought a bottled water :( Oops...after I drank it I felt really bad so I have not thrown it away yet and try to keep reusing it!
3. What feelings did you experience? When did you feel them? I felt good when I met my goal and it showed me that it is possible for me to drink 12 oz of water each day and not do so out of plastic bottles! I felt bad when I bought a water out of a plastic bottle (as I mentioned above).
4. What did you learn this week? I learned that my goal is possible as long as I make an effort to stick to it and make sure that I plan ahead! I have to make time to get to the school store to buy myself one of those camel back water bottles, I have just been so busy!
5. What are your plans for next week? Will you continue with the change as is? Will you modify to make it more achievable or more challenging? My plans for the following weeks are to stick to my current goal and keep working toward it. I also have a mini goal to try and buy the reusable water bottle so that I will drink at least 12 oz of water and not do so out of ANY plastic water bottles!
6. What was your SMART goal? Did it change at all during the project? Explain. My smart goal is to drink 12 oz of water each and every day and to not drink any water from plastic, non-reusable water bottles. My goal changed a bit throughout the weeks because I upped my water consumption from 8 oz to 12 oz.  I upped my consumption after I was able to consistently drink 8 oz of water daily.
7. What helped you be successful? What things got in your way? How can you address these in the future? It helped me to be successful to plan ahead and to remind myself of my goal and that I can do it! Things that got in my way was when I did not plan ahead I found myself drinking out of plastic bottles for convenience.  Sometimes I did not drink enough water because i chose to drink other beverages instead such as juice or pop.
8. How did you benefit from this project? What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about behavior change? I benefited because I stared drinking more water than I had in the past which is healthy for me. I learned that I can reach my goals as long as they are reasonable and as long as I try and put forth a conscious effort. My behavior change was realistic and I learned that it was a possible behavior change to be accomplished
9. How did others and/or the environment benefit from you changing this behavior? The environment benefited (when I met my goal) because I did not use plastic water bottles which are bad for the environment.  The environment also benefited from this goal because when people would ask me why I did not drink out of a plastic water bottle I explained to them why it was bad for the environment and passed on the word.  Furthermore, when I was home over Thanksgiving break I also told my parents about my goal and explained to them why plastic water bottles cause a negative effect on the environment and they agreed to stop buying them as well.
10. Will you continue this behavior? Why or why not? I will try my best to continue this behavior. This is a positive goal not only for myself but also for the environment that I live in so I feel it is a good idea to continuing meeting this goal and hopefully further down the road begin to increase my water intake even more.
11. What recommendations do you have for others about making a lifestyle change? For people who are making a lifestyle change I recommend that you choose a goal that is realistic, you can always start your goal a bit lower and if it is going well you can make it more challenging.  It is harder if you make your goal really complicating at first and then try and work backwards because this can be discouraging to people.  I also recommend you pick a goal that is important to you so that you have motivation to work toward the goal.
-Picture is from here.

 

*Blogged for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 3 hosted by Amy@Amy in the Rain.

 

Advocacy Project: Letter and Fact Sheet

December 5, 2010
Michele Bachmann
House of Representatives
107 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Michele Bachmann,

I am writing to you concerning HR 1432: Stop Adolescent Smoking Without Excessive Bureaucracy Act of 2009 which was introduced in House Energy and Commerce.  I believe that this is an important law and should be passed because it has to do with the health and wellness of others.  People who smoke are not only harming themselves, but also the innocent people around them.
This is important to me because I do not smoke of use tobacco products and I do not want meself or my environment to suffer the harmful side effects.  Woodbury has come a long way with smoking issues but there are still so many things we can do to make tobacco products used and purchased less that they currently are.
Please pay close attention to this and vote yes to pass and enforce this law. Thank you!

Fact Sheet:

• In the United States, an estimated 24.8 million men (23.1 percent) and 21.1 million women (18.3 percent) are smokers
• The use of smokeless tobacco has been increasing, especially among America's young people.
• According to the CDC, more than 3,000 young people become regular smokers every day, which is more than one million new smokers a year.
• 1 in 5 teens smoke cigarettes. 
•  17 percent of kids in 9th grade reported smoking cigarettes. The rate of smoking then increases to a high of 26 percent in 12th grade. 

As we can see, smoking is and CONTINUES to be a problem! I am a graduate of Woodbury High School and I know that tobacco is an issue here as well. We need to continue to pass laws and stop the harmful effects of smoking!
Picture from here.