My Impact on the Earth

We, as a class, have been identifying our impacts on the Earth and how much damage we cause to it.  We each made lists in class that would contain up to 100 items that would be the only items we would ideally live with.  I was able to cut my list off at 89 items with just a few unnecessarily items.

The next challenge we had, was to count, as accurately as we could, every single item we owned.  Making sure I checked every room in the house, I made a close estimate of 4800 give or take 100 items.  I was rather surprised because I would never have imagined have anywhere near that many items.  It is amazing to see how easily items build up!

Following this, we formed small groups and mapped the impact of different products.  My group researched Compact Disks (CDs) which, surprisingly, contain many nasty chemicals.  I have learned that CDs use a lot of resources unnecessarily and require processing of many different materials throughout the world.  I major thing that I will take away from this is that for as nice as CDs are, they are, at this point, not necessary and should be replaced by newer technology.

The latest thing we did was to take an Ecological Footprint survey, which gave you a rate which stated that if everyone lived your lifestyle, the human race would require so many Earths to maintain it.  To my surprise, I was rated at 5.09 Earths.  This showed me that despite all the things I try to do to help the Earth, it is still very far off from what needs to be done.  This is definitely encouraging me to go greener that I am right now.  The quiz can be taken here.

Update on our Collaborative Consumption Project

Since we have started this project, it has definatly shown me all of the waste in our school. But, better yet, it has shown me that we can start to make a difference, as shown by the responce from ideas with the school store.

One of the big things I have learned is that the students are not closed to the idea of recycling, but just need a little more encouragement. This shows me that not only are these students are not the stereotypical, not caring teenagers.

As a team member of the Collaborative Consumption, I can confidently say that I have contributed the idea of trading in unused supplies at the school store and I am the webmaster of out Collaborative Consumption website. Unfortunately, because of the school web control, I am currently unable to access the website to update/add to/maintain it. Once our website is allowed to be accessed again, I will be able to upload the new data that was collected by my classmates about teachers' wants and unneeded materials.

At this point, I believe that I will keep Collaborative Consumption with me. Although I have always recycled and usually purchase used items instead of new, I will see what I can do to further embrace Collaborative Consumption. Perhaps I can even encourage others to adopt the ideals of Collaborative Consumption through my example.

To go to our Collaborative Consumption website, click here.  (Please note that since our site is currently blocked by our school, it may not be up to date as of right now.)

Landshare: Connecting Growers Through the Internet

Landshare.net is a nonprofit website that allows people who want to grow their own vegetables but do not have land.  They are able to make and agreement with others who have extra land and use it to grow their food.  The site allows for easy matching by searching for available landowners, growers, or helpers who best match you wants and/or requirements or by allowing the person to look at a map with the availible landowners, growers and helpers.  They, the site also allows for easy contact between people by providing a message center and tools to create a contract.

All the user is reqired to do is create an account and provide information that will help match you with what you are looking for.

Also, Landshare has just recently created an iPhone app that allows you to access Landshare on the go.

This site was founded by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in Dorset, UK.  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a celebrity chef who came up with the idea after helping families plant crops on some derelict land.

So far, there are 59323 members of the site.

For more information, click here to go the the Landshare website.

To see the TED Talk that inspired this research, click here.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

This past Friday, our class along with some senior English students traveled to Washington D.C. to visit the Holocaust Museum.  This trip was planned to be in early December, but due to weather and other problems, it was postponed several times until we were finally able to go.

Because I really did not know what I would encounter on the trip, my expectations were somewhat limited.  I figured there would be a lot of information and some exhibits, but I really did not expect to see all that I did there.  The museum had so many artifacts, displays, and records that it was hard to focus for a long period of time on one display without wanting to look at another.

The entire experience was pretty valuable.  There is so much information about the Holocaust that most people really do not hear about.  The museum gives you a first hand look at what was happening during that time period and provides you with so many mediums of information such as videos, newspapers, and ads.  And while I enjoyed soaking up all this new information, it did flood me with sad feelings, too.  Seeing just how bad these people were treated and how horribly they died.  It was quite upsetting.

Probably the part I found the most fascinating was a scale model a gas chamber and crematory.  The model had quite a bit of detail and explained exactly how the people were fooled into thinking they were going to take a shower.

When I think about what I have taken away from this trip, I can think of two things.  The first being knowledge, and the second being and improved understanding.  What I mean by improved understanding is simply this: before the trip, I had a less involved knowledge of the holocaust; but now, through this experience, I have more knowledge and and a better understanding of what the many people went through.

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, the long journey to Washington D.C. was actually not quite as bad as I had imagined.  In fact, the journey was quite nice considering that we left behind the horrible cold, strong winds, and nasty thunderstorms of New Jersey to encounter a warm and sunny city with a perfect temperature.

Concluding Our Studies of Hope, Humanity, and the Human Spirit

We just finished our midterm exams and this marks the conclusion of this Hope, Humanity, and The Human Spirit unit.  Our midterm consisted of us creating some kind of presentation concerning a topic of our choice related to hope, humanity, or the human spirit.  My presentation talked about the death and destruction that our species causes and how it could potentially ruin and/or be the end of humanity.  Also, I compared this to how the Earth could be a better place if we would all stop being violent.

The projects that my classmates created were  very well done.  Many of the groups created movies that were extremely well constructed.  One group, in fact, interviewed students and teachers and asked them how they would define humanity.  Another group created a virtual time line based on possible dates of future events that would improve our planet.  There were many other interesting presentations, such as one defining humanity using psychology and another that contained an interview by a classmate with a Gifted and Talented teacher who lost his voice.

Ultimately, our class would like to create a collective video that will contain elements of all our presentations that would concern a wide variety of our unit.  Based on that talent that my classmates have exhibited with their own presentations, I believe that we will be successful.  The only thing that I am wondering about, is what our new unit will be.

Holiday Spirit

Just the other day, I heard a Christmas song on the radio that I absolutely love.  It is called “Do They Know It’s Christmas” by Band Aid.  I think that it fits in very well with our Hope, Humanity, and the Human Spirit unit and I invite all of you to listen to it.

Ubuntu….What is it?

When I first heard this word, I thought of the Linux based operating system.  Of course this is because I am quite the nerd.  However, now that I have read on it, Ubuntu is quite an interesting concept.

A literal translation of Ubuntu is, "I am what I am because of who we all are."  This means that everyone and everything is related.  This includes humans, other animals, plants, and our ecosystem.

This concept can relate to the idea of an Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin.  While it is not exactly the same, it is very close.  In an Empathic Civilization, we extend our ability to empathize with others to the entire planet and by doing this, have a better understanding and care for humans, other animals, and the environment.  Really, the only difference between these two ideas is that

Ubuntu says that we are directly related to everyone and everything else, unlike the Empathic Civilization which simply says that we should show empathy to everyone and everything around us.
To me, this means that as well as caring for other humans, we should treat the rest of our planet just as nice.  I do not know how easy this will be considering that we can still treat our fellow humans so badly.  Plus, many people resist ways to help our environment like recycling, cleaner energy and fuel, and conserving resources.  So, in my opinion, I really do not know if we can achieve Ubuntu anytime in the near future.

These ideas really fit in well with what I thought we were going to do with this unit.  I thought that we should be able to do something real with this class, and I believe that we could, at the least, do something to better a small group of people, like our school population for instance.  As for what I would like to learn for this unit, I believe that we should learn about different ways to make the Earth a better place, not only for ourselves, but for future humans.

You can view the Jeremy Rifkin Empathic Civilization video here: