Reflections: week 11 and 12

The past two weeks have gone by extremely fast! It seems like just yesterday I was posting my last reflection...I can't believe there are only 2 weeks of class left! wow. The past two weeks also proved to be challenging for my SMART goal, but I did my best! I also finished my Read'n Seed book and found the last couple chapters to be very intriguing!


Week 11 started with an environmental literacy activity where we got into groups and tried defining environmental literacy in our own words.We then did an intro to junking project where we were asked to come up with different  uses for random pieces of junk which we had no idea what they originally were used for. Some groups came up with some very interesting things! My favorite piece of junk was this random wire-y thing with a wood stand that we decided would make a good spice rack!


Week 12 introduced us to blog hopping...which panned out to be very useful for showing each other our photo essays! The essays turned out really well, I enjoyed seeing everyone else's pictures and really learned some neat ideas from other people. We also talked about communicating with decision makers and how we would write a letter to an editor or policy maker. This was also pretty helpful because our next advocacy assignment will involve writing to an editor about our issue.



Pictured at right is what is called STEAMPUNK!! The junking project reminded me of this because it actually is a type of junking. If you have not heard of it, check it out. The people that create this art are genius's. They take old antique appliances, and put in the parts that make them run, they basically resurface, refurbish and rebuild modern day things that we use and make them look like they're from the 1800's. Just type in STEAMPUNK into google images and see all the amazing stuff that pops up!

Share & Voice: how about some travel!

Cleanest Countries in the World

I decided I wanted to do a little research on the cleanest countries in the world to visit because I am very interested in doing some traveling in the near future, and right now I could use a little narrowing down on my list.

First of all, I will more clearly explain my research and what I was exactly looking for. I have pretty bad asthma so the first item on my checklist was to look for countries with the cleanest air. Second, I was looking for places that ranked the highest in Environmental Performance Index (EPI) which would determine the cleanliness and environmental safeness of a country. The EPI in most basic terms is an index that ranks countries based on their environmental performance in categories such as water quality, air quality, biodiversity, their use of pesticides, etc. 

Just for the record, with 1 being the best/ cleanest and 140 being the worst, the U.S. ranks at a dismal 39th on the list. Not the worst, but for real?? How sad is that. For being such a "developed" country...I guess I'm just not even going to go there.

 Anyways, back to my main focus, there were a few different sites that all agreed on the same places and a few that only slightly differed from the norm.  When it comes to clean countries Switzerland takes the cake. According to Forbes, "Switzerland scores a perfect 100 in eight environmental indicators, including sanitation and water quality, forest health and pesticide regulation."  WordPress also indicated Switzerland as number 1 and stated, "The environment has been in the country’s interest as early as 1876 when it passed a forestry law...Nearly all electricity comes from dams and nuclear plants, reducing emissions caused by burning fossil fuels. Strict standards for exhaust are placed on vehicles to lower air pollution. The country is also one of the top recyclers in the world, with stiff penalties levied on offenders." 

Next on the list was Sweden, although all of the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway and Finland) nearly scored the same EPI. According to Forbes, "Sweden has low levels of airborne pollution, pristine drinking water and low per-capita emissions of greenhouse gasses" 

Costa Rica followed the Scandinavian countries, thanks to 25% of the country being under wildlife preserves.

Columbia, New Zealand, Japan, Croatia and Albania (due to the fact that has not yet become industrialized) all made it in the top 10 overall cleanest countries. 

If we are just talking air quality, Tasmania, Iceland and South Africa are all pretty safe according to Travel Leisure. Many of the cleanest air countries can thank their location; high elevation or wind direction can often prevent the movement of pollution from other countries. 

Of the places that I researched, several of them ranked in the top ten on my list of places I would like to travel, so that was awesome! I also believe that traveling to any of these countries and seeing how their daily lives differ from ours as well as how the government has implemented more environmentally friendly choices would be awesome to see first hand.

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 9: Weekly Update

This past week has been quite the challenge for my lifestyle change.

My SMART goal is to not eat red meat, and eat less than 2 servings of other meats/ week.

Well, I would say this week wasn't a complete failure; I did eat red meat on Thanksgiving last Thursday, but it was a very small serving and consisted of venison which my dad caught! (very organic). I did stick to the less than 2 servings of other meats part. I also continued to not use cheese or milk in any of my cooking. (pictured below a delicious looking salad I'd like to try in the near future!!)

The challenges and successes this past week both had to do with Thanksgiving. I knew Thanksgiving would be a challenge, obviously, there is always a ton of food, and who wants to be picky on Thanksgiving? Especially when my mom has made so much delicious food! Also, I personally am not very fond of turkey, so when my mom mentions she has made wild rice meatballs, it was impossible to turn down. I had to try some! The successes were that there was a lot of other food that were vegetable based! So I tried my best to fill up on those. There were also tons of leftovers, so I was able to eat healthy for most of the week.

My feelings weren't hugely impacted this week, nothing was too different from the past weeks, but I did feel a little guilty about eating red meat. Although I think I may have felt worse not trying them. Maybe next time I will suggest making them out of ground turkey! 

I learned that it is not impossible to stick to your diet and your goals even in the most tempting situations! I watched Jessica turn down everything except for the veggies and bean dishes and I need to make it my goal to stick to my diet over Christmas. 

My plans for next week will be to continue my goal, and try out a few new meat free recipes to add to my collection.
Blogged for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 9 hosted by Amy@Eco-Chic with Amy.
lifestyle change post 9

Eye Opener: Photo Essay

For my photo essay, I found several great ideas back at home this Thanksgiving weekend, so I decided I would combine them into an eco-chic Thanksgiving theme. Compared to past years, this Thanksgiving turned a new leaf; my parents have been making many eco-chic changes back at the homestead so I figured its time to document this awesomeness!

Decorating was my favorite part. My mom decided we wouldn't spend any money on decorations this year, so my dad and I explored our field and found some natural decorations. My dad is a botanist so we have tons of plants. Dried hydrangea's, berries, pheasant feathers and oak leaves made up 2 of our fall-themed vase decorations (pictured at left).

For other Fall-themed Thanksgiving decorations we lined our windows with wild dried grasses from our fields, and used gourds and mini pumpkins which my parents grew in our garden to hold it down (a much bigger garden than previous years!!). Our last decoration was a center piece I made with more colorful squash, mini pumpkins, and oak leaves, placed in a decorative bowl my mom had (pictured below).

For the meal this year, we had several dishes that came straight from our garden such as squash and mashed potatoes.

  

My mom also made her famous crunchy cream-corn dish, but this time with our own corn from the garden and eggs from our own chickens! We also had a green bean casserole with beans from our garden.

I also made my apple-banana bread which contained apples from our own apple trees.

We topped the bread with jelly my mom made from our own grapes in my dad's mini vineyard behind the house.

These are just a few of our eco-chic changes back home! Overall, I would say a very successful and tasty Thanksgiving!