Reflections: Week 3 and 4

Week 3 we didn't meet for class, we just set up 15 min appointments with the TAs to make sure we had everything we needed and we were caught up in class. I thought it was very helpful, because I was doubting myself when it came to having everything I needed. Turns out I didn't and I was able to get caught up.
Week 4 we had an eye opener due and I never knew how much energy I used. Wayyyy more than I had originially thought. We started out class with a game where we each chose a question about blogging and had to answer it correctly to get a prize. The prize bag sure was interesting!! Very unpredictable! We then watched "An Inconvenient Truth". I had seen parts of it before, but not the whole thing so I was glad to see what I hadn't seen already. I really liked that he used graphs and visuals to show the changes in ways that PROVE what is happening. The pictures were shocking to see how much of the glaciers and other ice areas have melted! I sure hope the government does something about it soon, instead of trying to cover up what is happening. I sure don't want to be around to see the final consequences!!

Eco-chic Lifestyle Change Week 1: My SMART Goal

I constantly have a bottle of water with me at school and next to my bed at home. They are left over plastic water bottles from when I purchased water at a gas station or something. For my lifestyle change, I'm going to use something other than plastic water bottles to carry around with me. Sure, I recycle the plastic water bottles after using them for a while, but why use more and more when I could be using the same thing over and over? It may be just a glass of water next to my bed that I refill each night, or an aluminum bottle or coffee mug that I carry with me to school.
Based on that, my SMART goal for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change project is:
     "I will use an aluminum water bottle or coffee mug 100% of the time 7 days a week for the next 10 weeks"
NO PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES!!!!

I also blogged for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 1 Linky Party hosted by Eco-Chic with Amy.

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

My ecological footprint showed that it would take 3.6 Earths to provide enough resources for me. I used the earthday network footprint calculator. I had no idea I used that many resources. I'm pretty sure none of us realize how much we actually use. 54% of my uses are from services, 19% are from food, 12% are from goods, 8% from shelter, and 7% from mobility. According to my results, it takes 16.1 global acres of Earth's productive area to support my lifestyle. Wow. I really need to change some of the things I do. I commute to work with my roommate when we work the same shift, I walk to and from school, and I walk to the grocery store if it is nice enough outside. Those are the places I go the most. I don't go grocery shopping unless I completely run out of food. I do my best to eat everything I have before getting more. I will honestly work at it as best as I can to reduce my resources.

Read 'n' Seed 1: Greening the Ivory Tower: Improving the Environmental Track Record of Universities, Colleges, and Other Institutions

I chose Greening the Ivory Tower by Sarah Hammond Creighton. It talks about different things colleges and universities can do to make their environment more "green". It can teach staff and students strategies for "greening" up the place, if they have no experience in working on those kind of changes. They begin to focus on food waste, transportation, and energy efficiency at Tufts University where the author was a project manager of Tufts CLEAN!, which is a program that tries to reduce the environmental impact at the university.
I chose this book because, as a college student, I want to learn ways to reduce the impact on the environment, in the things I do. I want to establish habits that will be healthier for the environment and I feel that this book is a good source for it.
Here are some links provided where I found more information about this book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=DKRQqPthJygC&source=gbs_navlinks_s
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=5269
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Greening-the-Ivory-Tower/Sarah-Hammond-Creighton/e/9780262531511


The book has 9 chapters, 357 pages. For my first quarter of the book I plan on reading the first 3 chapters, then for each quarter after I will do 2 chapters each. I look forward to discussing what I learn from this book!

Reflections: Week 1 and 2!!

It has been a very interesting start to the semester. I wasn't sure what to expect. The star wars activity was a great way open everyone's vision and see a whole new perspective. Getting the blogs set up was a little confusing at first, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. I don't know many people in the class so I think this is a good way to get everyone familiar with each other. The second week, I really liked the quotes from the gardens, it was a good way to think in different ways about our environment, and what is good and bad about it, and what we can do to take our part in helping the environment. Getting our blogs up and going with gadgets and layout was a little tough at first but the more you do something, the more you get the hang of it. I'm excited to look back at the end of the semester and see all of the things we did that I had never done before taking this class. It will sure be interesting!!!

Welcome to Danielle's Dandy Environment!!

I'm Danielle and my blog is for HLTH 3500 Environmental Health. I will be blogging about things we do in class, things I do outside of class, and just other random things!



There are 6 possible types of posts on my blog. They include:



Advocacy Project

Eye Openers

Reflections

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change

Read 'n' Seed

Share and Voice

If you notice at the bottom of this post, the categories will be listed as labels. This post is has been labeled with all five kinds of posts.  You will also see the number of each kind of post in my Labels Gadget at the top of the page. All post titles from now on will begin with one of the categories above.



The members of my web group are:

Carrie@Carries Environment http://carriesenvironment.blogspot.com/

Rita@Ritas Realm http://ritasrealm.blogspot.com/

Kayla@Kaylas Green Land http://kaylasgreenland.blogspot.com/



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Thanks for visiting and I look forward to any comments!

Blogged for the Welcome Linky Party hosted by http://ecochicwithamy.blogspot.com/