Final Reflection

Creative Journal #6 -- Response to Patti Lather

I will fully admit that many of the concepts that Patti Lather brought up went far over my head.  There were far too many -isms that I'm not familiar, I guess.  There were a couple I understood, of course.  I mean, she mentioned the classic feminism, which is something I've had a lot of experience in,

I consider myself a feminist, and more specifically, and eco-feminist.  This is where I was able to make a few connections between our class and the lecture.  In essence, eco-feminism is the bridge between feminism and ecology.  There are many connections between women and nature -- think "Mother Nature."  Because we view the earth to be a female figure, society feels as though we can repress and exploit it.

Think of it like this: Women are generally treated as inferior to men, and nature is treated as inferior to "Man."  I think this is why eco-feminism is so appealing to me.  The duality and the parallels of it is very interesting.  I'd suggest any ESCI 302 folks to look more into it -- it's probably something that might appeal to you as much as it does to me.

My drawing for this one is fairly straight forward.  I put a poorly drawn version of the earth in the center of the trans symbol.  I understand that the symbol can be seen as problematic -- adhering to a gender-binary, and all -- but hey, that happens.

Creative Journal #5 -- Butt Out (Hah!)

This creative journal is more or less something that just bothers the hell out of me.  Every year, without fail, once the melt hits, there are cigarette butts e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Walking around campus, one can't take more than 5 steps before seeing the remnants of a cigarette on the ground.

I think the thing that gets me the most is the fact that there is a radius around the ashtrays that are littered (hah!) with butts.  It's as though they're trying to miss the receptacle that is placed there for one reason.  The wind takes these butts and they fly around campus, into crevices and gardens alike -- areas where it's super difficult to clean them up.  Often they'll end up in storm drains, which is also a huge issue.  All because someone who smokes decides they're too important to use an ashtray.

I know that there are some people who think that this is a ridiculous request (I Imagine they think i'm like Pheobe from this scene of Friends), but I mean, it's such a simple thing to do.  I've started calling out my friends when they do it -- I encourage others to do this, too!

Creative Journal #4 -- Environmental Racism

Environmental racism is a topic in which I feel very invested in.  I'd go as far to say that it's the branch of environmentalism that I like to explore the most.  I think it's due to the fact that it seems to cause the most discomfort, as it touches upon two things that people tend to shy away from.  When we were starting our Action Learning Group Projects, I watched a documentary called Tipping Point: Age of the Oil Sands, which focuses heavily on the tar sands of Alberta, and how they are affecting the Aboriginal population who live downstream of the project (specifically those in Fort Chipewyan).

I actually used this documentary during my internship and it sparked a whole lot of conversation.  I had a number of students who were for the tar sands, and a number who weren't.  It was really interesting to see their perspectives of the topic.

In my (very crude) drawing, I have the Keystone XL pipeline going through the Wood Mountain Reserve -- near Assiniboia.  My best friend is from that reserve, and when the Keystone XL talks were going on, if my memory serves, the pipeline would be going right near his old stomping ground.  This was something that irked the both of us.  Usually he's not very invested in his Aboriginal heritage, but this was something that got to him.

Film Review: Project Wild Thing

The film is essentially a 2013 visual version of Richard Louv's The Last Chid in the Woods. He has two children who (likely) suffer from NDD. He goes around speaking with children/young adults about their adversity to nature, and he speaks with nature "experts" on how to "sell" nature. His end goal is to "Sell" nature as if it is a product.

If we're talking "intended audiences," I would suggest that there are two main ones: Parents of small children and any adolescent person with autonomy. They’re really the ones who decide whether or not children get to go outside. In terms of social positions and locations, I think this is one of the few times that they’re irrelevant. Bond never discloses his job – he only calls himself “The Marketing Director for Nature.” (I mean, we know he’s a filmmaker, but that’s as deep as it goes.) He meets with people of different societal standings, races, ages, and backgrounds to get their viewpoints on the subject. Nature is universal.

I was really struggling with finding a resource that I found related to our action learning group project, that I found to be relevant, and that I connected with. Just through a little bit of googling, I was able to find this documentary. It’s almost as though our project was a Canadian version of Bond’s idea. He shared the same facts that we were looking up, and as I mentioned before, it seems as though he pulled most of his inspiration from Louv’s text – much like we did. I thought Bond’s idea of “Marketing” nature as if it was some kind of product was really interesting. It really added some “flair” to the documentary. There is a point during the film that he makes note of putting too much “effort” into this marketing scheme, and that he is beginning to lose a connection with his kids. (This part seems quite contrived, but the idea is there.) He seems to understand that we are not going to get rid of screens – they’re a constant in our lives, now, and he has embraced it. He’s created a free Android and iOS app called WildTime that offers loads of kid-friendly activities that are super easy to take part in. As a person who has done nature programming for children between the ages of 5-13, I love this.

Overall, it really does solidify what I already know – I have a disconnect with nature that I really ought to fix.

In terms of further reading to better understand this documentary, why not use the book that (I imagine) it was based off of:

Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-deficit Disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin of Chapel Hill, 2005. Print.

My Story as an Environmentalist.

By my own standards, I'm an environmentalist.  I don't think there are any rigid standards to being an environmentalist -- acknowledging the fact that the world is in pretty rough shape and that we should do something about it is about it.  I think that's where people tend to get hung up on the idea of what it means to be an environmentalist -- that "something".  What is that something?  How do we figure out this something?  Am I doing enough to mend this something?
I sure as hell don't know.  If there is anyone out there who does know, please give me a shout.

Anyway, to get back to the topic at hand, I'll share my story.  It's fairly boring, realistically.  Ever since I was young, I've had a fascination with being outside.  I grew up in Pierceland, SK. My house was at the edge of the town, so my back yard was quite literally the Boreal forest -- I had active beaver lodges 5 minutes from my back door.  I loved the outdoors.  I guess that's what sparked my internal environmentalist.

Since then, I've always tried to live my life in an Environmentally conscious manner.  I've always recycled, never littered, enjoyed carpooling, and so on.  While all of those amount to a great start, it's still pretty "juvenile" in a sense.  It's important to continue to learn about what's happening around the planet and what we can do to counteract it.

I guess that's the "no frills" version of my environmentalism.  There was no revelation or big moment in my life to make me an environmentalist -- to some degree, I've always been one.

In the Middle of Things -- Meta Reflection

As I look back at the past month and a half of this class, many interesting thoughts and memories begin to bubble up.  Firstly, it was really cool to meet/reconnect with those at my table group.  I thought it was going to be a bit weird having already finished internship and returning to a class of second year Ed students, but by some happenstance, Bobby, Willow, Renee, and myself sat together.  The four of us seem to have similar thoughts an opinions a few aspects of Environmental Education, although our view are different enough that we are able to have intriguing conversations with one another.  Which is why I imagine we became group members for the Action Learning Group Project.

The ALGP is going very well thus far.  We all held interest in the current disconnect between children and the environment.  I actually have a disconnect with the environment.  I don't dislike being outside by any stretch of the imagination.  I just prioritize my time differently than I feel I should.  That's why I plan to go out every day during the break.

Checking out my past couple of blog posts, there seems to be one topic that really stands out -- Indigenous rights in Environmental Education.  Indigenous rights is something I've been interested in since my first year at the university, and blending that is my passion for environmentalism is of great interest.  That's why the past week or so has been incredibly enjoyable for me.  I'd be lying if I said that I keep up with reading (Not just for this class, every single class I've ever taken), but the Canoe Pedagogy and the Raven/Coyote readings were fantastic retroactive reads -- both of which I have saved and intend on using in the future.

One of the biggest things that hit me during this class is the fact that I went about teaching Environmental Science all wrong.  I taught the class for a month during my internship last semester.  To be fair, the curriculum wasn't finalized during the time I was teaching, so I was flying solo for most of it.  I did more classwork than I did anything else. Rough, I know, but I did try to get in contact with someone for help, but they didn't get back to me, unfortunately. Life goes on, I suppose.  I now have a whole lot of resources if I ever return to teaching EE.

Braiding of the Love Letters

Although there were many great love letters & poems in the group that I was in, I found Jenna DeBoth's and Mikayla Boen-Wira's to be the ones that I really enjoyed the most and the ones that I wanted to braid with.

Firstly, I wanted to comment on the medium in which Jenna wrote hers.  The limerick style was fantastic!  It really blends both of my fields of study -- English and biology -- quite well.  The addition and rational behind the word "Hyperbole" was hilarious due to the fact that limericks are all about hyperboles.  Mikayla and I both took a letter approach, but that is where our stylistic similarities end.

Jenna and Mikayla took a bit of a hypothetical approach to their assignments.  They both wrote to the idea of a person. Jenna's was to a "perfect" eco-literate person, and Mikayla's was to her future children.  Mine, however, was to a friend of mine who I believe to be far along on the path to eco-literacy. Seeing as I wrote to a person who actually exists, I was able to bring in some specific eco-literate activities (ethical eating, commune living) whereas Jenna and Mikayla mentioned some more general ideas of eco-literacy (which isn't meant to sound rude / discrediting).

I think one thing that we all agree on is the complexity of what it means to be eco-literate.  As Fritjof Capra states in his 2007 article "The definition of sustainability implies that in order to build sustainable communities, we must understand the principles of organization that have evolved in ecosystems . . . [t]his . . . is what we call "ecological literacy"" (10).  In one way or another, all three of us touched upon this idea within our writing (re: commune living, Mikayla's children looking back to her time).

Letter to an Eco-literate person

My letter can be found here.

Creative Journal #3 -- Response to Leo's speach

Prior to Tuesday's class, I had not heard Leo DiCaprio's UN address in it's entirety -- bits and pieces, sure, but not in full.  Honestly, I was quite impressed by it.  I mean, I don't want to just give him a bunch of credit for giving a damn about things everybody should give a damn about, but he seems to hold legitimate stakes in environmental issues.  He knows what he's talking about, he made many legitimate points, and most of all, he showed genuine passion.

I mean, I know he's an actor.  He gets paid to be ingenuinely genuine.  Whatever, it's fine.

His mention of industry is something that really resonated with me, and that's what prompted me to draw this picture.  As we become eco-literate, we should become more and more aware of what is really happening in the world.  We should become more critical of what we buy and where/who we buy it from.  With "Eco-Friendly" becoming a  huge buzz word, more and more products are boasting about how they're the eco-friendly-est.  But what does that even mean?  What is the minimum effort that has to be put in before something can be called "Eco-Friendly"?  Who decides the criteria of eco-friendly products / companies?

This makes me think of the SK based company Ten Tree Apparel  who boast being eco-friendly by planing 10 trees for every article of clothing that is purchased.  This is a pretty cool idea, and if they really have planted 4.5 million trees, as their website claims, then that's awesome.  That being said, the folks who started the company have no issues hopping on a private jet to fly to Las Vegas. Hey, that's their thing, right.  They're not the only ones who have, do, or will fly on a private jet, but when their company is promoting eco-friendlyness, flying across the continent doesn't really refelct those ideals.

Humans "Saving the world"

Much the same as the "Environmental Science as a scenic landscape" rhetoric, I absolutely hate the idea that we need to "save" the world.  Not due to the fact it doesn't need saving, but when it's put in terms of us "saving" the planet, it removes any and all owness from human beings.

We are the ones who did this.
We are the ones who spend unfathomable amounts of dollars to tear the face of the planet up
We are the ones who are polluting at a terrifying rate.
We are the destruction

We're not saving the planet from anything but ourselves.  This is why I drew this sketch.  Think of it like a math equation.  If people didn't exist on the planet, the earth would still (likely) be the same.

So it's not our job to "Save" the planet.  It's our job to unfuck the planet.

Creative Journal Entry #1

All right, so this is my first entry into my creative journal.  At first glance, it's a bit barren, I know -- but I'll take this time to explain it.

I decided to delve into the question "What does Environmental Education look like?" At the risk of sounding outrageously pretentious, environmental rights is a topic that I have an extreme amount of feelings towards.  So much revolves around the health of the environment, and it frightens me that people don't understand this.  Luckily enough, I've had the opportunity to teach Environmental Science 20 already, so I've gotten my feet a little bit wet in the marsh that is high school environmental education, and that is where I got the inspiration for my sketch.

Generally speaking, when someone brings up the topic of the environment, a mental image of some kind of peaceful scene will be birthed in the minds of the listener.  You know, the image of a sunrise/set, a beautiful green landscape, some silhouetted birds flying silently across the sky, and trees as far as the eye can see.

I really detest that idea.

This is why "MORE" is written across the sketch.  Environmental Education should be more.
There should be more talk about the impact of humans on the environment.
There should be more talk about political impact on the environment.
There should be more talk about the travesties that are happening on a daily basis.
There should be more talk about the complete disregard of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people in terms of environmental destruction.
There should be more action.

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