Reflection: Weeks 1-7

Part of the jungle environment I experienced - India 2007 

The first seven weeks of class has taken us through a lot of different topics.

First we learned a lot about blogging in general, setting up blogs and their many parts since the class has begun.  I have enjoyed learning the differences between blogger, which we have used in this class, and Word Press, the blog that I've had the most experiences with before this class. It has been great to read about blogging ettiquite and other aspects around the posting piece of blogging.

The various eye opener activities, that you can see the results of on our blogs, have been personalized to us individuality helping us get in touch with the footprint we are leaving on the planet as well as our diet and what we might be putting on our bodies and the effects of those chemicals.  I've enjoyed that process and thinking about what I am doing and what I might be able to do in a better way for our planet or my body. These project have certainly answered some questions, but have also stirred ideas and even more questions.

We also worked on either an Eco Chic lifestyle change or Reed N Seed project where we chose to set a goal in our life that would make us more "eco friendly" or reed a book related to the environment.  Looking back at my blog posts you can see I did an unintentional bate and switch ending on my lifestyle change of eating more local food. You can read that information in multiple previous posts, however the reflection can be found here and here.

Watching the documentaries Future of Food, Fresh, Green and Tapped looked at the concerns around our food and it's production, how we farm, or don't farm for the most part, working with nature, how big industries have the ability to damage the community around them, water; particularly the bottling industry and it's effects, as well as ideas of what we can do to support and not support those things we want to see more of or see changed.  As much as I loved the documentaries, I really enjoyed the discussion we had in class that covered the broad issues, but also brought things home to us individually. That, to me, is where some of the best learning and inspiring happens.

We did some fun activities learning and exploring the concept of junking. This has opened my eyes to this concept in a new, much more broad and functional way. We explored a junking site seeing what other people have done.  I'm not sure my skills are up to making the creations that I saw.  However, I can see that some re purposing and re designing doesn't have to be super complicated either. The brainstorming act we did in class with individual items along with the junk site gave me the broad perspective of the simple and the elaborate allowing my imagination and creativity to be inspired instead of intimidated.

We've even done some activities and discussion getting in touch with ourselves spiritually; working with our internal environment.  That has been a really nice piece to participate during a busy school day when we have done actual practice activities as well as reminders of spiritual concepts that don't get talked about much in academic settings.

I've really enjoyed what we have covered in class.  This is a topic I already have some passion for and experience in. I really appreciate having the discussion and information to fill in some of the information gaps and learning in greater depth.  Both the class content and all the other students have really contributed in creating a great class.