Reflections: Week 15 and 16!

Image from Dr. V@ AmysEnvironmentalAdventures

Hey Class!

So our class has finally come to an end. What an "adventure"! Looking back on the last couple weeks of class....

Week 15:

Blogs: We started out this week by creating an online learning activity for our group members to do. This activity was an interactive way to educate others about the issue of our Advocacy Project! My group had some great ones about health insurance, mental disorders, and indoor air pollution! It looks like everyone had a good time with the activties and gained some knowledge and skills with these activities! The Advocacy Project was not as bad as everyone thought it would be!

Tuesday: Also, on Tuesday we were lucky enough to have Sue Whitney as a guest speaker! Sue Whitney is the author and owner of JunkMarket and gave each of us in the class the Junk Beautiful: Outdoor Edition book. Thank you Sue! Sue was a treat to have in class, you could tell she was very passionate about junking and repurposing! She told us about her childhood and how the way she grew up influenced her way of subconsciously reusing things instead of always buying NEW! Some of the people in the class brought their own junk that they did and how they repurposed it, good job everyone! Also, Dr. V provided lunch for us from Subway! Thanks again Dr. V! Unfortunately, class time cut the discussion short, but it seemed like there was so much more to talk about! 

Thursday: Finally, on Thursday, it was our last day of class together. We went outside to the courtyard and sat outside in the beautiful weather and we all talked about what we have learned throughout the class this semester. It seemed like the majority of the class enjoyed this course and have changed their way of life because of Environmental Health! From this class, I am more environmentally aware and felt encouraged to make more informed decisions about life in general. Also, the people in this class made all the difference! It was a great last day of class!

Images from Shar @ SharsVirtualEnvironment

Week 16:

Finals week for everyone! But our last Eye Opener was to actually do the activities the group members have created and post the results! Looks like everyone learned a lot and enjoyed these activities! Shout out to GROUP#1 (Shar, Steve, Heather, Christen, Kaileigh)...you guys were awesome! Looking forward to this summer and spending time together this summer! Same for the whole entire class!!

Choh's Final Thoughts:

Such a sad ending!! I really enjoyed having this class with everyone single one of you! Every individual contributed to the amazing chemistry of this class. I think we have all learned a lot about ourselves and each other and have GROWN to being so much more environmentally aware and blog-saavy! I enjoyed reading everyones Reviews, Eye Openers/PhotoEssays, Advocacy Projects, especially Share and Voices, and going on an adventure hike! This class had such an influence in my everyday life and blogs seemed to be on my mind all the time considering when I see a classmate, I am always tempted to say your blog name, haha! It was fun getting to know everyone and I wish everyone the best!! Keep in touch! :)

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi

Reflections: Week 13 and 14!

Hello!

SERIOUSLY?--the last couple weeks of this semester is here!!??! Very bittersweet.

I had so much fun from Environmental Health class from Weeks 13 and 14!

Looking back...

Week 13:

Tuesday, we watched the clip called "Story of Stuff" by Annie Leonard. This story was really entertaining and Annie pretty much simplified the complexities of our environment and how us as humans are as consumers. It showed us the process of production and consumption. What was really interesting was the fact that after the Great Depression, we tried to spike the economy by buying more and more stuff. This producing and consuming cycle is still going on today and it doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon! "The Story of Stuff" made us wonder, why DO we have SO MUCH STUFF?!?!

Thursday was great. As a class, we went to the Bagley Nature Area and learned about compass navigation! I am horrible with navigation and compasses, so thankfully my group (Valerie, Noah, and Kaileigh) knew what they were doing! It was really fun, and nice to be outside for our environmental class!

Week 14:

An overall great week as well!

On Tuesday, for our Advocacy Project, we wrote a letter to our Public Official to vote yes or no to the bill we addressed for our specific issue! Also, we had a guest speaker who is now working for the AmeriCorp and what he is doing with his Anthropology major and what he does for the Civic Engagement program at our school! Some interesting stuff.

Thursday was a hilarious day!! For class, we gathered into our blog groups and Dr. V brought in 5 items of "junk" and we had to come up with ideas on how to "repurpose" these items!! The groups came up with some funny and creative ideas!! (cheese grater, eye poker, nut holder, etc.)

Good job class!

It's been a blast guys- keep up the good work!! :)

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi

Reflections: Weeks 11 and 12!

Hola Class!

Coming back into the swing of things was nice and it was really good to see everyone again. After Dr. V came back from the 2008 AAHPERD convention, I felt good vibes from everyone in the class and it seemed like we were all refreshed and ready to tackle the final few weeks we have together! Here is what went down in weeks 11 and 12...

Week 11:

On Tuesday, we started watching the video "Unnatural Causes". This was a veryy interesting film with the main question, "Is inequality making us sick??!". It covered issues of racial and socioeconomic issues in health. This sparked my interest because I have never really heard of this issue before. The data and research showed alarming results. The studies showed that stress levels and income level correlates with health. Even if an African-American man had high-income, the average Africa-American man had a shorter life expectancy. Do you think it has anything to do with the stressors that someone from a minority population encounters in their daily life? Then, on Friday, Dr. V showed us around the Healthy People 2010 site and how to read the certain charts of the objectives of a certain health topic. By showing us this, this information would eventually lead us to the next Advocacy Project!....

Week 12:

On Tuesday, we did our Advocacy Project and we had to pick a certain environmental health issue and pick one objective of that issue and then report the goals, changes, and improvements of the certain objective. We finally had to find a bill that relates to the certain objective I had to do this blog twice!! Very frustrating! lol. But everyone's specific issues were very interesting to read about! 

Also this week, on Thursday, Dr.V and Shar switched things up and Shar lead the class discussion about Reading 20 which talked about how some people say that the ozone layer is closing up and maybe the environment IS getting better and it gave such an inspiration to all people who do "live green"! GREAT JOB SHARRRALEE!!

My dear friend Shar Drew. 

Finally, Dr. V showed us what HER passion was and it was taking other people's "junk" and using it for other purposes! So amazing. She also  gave us super cool green bags from Dave @ Super One! I always wanted one, and I am thankful to have been given one! Shar, Heather, and some other people from class took a group picture of us and had us sign a SUPER ONE grocery bag as a thank you to Dave! Reallly cool.

Thank you Dr. V!

Choh's Final Thoughts:

These past 2 weeks and I guess you could say this semester SO FAR has been such a great experience! I can tell everyone is very passionate about the things we do, have great feedback for all the hardwork everyone does, I enjoy hearing people's thoughts and opinions, the blogs look great! Keep up the good work guys! You all are thinking critically, blogging amazingly, and making this course one that I look forward to going to! :)

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi

Reflections: Weeks 9 and 10!

Weeks 9 and 10 are over, we are closer to the end!

Week 9: This week introduced us to the meaning of advocacy and health advocacy. Advocacy is the active promotion of a cause or principle. This lecture/discussion sparked our minds to think about our up-coming Advocacy Projects. For blogging, we had to find our political representatives' contact information. It was something that all students should do if they want to make a difference and have a reference if we ever need to get a hold of our president, governor, mayor, etc. In class on Thursday, we were introduced to our new Eye Opener: Photo Essay. The lecture was about the ethics of taking photos and how to take some interesting photos!

Week 10: This week we didn't have class but this it was time to take pictures for our photo essay. For my Eye-Opener, I chose to take pictures of Stadium Apartments and how their environment does not correlate with the mission statement of our University. I was hoping my photo essay would open all of your eyes to the daily life of someone who is disabled or in a wheelchair.

It will be interesting to see what the new few weeks have in store for us. Have a good weekend everybody!!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi

Reflections: Week 7 and 8!

So weeks 7 and 8 came and went. We covered a lot of material so let's recap what we did within these past 2 weeks:

Week 7:

We were assigned to read "Ill Winds: The Chemical Plant Next Door". This reading left some people thinking about the life of Becky Bradway and her life in Buffalo, Illinois. The small town of Buffalo had a chemical plant nearby called Borden. Borden is a plant that produces products many people use without thinking twice about where it came from, such as PVC, glue, saran wrap, etc. Borden has been accused of dumping illegal amounts of toxins into the water and Bradway gave us her insight on this issue and how it has effected her family. The reading left us wondering, did this chemical plant next door lead people to develop cancers or not? In class, we discussed why some people liked the story and some did not because if left many people wondering and not really had a direct answer, by this point, I didn't know much about the effects of chemical plants and how they contaminate water. Which is why I enjoyed the documentary "Green"...

"Green" was an amazing documentary made by a student named Laura Dunn. This was interesting because this opened our eyes to an issue along a 100 mile stretch of the Mississippi River in Louisiana nicknamed "Cancer Alley". Cancer Alley had an alarming trend of cases of cancer and sicknesses among the residents of this area. The plants and companies responsible for dumping illegal amounts of nitrates and toxins in the water were many companies we have heard of and are consumers of! The plants were responsible for reporting their own amounts of waste into the water, but in discussion it was said "It is like turning yourself in for a speeding ticket!". This documentary felt more personable because people that were effected from Cancer Alley were interviewed and clearly many of them are sick, sad, and feel helpless. This film opened our eyes to the issue of contaminated water and the effects of chemical plants near residential areas.

Lastly, another interesting thing this we did on Week 7 was our Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group. For this eye opener, we went through the Environmental Working Group's database of many cosmetic or "COSMANIC" (Steve@ SteveGoesGreen) products we use on a regular basis and found out how dangerous it is to the environment and to ourselves. What I found out was that my favorite face moisturizer rated a level 7, that is VERY dangerous to the environment had many chemicals. Many others found out that their products were harmful too! What this eye opener showed us was that the things we use everyday has an impact on the environment and some of the products we use support the chemical plants that we learned about in the reading and the documentaries we discussed this week. Everything from week 7 was tied together!

Week 8:

So the theme of this week was water privatization which is a new term and an eye-opening issue for me. I was assigned to do the reading review of Reading 31: Privatizing Water. Since this was a new term for me and some of the classmates, doing a little research on what water privatization IS helped with understanding the reading. The reading talked about the riots in Cochabamba, Bolivia where hundreds were injured and one killed due to citizens being enraged by water privatization in their area. Water privatization is opposed by many due to poor customer service, poor quality, and many people could not afford the water. This reading lead us to the documentary of "Thirst". Thirst was about water privatization as well. This film showed us what other countries are doing with their water issues. Some are preserving, some are not having issues, and some are having many problems with this issue. The mayor of Stockton, California is planning on signing for having their water run by a private sector which is enraging some citizens of this town. The protesters of this town are thinking "Water for life, not for profit!". As a class, we discussed our views on water privatization and the raising question was "is water a human right? or can someone "own" it and charge people for something that is a necessity of life?" Then the documentary had some technical difficulties but I think we all can imagine what is going on!

A view of the beautiful Lake Superior. A water source we are so lucky to live by!

(Image from hickerphoto)

Again, this class never fails to teach me something new. Have a great spring break everybody!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi

Reflections: Week 5 and 6!

Hey Bloggers!!

So thinking about these past 2 weeks is really putting a strain to my bad memory. We have learned and discussed so much!! Let's try to recap...

Week 5:

**Some of the classmates were assigned to do a review of Reading 15: Feeding the World. After reading this article and discussing it with the class, I have learned a lot of new things. This reading talks about the growing population and the increase of supply and demand. The sections of the chapter had 4 main topics: 

Society's 4 Transitional Stages, Evidence for Negative Population Growth, Future Food Supply/Demand Balance, Protecting the Environment, and the Challenges Ahead. One thing that got me thinking was how unpredictable population growth will be in the future, the reading discussed how we cannot base our future statistics on predictions based on past and present population rates. This reading got everyone thinking about the future and what will happen if current trends keep on growing. Will we run out of food and the resources we need? Overall, as a class in discussion we had a lot of thinking and questions about the future. Valerie started off the discussion about how the reading stated that lower income people are "less-green". It got us all thinking, does lower income mean being less environmentally friendly?? What do you think?

**Also this week, we started the documentary called "Diet for a New America", this opened the doors and opened eyes for many people including me! This documentary was hosted by John Robbins and it discussed the process of the meat industry. A few points of the movie that got my attention:

• With 12 pounds of grain, we can make many loaves of bread, cereals, pastas, etc. But to make 1 pound of beef, it would take the 12 pounds of grain that support the cow eating it!
• When a patient at the hospital got his blood tested, the doctors noticed fat in his blood sample. When asked what the patient ate earlier in the day, he said "a cheeseburger and a milkshake".
• Cows produce tons and tons of manure, and that manure produced nitrates that go into some water systems and many citizens are concerned about the nitrates because it can effect their health and pregnancies.
• The the portions of meat eaten by Americans could feed 4 to 5 people in other countries.
• Tender meat is preferred by many, for that to occur, many animals are kept confined and cannot move so the meat can become more fatty and tenderized.

After watching this documentary, our class discussed some issues about this movie. A lot of us were raised eating a lot of meat and would have a hard time cutting that out of our diets. Dr. V stated that we were watching this documentary not to be persuaded by it, but to make informed decisions. So even though I won't be giving up meat anytime soon, I am making an informed decision and it will help me understand the values of people who choose to be vegan or vegetarian. 

Image from PETA

**This documentary ties directly with our Eye Opener as well..

Our Eye Opener was about CSPI, which stands for Center for Science in the Public Interest. I did a quiz that asked how many servings of each kind of meat (beef, chicken, pork, eggs) I eat in a week. The results showed that I produce about 7,700 pounds of manure, 1.3 acres, and after watching the documentary and taking this quiz, I pledged to limit my portions and reduce the amount of meat I eat a week. I still love to eat meat! But now I know what my actions are doing to the environment.

Week 6:

**This week was also a very eye opening week. We started by individually being assigned a reading out of the book. This was cool because I got to read everyone else's blogs about their environmental issue. My reading was called Trout Are Wildlife, Too! I had a hard time with this reading because there was a lot of information about trout and fishing but I later learned that this article discussed how many people do not think trout is an important part of our ecosystem and many think that "a trout is just a trout!". I learned about new issues from reading others reading reviews. One that stuck out to me and something we can all observe as the years go by is the topic of early bird migration posted by Steve@ Steve Goes Green. 

**And finally, to wrap up these 2 weeks, we started watching a very startling documentary called "The Future of Food". This documentary had a lot on it's plate. It discussed the foods that are genetically modified and the ethics of it. Do people have the "rights" to patent and own these GMO's?? A big agricultural company, Monsanto was the antagonist in this documentary. Monsanto filed lawsuits of many farmers claiming that the farmer's have crops on their fields that are owned by Monsanto, this film gave us the viewpoint and shared the stories of these farmers who lost everything and the emotional and financial stresses this problem has caused. It was really interesting to see that many politicians or people with high positions such as CEO's are somehow linked to Monsanto, which is ironic because these people are the ones that are making decisions for companies and lawsuits. Like Dr. V said, "You wouldn't turn yourself in for a speeding ticket would you?" It was really interesting to learn that GMO's do not have to be labeled but when things are labeled "natural" or "organic", it does not mean 100% of it is natural or organic. I think we all have a right to know what we are eating in our foods!

Choh's Final Thoughts:

Whew, thank you for reading my novel. I tried to jam pack everything from these past 2 weeks into a reader-friendly manner, but there was so much we had learned and discussed!! I think I learned a lot about myself and how my behaviors effect the environment, such as the amount of animal product I eat. These past 2 weeks are really helping me make informed decisions. I feel so much more aware of what is going on in this world and how what I do really effects our planet! The 2 documentaries really got my head spinning as to what I am purchasing and eating..I used to be so carefree when it came to eating, but now I am a little more conscious of my habits and behaviors...in a good way! I think as a class, we always have a lot to talk about and I am really glad that we can have open discussions for everything. Keep up the good work guys!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi

Reflection: Weeks 3 and 4!

Hey!

So can you believe it? It's the end of the 4th week. Wow! Time is flying by and it seems like we have leaped  from one level of awareness to another. Here is a review of weeks 3 and 4 of class:

Week 3:

1st of all, everyone is doing great with their blogs! Looks like we are becoming blog experts! (Maybe?) lol. Anyways, there were some reading reviews done by the groups that were assigned and I feel like we learned and were impacted by the two reading assignments! Reading 1 was about "The Challenges We Face". The problems addressed in the reading were about population and health, food, water, energy and climate, and biodiversity. There were some alarming facts that I will always remember. One fact was that 2 billion people lack reliable access to safe food and 300 million children are chronically malnourished. The other reading was Reading 27: Seeing Green: Knowing and Saving the Environment on Film. This was interesting because we never know what goes on behind the scenes of our favorite animal and nature shows/documentaries! We spent class time discussing these readings. I am glad we have an environment in our class for open discussion. I love to hear what you all have to say! 

Week 4:

The majority of this week was spent watching Al Gore's documentary called "An Inconvenient Truth".

I have heard many things about this documentary and I had always wanted to watch it but when I went to Target and saw the price...I thought "maybe later". But I was very happy to see that we were going to watching this video in our Environmental Health class. Saying that this video was an eye-opener is an understatement. I think we all looked at our lives, behaviors, and attitudes about global warming in a new way! Al Gore really did a good job at getting the sensitive side of us and talking about his family and almost losing his son. He stated that when his son was in the hospital, it seemed like someone turned his world upside down and shook everything out of it. I think watching this documentary somewhat turned my world upside down and put me in a new perspective. I think that he did a great job with his presentation with presenting the facts. The graphs and charts were really eye-catching and towards the end of the graphs we had the most CO2 emissions. Our world really is being impacted by us and I think it was insane that with all of the scientific proof, people were saying global warming is a "fraud to man-kind". I never really realized that politics really had an impact on how much we didn't know about what we were doing to our planet. I cannot believe that the U.S. and Australia is the only countries in the WORLD who didn't sign the Keyoto Protocol! AND the U.S. is 30% responsible for the global warming. We are having the most effect on our world warming. That is more than South America and Africa and other places combined! I like to think of the Earth as a house and our country is the messy roommate to all the other countries. We all have a messy roommate or probably guilty of being the messy roommate ourselves. So I am wondering, what are the other countries thinking of us? I think this video really changed a lot of our views on global warming. 

Thanks for reading! Leave a comment!

**None of us can forget this moment in the documentary where Al Gore literally had to get on this lifter and be raised up to show that we are going off the charts. This photo is from globalpact.org

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi

Welcome to Choh's Changing Environment!!

Hi and welcome to Choh's Changing Environment! My name is Kathy and I am a Community Health Education major at UMD. This blog is going to be a space where students from our Environment Health class can communicate with each other and learn about environmental health without using paper assignments! :)

Remember guys, according to W.H.O, environmental health can be defined as: "all the physical, chemical, and biological factors external to a person, and all the related factors impacting behaviours. It encompasses the assessment and control of those environmental factors that can potentially affect health. It is targeted towards preventing disease and creating health-supportive environments. This definition excludes behaviour not related to environment, as well as behaviour related to the social and cultural environment, and genetics." (just in case Dr. V asks us again!) 

There are 5 possible types of posts on my blog. They include:

1. Advocacy Project
2. Eye Openers
3. Reflections
4. Reviews
5. Share and Voice

If you notice at the bottom of this post, the categories will be listed as labels. This post 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: 

1. Steve @ Steve Goes Green
2. Heather @ Heather's Healthy Environment
3. Christen@ Christen's Environmental Health
4. Kaileigh @ Kaileigh's Nature Log
5. Shar @ Shar's Virtual Environment

You can subscribe to my blog by clicking the subscribe gadget in the gadget column. You can also follow my blog by clicking "Follow this Blog" in the gadget column. I am subscribed to all the blogs in my blog list gadget. You can see my complete profile and all the blogs I am following by clicking on "See Complete Profile." 

Thank you for stopping by, I hope we can all learn something new together this semester! 

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi