Throughout my life I always had a deep and loving connection with the outdoors and nature. I loved to go on hikes with my friends, get my hands dirty, and stay out until the street lights came on. Since I was younger, I noticed that there is garbage all around me. In the rivers, in the streams, collected in a pile near the sewer grates, and in the parks where children play. Looking back, it is so sad to remember how much garbage was all around me.
Today, I see even more garbage and litter every where I go. The simple act of throwing things out (in the correct bins) is apparently too hard for people now-a-days.
After taking a look at this picture how do you feel? Reflect on your own actions for a second. According to the photo, 75% of people have admitted to littering in the past 5 years. If 100 of those people vowed to stop littering, there would be an even bigger impact than you think. People may think “oh my actions wont cause any change, so why should I stop?”. At the root, big changes start with the actions of one person. Don’t doubt how powerful you can be on change.
This YouTube video is only 12 minutes and 34 seconds long but it says A LOT about what one person can create! It also takes into consideration those who want to help clean the earth but cannot commit to a clean up group. Cleaning materials are provided all days of the week, some even 24/7!
When thinking about what I wanted to pledge for my act of green, there was no thinking required. Littering and ocean pollution are something that I think about a lot and make me quite sad. It really sucks looking at what this world has come to. So for my pledge I chose to use less/no single use plastics and use containers to pack and store food. My family already has a whole huge cupboard full of reusable containers, so why not actually use them!
My cupboard looks like this…except 10 times worse. At first it was hard to start using them because I could never find the matching lid to any of the containers we had! After a while, I organized it, threw some out, and bought some fresh new ones where all the lids matched.
This assignment really did aid me in thinking about and considering the size of my environmental footprint. Even though I have this huge love for the earth, what was I even doing to help it? Nothing. This made me take a step back and realize all the micro harms that I was doing on a daily basis. Looking back on this experience, I can say that I definitely cut off a big chunk of my environmental footprint. Doing something as simple as using Tupperware over ziplock bags has made me feel so much better about my environmental impact and my contribution to saving the earth; one little step at a time. Thinking more about this, I think/want to start adjusting my actions in many other aspects of my life, to be more eco friendly. Some of the things I have thought of, and that are practical, include
- Taking shorter showers
- Biking to places that are within 5kms of me
- Not flushing the toilet after a #1
- Keeps lights/radio off when they are not needed and I am not in the room
- Put the TV on a sleep timer at night so that I do not waste electricity
- Do laundry after 7pm or on weekends to conserve energy
These are just a handful of things that I can do easily, to decrease my carbon footprint. I hope to think of more to add to my list!
In my future classroom, I would definitely have my students complete an assignment similar to this one. I hope to teach kindergarten in the future and I think it is very important for them to learn about earth conservation and being eco-friendly from a young age. I would use this activity, but a modified version that involves the students families. This would be a great way for students to get introduced to how much waste them and their family produces and ways that they can cut down on this waste.
As mentioned in the beginning of this blog post, I feel as though I have a deep and loving connection to the outdoors and nature. Because of this, this assignment was relevant and meaningful to me. It made me realize the micro harms I was doing and helped me think of ways that I can correct them. By sticking to my act of green, my actions have also rubbed off on my parents. They no longer buys plastic bags, plastic water bottles, or use plastic produce bags at the grocery store. Instead, my mom bought reusable plastic bags, reusable produce bags, and I have bought each of them a reusable water bottle. I think this was a great assignment as it was student lead which gets students more engaged. It was also very fun and made me feel better about my environmental footprint as well as my contribution to saving the earth.
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