Teaching Today, Creating a Better Tomorrow

Being knowledgeable about my own ecological identity will help me to provide my students with awareness of their own ecological identity. One thing I will ensure I do for all students is help them find their own ecological footprint. With this knowledge they will be able to see how their actions, big or small, affect the place they live. We will also find our classroom ecological footprint, as we are our own community. We will work as a classroom together to improve our ecological footprint. I will encourage students to make changes for their own personal ecological footprint as well as the community they live in. I want the mindset to be clear about their own ecological identity and that no action is too small to make a difference in the outcome of tomorrow. They are a part of the ecosystem and they are part of the outcome. For a better tomorrow we need to act today.

Classroom Activities:

·        Students writing a personal story of an ecological irresponsibility, possibility causing students to feel guilt and develop a sense of responsibility for the earth resources.

·        Calculate their ecological footprint. (own, classroom, or community)

·        Planting a classroom garden, students working together to create food for the community.

·        Adopting a highway, cleaning up trash and making the community a cleaner place.

·        Creating a school plan on how to reduce waste, trying to make the school more ecologically responsible

·        A daily or weekly activity allowing students to come up with one way in which they interacted with their ecosystem recently.

Consumerism

I am looking at my phone and remembering when I bought it a few months ago. For whatever reason, my statement about how every action has some sort of impact popped into my head. How did purchasing my phone impact mine and other ecosystems? I did my best to break it all down and when I put consideration into it all, I indirectly interact with and influence many more ecosystems than I thought:

1.      I drove to purchase it, using petroleum which came from old life forms which have decomposed over a very long period.

2.      Burning the petroleum while driving releases CO2 into the air.

3.      The phone was manufactured using many mined materials – aluminum, steel, copper, gold, silicon. The operations to get these materials undoubtably influenced the ecosystems that they were found in.

4.      The factories that the phones are produced in were not created naturally by the earth. Humans built them over and existing ecosystem.

5.      The machines used in the factory also required factories and materials to produce.

6.      All these factories require electricity to operate which was most likely produced by coal power plants. These powerplants burn more fossil fuel and release more CO2 into the atmosphere.

7.      My phone also requires electricity to charge the battery.

8.      The components and materials to make the phone and the phone itself were shipped from all over the place using even more fuel.

9.      The use of my cell phone requires cellular towers to be built all over the world.

10.   GPS requires satellites to be launched into space using even more resources.

As you can see, I could keep going on and on and on about all the impacts a simple act of purchasing and using a cellular device has on countless ecosystems on the earth. And just about everyone has a cell phone!

Mouse Hotel

My fiancé has a live mouse trap called “The Mouse Hotel”. Every winter, mice start to show up in our house as it gets cold outside. He places his trap out at night, and in the morning, there will be a mouse in it which he will then drop off in a field on his way to work. He by no means advocated that mice shouldn’t be killed or anything like that, but in his case, he just says it takes no extra effort and if he doesn’t need to kill them, why would he.

This scenario got me thinking about some of the interactions going on that contribute to his and my ecological identity. Firstly, though our actions are not killing the mouse, we are removing it from one environment and putting it into another. This not only affects the mouse, but if we place enough mice into the new environment it can also influence that ecosystem, both positive or negative.

It also got me thinking about why the mouse is there to begin with. I think the first inclination is to say that I have mice getting into MY home, but really who is in who’s home? The house I am in was built 20 years ago in 1998. Before that, it was probably a wooded or fielded area where mice were abundant. With this consideration, didn’t I (or whomever built the house) move into the home of the mice first? Really, if was human influences that changed the ecosystem of the mice and when they come into my home, they are simply adapting to their environment.

Obviously, I am not going to move out of my house and give it back to the mice, but it is an interesting consideration and part of my identity. How many countless other animals might have been displaced or force to adapt due to new construction of neighborhoods?

MY Ecological Footprint

Ecological Footprint (n) the impact of a person or community on the environment, expressed as the amount of land required to sustain their use of natural resources.

Carbon Footprint (n) the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted due to the consumption of fossil duels by a particular person, group, etc.

One large part of my ecological identity is my ecological footprint and the lasting effects I have on my ecosystem and the earth as a whole. I looked at my actions and found the good, bad, and changes I can make to be a better part of this ecosystem. My highlights of my positive attributes were paperless billing, buying organic foods, and using biodegradable cleaning products. I do not receive any paper statements in the mail as I have switched all my accounts to paperless billing. I buy only organic food only. This year I started gardening. We had successful crops of cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, kale, pumpkins, and bell peppers.

My negative attributes were driving a non-fuel-efficient vehicle, running the faucet when brushing my teeth (bad & stupid habit), and leaving electronics plugged in when off (vampire power). I drive a Jeep Cherokee which gets about thirteen miles city, and sixteen to eighteen miles highway. My commute to work is about seventeen miles one way. Due to where I live public transportation is not an option. I should consider a fuel-efficient vehicle to reduce my carbon footprint. A habit I picked up when I was younger was letting the water run when brushing my teeth, as an adult I still do that. It is a stupid habit that waste resources and can be fixed easily with focus. I have been good about turning off lights and other electric devices before I leave the house, but they are still using power when they are plugged in.

My immediate plans for change include using a coffee tumbler, reusable grocery bags, and composting. I have an iced coffee addiction, purchasing one every day and receiving a plastic cup increases the plastic here on earth. I recently purchased a coffee tumbler and with this reusable cup I will be able to use the same cup every day. I find myself acquiring plastic grocery bags and reusing them but by having reusable bags I could eliminate them from my household completely. I want to start composting, to help eliminate food waste. I am displeased whenever I must throw away food, by composting I am able to reduce our food waste and put nutrients back into the soil.

After looking at my actions I decided to use an ecological footprint calculator to see the official damage in numbers. I was shocked when I received my results. If everyone lived like me It would 3.2 earths to sustain my current lifestyle. My biggest consumption categories include mobility (1.6 gha), food (1.1 gha), and goods (1 gha). It is scary to think about how much resources I use as one person. 60% of my ecological footprint is my carbon footprint. Exploring some solutions would be limit my transportation usage per month by either taking public transit or walking, or biking to where I need to be. I could also into renewable energy for my household. Shopping more locally for food and continuing to eat less meat and animal based products is another method to reduce my footprint.

After reviewing my own ecological footprint, I decided to look at the country I live, United States. Just outside the top five, we land at number six in the world ranking, leaving our ecological footprint at 8 Global Hectares per Capita (gha/pers).

Find your own Ecological Footprint HERE: Ecological Footprint Calculator

After reviewing my own ecological footprint, I decided to look at the country I live, United States. Just outside the top five, we land at number six in the world ranking, leaving our ecological footprint at 8 Global Hectares per Capita (gha/pers).

Ecological Identity

Your ecological identity describes the way an individual interacts with their ecosystem. This can occur on micro and macroscopic levels and encompasses a multitude of possible impacts, both positive and negative. In fact, when I really consider it, almost every action I take has some sort of impact on my environment and ecosystem. The purpose of this blog is to explore my own ecological identity based on everyday experiences. The importance of this understanding is two-fold for me; I have come believe that understanding the impacts I have on my ecosystem is important. As a teacher, I also believe it is important to help my students to form and understand their own identity. In order to help them to this understanding, I must first understand my own identity. The big picture is that we only have one Earth, and as humans we have managed to remove ourselves from many of Earth’s natural regulations and balances. This means that the responsibility is our own when it comes to making responsible decisions and making sure the ecosystems of the Earth stay healthy. We cannot do that without understanding all of the interactions that take place and form our ecological identity.