My Impact on the Earth

Compiling a list of 100 items to keep in my life was tremendously difficult. I feel that I would be able to survive on 100 items (barely) but the difficultly in doing this would be in condensing the three or four hundred items my own down to precisely 100. My list ended around 80 items. It was a painstaking process. It was difficult to count exactly how many items I own but my estimate would be about 400-450 items (including all my clothes, hygiene products, my bike, sports equipment, everything! Which is quite a lot but I might even have more!). My group’s “Mapping the Impact” project was quite intriguing. We chose a simple item, a baseball. The number of steps necessary to create a baseball and all the items necessary to produce it fascinated all of our group members. It was amazing to learn that all MLB (stands for Major League Baseball) baseballs are hand-stitched in Costa Rica. Cork, twine, rubber, yarn and all the other components of a baseball have to be shipped to China, where 90% of the world’s baseballs are made. Thinking about all ingredients necessary in making a baseball makes me cringe because I think about all the shipping of the ingredients and all the fuel used in producing them. The 100 items assignment and the “Mapping the Impact” assignment both made me think about all the things we produce and consume in the world (and America especially). I tend to think about these items individually now. Hopefully I will be able to control myself as a shopper and only purchase things I’ll need or use frequently. And my result from the ecological footprint quiz made me hate America. I feel that I’m about an average American citizen. Therefore, our country is obnoxiously wasteful and oblivious. If all people on the earth lived like I did we would need 5.05 earths..just sickening. This quiz has inspired me to reduce and reuse.  I already recycle to the best of my ability but now I aim to reduce and reuse more efficiently. These activities have opened my eyes to the evil materialistic ways of the world and me. I hope to fix that.

Mother Earth Unit: Self-Assessment and Reflection

Throughout our Mother Earth Unit I have changed significantly. As the unit began, my concern for Mother Earth was very sincere. However, my concern for our planet has grown. Obviously, I'm much more aware of the problems that our planet is facing. Pollution is the issue that I view as as one of our planet's biggest problems. Human waste, the burning of fossil fuels, and many other issues fall into this category. Also, this unit has educated me more on the human waste and recycling processes and how truly involved and massive these topics are on a global scale. I've even learned the small stuff. For example, before this unit I had no idea what the significance was of the numbers inside the recycling triangle on the bottom of recyclable items. The part of this unit that affected me most dramatically was the "Tapped" documentary. I was truly flabbergasted by that documentary. I had always thought that bottled water was the best thing since sliced bread until that video. But I'm now educated on the harmful health and environmental effects, the monopolistic companies controlling the bottled water industry, and of the commercialization of a basic resource; water. My entire perspectie has changed. This experience has taught me to dig deeper into issues; to dig deep enough to get past all the propaganda of things. Now, I can't say that this documentary has aroused some anti-government or anti-big business spirit within me, but I do feel empowered to question societal norms more thoroughly now. Also i nthis unit I've been priveleged to be apart of our "Green Team". As part of the team I've helped create recycling surveys, researched facts about recycling and about human waste, and have also helped craft ou letter to Mr.Newman about our intentions as the Green Team. The experiences I've had in this unit will definately be apart of me for a long time. Just the other day I caught a friend who was disposing of a can in a waste bin and encouraged her to recycle instead. Little thigns liek that will sick with me. I have a whole new mindset.

Relay Rides

Our class is currently learning about collaborative consumption. Don't know what collaborative consumption it is? Check it out here. The concept of collaborative consumption can be summarized as consuming and sharing as a community. The TED talk is incredible and I feel that the concept of collaborative consumption is revolutionary. It has the potential to change the way we function as a society.
    Relay Rides is a company based around the concept of collaborative consumption. It is a revolutionary service that is reinventing car ownership. The company borrows cars from car owners by the hour or by the day. Think about it, car owners use their cars for an average of 1-2 hours a day. Why not loan your car out during those idle hours to make some money? The car owner gets money and someone else gets to fulfill their need for a car for a temporary timeframe. Its a mutually beneficial concept. To learn more about this company navigate to http://relayrides.com/.

United States Memorial Holocaust Museum

     Last week our GT Class took a field trip to the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum. It was a great time. The museum was fantastic.
     Heading to the museum, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. From what I heard from my classmates and my teachers, the museum was supposed to pretty good. I somewhat expected it to be a sad museum. I knew the atmosphere would be somber.
     I saw and learned so many things at the museum. I was amazed at how many primary sources the museum had. Photographs, articles of clothing, and eyewitness accounts. There was so much information to take in. Some of the exhibits that touched me the most were teh picture of the hair pile, the all white model of the etermiantion process, and the voices of holocaust victims room. Many of the exhibits touched me emotionally by allowing me to connect to the victims on a personal human level. Sometiems we just think of the Holocaust as an event. But we can truly appreciate the tragedy if we imagine goign through the trama oursleves.
     I felt a tornado of emotions while touring the museum. Walkign through the museum is an emotionally draining expereince. Overall it's a saddening museum. Regardless, it's still interesting to analyze the how and why this event happened. I felt sad, angry, and confused. Just so many questions to ask. Why did this happen? How could bystanders allow this to happen?
    In the end, I will take a few important ideas from this experience. The "bear witness" slogan is something I will surely never forget. I hope to be able to remember this event and help our society make sure it never occurs again. And most of all from this museum, I will keep the personal connection that I made with over 6 million people; the six million people who experienced the holocaust.

(Here's a picture of the identification card we received upon going through the exhibit. Each person followed a holocaust victim through his/her journey).

Conclusion: Hope, Humanity, and the Human Spirit

As I look back on my experience learning about hope, humanity, and human spirit I feel quite accomplished. For the conclusion of the unit, Andrew, Ronak and I worked together on a group presentation to further explore the topic of humanity. We were quite inspired by Jeremy Rifkin's Empathic Civilisation Animate video. So we took some of Rifkin's ideas and ran with them. We aimed to research how humans have connected on tribal, religious, and national levels. As Rifkin questioned how we can connect and empathize as one global community, we also wondered how this can be accomplished. Finally, we also wanted to see if there is hope for the human race. Along the way we found an incredible timeline by Brian Holtz that posed a timeline of future events for humanity. You have to check it out here!!!!! I also came into contact with Matt Erikson through his blog. He provided some useful insight about religion and religious connections between people. His blog can be viewed here. This project was a lot of fun and taught me a lot. It's opened my eyes to many things, like humanity's future, that I never truly thought about before. Other groups and their presentations made me think about the psychological perspective and how loneliness can affect human beings. I'm able to take what I know and believe from my religious background and combine it with what I've learned through this project to determine my own beliefs and predictions about humanity. Ronak's video and our PowerPoint presentation were very successful in presenting what we learned and did throughout the project. I'm very satisfied with the project. And I've definitely learned a lot about hope, humanity, and the human spirit from this unit. Plus I've given thought to ideas that I never have considered before, which is always a good thing.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu is an African philosophy. If you want to learn more about it Click Here. The word 'Ubuntu' originates from one of the Bantu dialects of Africa, and is pronounced as uu-Boon-too. The ubuntu philosophy teaches us that about ourselves and our relationships with each other and the world. There is a common connection between all human beings and we can our own human qualities through this bond. Recognizing each other’s humanity and existence, we can confirm our own humanity. I’m starting to like this “Ubuntu” concept because it’s a way for people to connect; a way for people to respect and love each other. It seems that the African people who believe in ubuntu have already figured out a way to empathize with each other. By setting differences aside and recognizing others as human as similar to you we can grow stronger and closer as a species. In Jeremy Rifkin's RSA Animate "The Empathic Civilization" he talks about humanity as a whole and our ability to empathize and connect with each other. If you haven't watched this great Animate Video yet, Click Here. Naturally, these two things can be connected. In Jeremey Rifkin's Animate I found it interesting when he discussed the "mirror neurons" that are found in humans. We have the ability to feel what others are feeling; the ability to empathize and to connect with each other. The Ubuntu philosophy talks about how all people are connected physically to the earth and to each other. The common theme is that we have so much in common as a species. I thought deeply about Rifkin's point concerning the extension of empathy to the entire human race. Obviously the whole world won't be able to adapt Ubuntu. It's just not going to happen. There will always be people who oppose things. But if all cultures, religions, and groups of people can adapt their own "Ubuntu" philosophy then that's something special. If we can do that we can learn to love and respect each other. We can spread empathy to the entire human race. I think Ubuntu connects to a lot of what I want to learn in this unit. I want to gain more knowledge about what humans want and need. I want to know about when and how people can come together as a unified people. With the Ubuntu philosophy, I feel like some of these questions can begin to be answered

Humanity-Empathize

I thought that Jeremy Rifkin's video "The Empathic Civilization" was incredible. If you haven't seen it Click Here. I agree with Ms. Mystrena, the talk-turned animate thing is a pretty cool thing. Though, I'll admit it was hard to listen at some points because the animations were so interesting. I had to watch the video a couple times to be able to understand it. And I still couldn't absorb everything in the video! I thought that the whole part about human beings being soft-wired, with mirror neurons, to observe others feelings and emotions and be able to feel them ourselves was very interesting. It's so true! I also found it intriguing when he was talking about the empathic growth of human. At 2 1/2 years old you can recognize yourself in the mirror. At 8 you learn about life and death and how fragile life is and you begin your existential trip in life. It’s all so interesting and I can only wonder how scientists discover these kinds of things. Rifkin also said that empathy is opposite of utopia because in a utopia there is no suffering. People don't empathize with each other; n one cares for each other. Speaking of caring for each other, this video reminded me of the movie 2012. In 2012, towards the end of the movie when the characters in the ship/ark thing are faced with a decision to begin moving or allowing thousands of other people to board, one guy who wants to allow the people to board says "the moment we stop caring for each other-that's the moment we lose our humanity". Of course they decide to let the people board the ship. This video made me think of that movie scene. Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life. We all know we’re going to die. We all know life is precious and fragile. Knowing this, humans have amazing ability to care for each other. For example, when the earthquake struck Haiti, within hours the rest of the world knew and shortly after people began to rush to support Haitians in need. I think that we can connect our empathy to a single race writ large in a single biosphere. As humans we've already connected on blood ties, religious ties, and national ties why wouldn't we be able to empathize and connect and share as one people? As humans. We can. We just need to be forgiving and tolerant. We're all people. We have so much in common. And Mr. Taylor would say that our skin color isn't very deep at all. On the inside, we're all the same.