Toyota Advocates for Environmental Education

Toyota Pushes Environmental Education

This program is a great addition to the environmental education reform in the United States. Toyota is sponsoring teachers from the United States to travel to Costa Rica to interact with students from other cultures and to learn more about environmental education and its impacts. This is not only a great experience for the teachers, but it also revives their careers creating an exciting atmosphere for students which encourages environmental education and learning.  The most beneficial part for students

 "The program allows students to travel and interact with other cultures through their teachers’ experiences, fostering new learning opportunities for thousands of students.”

 So often students do not get the opportunity to become exposed to other cultures and through this experience Toyota is helping to fix that problem. This opportunity allows teachers to:

The program will let the chosen ones explore environmental and cultural preservation, biodiversity and sustainability through a variety of site visits, discussions, lectures and hands-on activities. Participants will meet with local experts, visit schools and museums and experience the rainforest first-hand.

This is a great opportunity for all parties involved and is a great step forward for the environmental education reform that is taking place in the United States.

Mapping Everyday: Misunderstandings

While reading Mapping Everyday it was easy to get lost, or just read without actually understanding. After reading this article the first time I didn't really understand the majority of it, however this is the type of article that you have to read, think, reread to really understand what is being said. That being said, there were many parts of the article that I did not understand at first, however this quote is the one that stuck with me through the second rereading:
For theorists of the spatial, recognition of this set of forces is essential. In

Production of Space,

examining one’s lived experiences and possibilities. He defines representations

of space as “conceptualized space, the space of scientists, planners, urbanists,

technocratic subdividers and social engineers, as of a certain type of artist with a

scientific bent—all of whom identify what is lived and what is perceived with what

is conceived” (38).
After thinking about this for a while, I think the quote is meant to show that the conceptual space, similar to physical space will be completely taken up and used. This is only my opinion that I formed from context clues and a little bit of imagination. Hopefully this wasn't too far off from the actual meaning though.

180 South

  

I will never look at my North Face jacket the same after watching 180 South. I have a much greater appreciation for what it stands for. The journey that these young men and women shared with us not only documents a journey, but it shows the realities of environmental problems other countries face. Patagonia is a rather well known place, or brand, however the stories surrounding Patagonia aren't so well known. The reserves that are now protected are some of the most beautiful pieces of land that I have ever seen. However, this was not my favorite part of the movie. Nor was it the journey that were taken on. My favorite part of the movie was watching the natives of various countries fight to protect their homes. Fighting against power plants, and dams, and paper plants. Each person interviewed had such a passion for their country and for their land that it was inspiring. Living in America, that is not something that we see often. Sure, we've all been unhappy when a concrete plant was being built near our neighborhood but we have never had a passion this deep. These people were so genuine, so passionate about their home and their surroundings. I hope to live in a world with more people like these some day.

Mapping Everyday

My very first thoughts when reading the opening paragraph of this article, "Wow, I don't understand a word of this." After slowly reading through the following paragraphs I found that it became easier to read. Was this because the vocabulary became easier? No, it was easier to read because I could relate to the article. I obviously cant say that I understood everything the article was talking about, however I can say that I understand the claims made about sexism. Today the media overwhelmingly portrays women as submissive and less powerful than men. I find this degrading, and offensive. The rest of the issues outlined in this article are just as powerful as issue as sexism and I find it hard to believe that human beings are still as racist and sexist as they were hundreds of years before.

Coast Salish Cultural Survival

While reading this article, it was difficult not to get lost or completely confused as to what the author wanted me to take away from this writing. The Coast Salish people were often called Indians, which confused me a little. I often pictured them as Native Americans although this may be completely wrong, making this comparison made the most sense to me. Just like the Native Americans the Coast Salish people were pushed off of their land and forced to conform to a different culture in order to fit into the new settlers society. The most difficult obstacle for the Coast Salish people was the fact that schools were trying to disintegrate their culture and wanted them to conform to their culture instead. This was very frightening for the Coast Salish people and the resisted this change. One interesting fact was that the Coast Salish community is located on the border of USA and Canada, so the Coast Salish people often traveled between countries. Most of the time the travel was required to preform a ritual or ceremony. Eventually the Coast Salish people decided that the best option was to create their own schools within their community to allow their children to learn in a peaceful environment that incorporates their heritage. Even though the Salish people faced many hardships they did not give up and continued to instill their culture into their children.
indigenous resistance

Open Writing- Butterfly Lessons Response

1) What is one claim or observation that Kolber makes in "Butterfly Lessons"? Locate a quote to frame your response.
2) How might you relate "Butterfly Lessons" to your project on place and environment?

1) Kolber talks about how humans have caused so much damage to the natural world that we have completely wiped some species of the map. "Meanwhile, thanks to us, the world today is a very different-and in many ways diminished-place. International trade has introduced exotic pests and competitors; ozone depletion has increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation; and many species have already been very nearly wiped out, or wiped out altogether, by over hunting and over harvesting. Perhaps most significantly, human activity, in the form of farms and cities and subdivisions and mines and logging operations and parking lots, has steadily reduced the amount of available habitat." The last portion of this quote is specifically talking about pushing living things from their homes and claiming the land for ourselves. This is the part of the article that really sticks out to me because I live in a rather rural area, well rural in a sense, but it is becoming a major tourist attraction. Large corporations are slowing eating away at every empty piece of land to try and expand their empire of tall buildings.

2) This relates to my project in a slightly obscure way. While Kolber is specifically talking about humans using land that was inhabited by animals for our own benefit, my project is talking about how even years after a facility has been shut down and the land "visibly barren" the animals are still at loss. TCE and other harmful volatile organic compounds are flowing through the groundwater and even present in the air if you are walking through the area where the streams surface. This is ultimately devastating for nature, and ALL life forms.

Butterfly Lessons

Butterfly Lessons

The title of the article is slightly misleading, one might think that you are about to read about the life of a butterfly, which to me is a carefree, happy life. Wrong. This article dipicts the challenges insects and toads are facing due global warming. Climate changes are forcing migration, which for some insects and toads is easy, yet for some plants this change is causing them to face extinction.

To me, the most alarming part of this article was not about how insects and toads are migrating, but it is a small paragraph at the end of the article (which most people who dont make it through the nine pages about insect migration wont ever see) that seems to serve as a warning. "Ultimately, all of the crops we grow are biological species; all the diseases we have are biological species; all the disease vectors are biological species. If there is this overwhelming evidence that species are changing their distributions, we're going to have to expect exactly the same for crops and pests and diseases. Part of it simply is we've got one planet, and we are heading it in a direction in which, quite fundamentally, we don't know what the consequences are going to be." After taking a minute to consider what this small paragraph means, I realized that this carries some serious weight. This is not something we want to allow to continue to happen, we are not ready for diseases and pests to change. If the ecosystem is suffering now, imagine what will happen once diseases and pests change and start attacking.