Brooklyn Porter

Gracie, Branch and I meet on zoom on Tuesday, September 20 from 2:00-2:30. We all found it hard to keep up with all of our trash because we were out in public a lot and it was hard to keep your trash with you all day so we would end up throwing it away. However, we were able to make mental notes of some things that we threw away. Personally I found it hard to keep my food scraps because I ate most of my meals in the dining hall so I didn't have a way to transport the excess food. Most of my trash I was able to keep consisted of food wrappers from snacks in my dorm, Nespresso coffee pods/packaging, climbing harness packaging, paper towels, and a Patagonia clothing tag. We both were surprised at how little amounts of trash we felt like we accumulated and didn't feel like we needed to change our trash consumption patterns because most of it was basic necessities other than a few items. Overall this was a cool experience to see everything you end up throwing away and definitely mak...

The Covid pandemic without doubt affected everyone, yet, it affected everyone differently. For many it was negative and some it was positive. For me personally, it was a combination of both. At the beginning of the pandemic, like many other schools, we were sent into a completely virtual learning environment. I remember the day it happened, we were told that we were going to do school virtually for two weeks and then we would be back to in person learning. Those two weeks passed by and we were still not returning to any type of normal learning environment and soon enough my sophomore year was over and I had only attended school for a few months and felt like I did not learn anything. The next year, my junior year, we still did not return to in person learning and this was the year I was taking my hardest and most important classes. I found it very hard to stay focused and learn effectively. As a result, I did not do well on my AP exams so I did not get the college credit for those cour...

My group met via zoom on September 2nd from 5:30 to 6:00. The people who participated in the group discussion included myself alongside, Gracie Prevette, and Branch Quirk. During our meeting we discussed each of the guided questions. Some common themes that arose was that we found it hard to blame the destruction of this world solely on one group of people. We believe that yes, we have some part to do with it and we could be more earth conscious, however, it is hard to assume that the “takers” are the only problem. When Ishmael said that taker culture leads to depression we agreed that depression has seen an increase as we have increased the development of technology and social media. These things are affecting our societies mental health and it has been proven that more time spent in nature has significant benefits for an individual's mental health. Although we see that there is a correlation, we do not think that these problems can be fully blamed on taker culture. We also discus...