I’ll be honest here. I really struggled through ENVS 160… but I didn’t have to! And guess what! NEITHER. DO. YOU. My problem stemmed from my lack of belief in myself. Right off the bat, I felt that I wasn’t smart enough to be successful in ENVS 160. This was largely due to the […]
Onward, my Friends…
As this school year quickly draws to an end, I can’t help but think about the future; and not only my future, but the future of this world. Even though ENVS 160 challenged me beyond belief, from getting to class by 8am (which I often failed to do) to truly understanding the selected readings (especially […]
Who’s Flying the Plane??
In Who Rules the Earth?, author Paul F. Steinberg argues that in order to make real (and lasting!) environmental changes, we must change the very rules that we live by, as opposed to only making changes at an individual scale. In this sense, as a society, we are governed by social rules that Steinberg refers […]
Wait… Haven’t I Heard this Before?
Institutional over Individual! I would like to begin by expanding on a “lesson” that I included in my previous post, which I titled, “Individual Action isn’t nearly Enough…. But, HEY, it’s a Start!” While I mentioned the idea that sometimes it takes an individual to spark an institutional change, I would like to further emphasize […]
And When I Snap my Fingers, You Will Forget Everything You Think You Know
Having attended a fairly academically-rigorous high school, I thought that I was pretty well-prepared for college. I also expected to be prepared for ENVS 160, as I took an AP Environmental Science during my senior year. HOWEVER, I was wrong…. Extremely wrong. So wrong that it’s not even funny. Thankfully, in just one semester, I […]
With the Eyes of Many: Deep Ecology
Faith Michal, Cassie Kent, and Julia Neish *Our definition of nature is taken from the Oxford Dictionary definition, being “the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.” Definition Deep ecology, defined by Encyclopedia Britannica, […]
International Gypsum Mining: Interactions between Humans and Nature
Faith Michal, Cassie Kent, Julia Neish Overview Gypsum is a sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate with origins from dried concentration of seawater. The deposits of calcium and sulfate condense over millions of years to make this soft mineral. Therefore, the locations that used to be oceans or lagoons now have large holdings of […]
Portland Climate Change vs. THE WORLD
Our team members were: Faith Michal, Cassie Kent, Julia Neish, Sofi Ronning