The first thing I did before writing this was reflect on my original ecotypes survey and see how this course has changed me. At the beginning, I had a more apocalyptic view of the future, believing that if we did not act soon, a global catastrophe was sure to happen. Since then, I have realized […]
Individual Posts
The Long and Short of It
This course has offered me a lot of information and opportunities for growth; we as students have covered extensive reading material, worked on several projects, and collaborated on research. Having already taken AP Environmental Studies in high school, I assumed that this class would be a nice recap of some of the things I learned […]
Learning and Unlearning
ENVS 160 has shown me the importance of understanding and change. Without these elements, there is no progress — personal, academic, or otherwise. A big part of this lesson for me is the realization that the goal of a conversation should be to learn rather than to change the other person’s mind or to tear […]
We Rule, Climate Change Drools
ENVS 160 is tied together with the final book, which gives solutions as to how to deal with all of the issues we are presented with in this class. It advises us on how to act in order to make real change. This post discusses the message underlying this book and how it accomplishes this. […]
My Experiences from and Advice about ENVS 160
Throughout ENVS 160, we studied concepts broken down into four different categories including the book Why We Disagree About Climate Change, the book Making the Modern World, many articles on Classic and Contemporary Environmental Thought, and the book Who Rules the Earth?. We kicked off the class with Mike Hume’s fairly long and pretty complex […]
A roadmap to ENVS 160: Trust your compass!
Let me be honest with you, this class is not going to be easy. ENVS 160 is basically an extreme crash course into the multidisciplinary aspects of Environmental Studies. The materials in this class are extremely insightful and interesting, but they are not going to give you much use if you do not put in […]
Life in ENVS 160
The Beginning Environmental Studies may seem like a class that clicks easily to those interested in our planet and issues surrounding it (like myself!), as well as just learning about concepts like global warming, pollution, energy, etc. However, it is not all that simple, and in fact you will realize this once you take ENVS […]
Brace Yourself For the Idea Whirlwind
Environmental Studies 160 defied all of my preconceptions. That is not meant to sound scary or ominous, but I found it to be quite true. If I can immediately offer one very important piece of advice, it is to enter the class with an open mind. Expect your nearest and dearest environmental beliefs and ideas […]
A Fresh Start… Again
A Roadmap to ENVS 160 – Situated from a Transfer Student’s Perspective I began ENVS 160 in the spring semester of my sophomore year as a second year transfer student. I entered the class with several college level Environmental Studies and Science courses under my belt. Despite having quite a bit of previous knowledge, I constantly […]
Coming to a New Understanding through Tolerance
As presented in my first post, openness to multiple and varied sources of knowledge is a stance that I firmly take. I have seen the most progress and opportunity to do so in myself and others since the beginning of this semester through pursuing this method. Given, since I am relatively new to environmental studies, […]
My Brain On ENVS
So, what can I say I have learned from taking ENVS 160 this semester? One main thing is that I learned how expansive and broad environmental studies is. It was not what I expected when I first registered for the class. I expected the course to be way more focused on singular ideas and that […]
Pieces of the Puzzle
ENVS-160 has been full of readings, of which required us as students to examine and explore them from multiple angles and think outside the box. While exploring each of these readings there are many possible connections between different authors and their opinions/views despite different scholarly backgrounds. I came to the conclusion that in order to […]
Swinging Forward
As we have been swinging on the metaphorical swing of ENVS 160 this semester, the time has finally come for us to jump off and leap onto the path ahead. I took this class to see if the ENVS major is the best fit for me, and though I’m not continuing on the environmental studies […]
Digging Deeper
Conversations related to environmental ideas will never be the same after I complete my first year of Environmental Studies at Lewis & Clark. My conversations will be different not only because I have learned new approaches to consider environmental thought, but also because I have become more knowledgable in general and will be able to […]
Hey You! This is Helpful Stuff!
If you are interested or enrolled in ENVS 160, you probably have some kind of notion about what Environmental Studies is. In this class this past semester, we have broken down and rebuilt many of these ideas. Initially we were walked through much of it and worked together to create team posts, but by the […]
What We Talk About When We Talk About Divestment
I think it’s safe to say that it’s been a long semester in Environmental Studies, filled with novel ideas and groggy, 8:00 AM reading quizzes. The material from ENVS 160 was substantial and provocative, and hopefully will manifest itself in my personal and academic life. Considering what I’ve learned about institutional change, the constructed notion […]
The Pieces of the Puzzle
My advice to you as a freshman in ENVS 160 is to come into this class with no expectations and an open mind. When I first came into this class I didn’t really know what to expect but I thought that it was going to be something very different than what it was. There was […]
So in the End, Whats the Point?
When having intellectual discussions with friends and family, I like to have a stable and developed understanding of the topic in order to make informed contributions to the discussion. Climate centered topics are a hot button issue currently and have been given much more attention in recent years. That being said, it is imperative that […]
A New Perspective
I excitedly signed up for environmental science this semester with the expectation that I would learn how I could personally make a difference our world. I quickly discovered that wasn’t the case. I learned that my efforts on an individual scale meant virtually nothing and that the only hope for a brighter future was through many […]
A 360 in ENVS 160
ENVS 160 is the entrance to an interdisciplinary major that attracts many of us Pios, but it is not like most introductory classes at Lewis and Clark. This class demands an open mind, technological skills, teamwork, and dedication. Throughout the semester we were all a bit shocked at the contemporary ideas that seemed to denounce […]
A Roadmap to Success
ENVS 160 is a breed of course like no other: it aims to connect science with opinion and everything in between while remaining scholarly. I have often found it difficult to navigate through the course as the material twists and turns through the streets of Portland, Oregon where I studied public opinion, to the far reaching […]
Questions and Frameworks Make the Best Tools: Putting in Practice the Knowledge of ENVS 160
Coming out of ENVS 160, I have learned quite a great deal about environmental theory and many of the intricacies that form its ideas in conjunction with some environmental and social phenomena as a whole. Through these and other lessons which I have described within my last three reflection posts, I have developed scholarly tools […]
Change the World – Change Yourself: Our responsibility to action
In my very first course at Lewis & Clark I read the Bhagavad Gita. The focal point of this ancient Hindu text is a conversation between prince Arjuna and the god Krishna. While this may seem completely unrelated to my experience in Environmental Studies I urge you to stay with me. For the dilemma that […]
The Future Starts Now
During ENVS 160, a vast amount of knowledge gets thrown your way and it can often be hard to fully understand what the point of it all is. How does one take all this information and form useful long-term learning from it? Since reading the first book, I have found myself asking myself this question, […]
An Excited Look Forward
After experiencing all ENVS 160 has to offer, I am more confident than ever that I will be majoring in environmental studies. Through our readings, discussions, and projects, both individual and group, I not only have a better understanding of what environmental studies entails(and how it differs from environmental science) but how I have the […]