While sitting down to reflected on this past semester in Environmental Studies, a few ideas stuck out to me more than many others. Many of these were fairly bubble shattering for me, and greatly affected what core concepts about environmentalism I believe in and gave me even further background to expand on those beliefs. Of these […]
Post 1 (Due Apr 05)
Student posts below addressed the following: "Name and briefly describe three key lessons related to environmental studies that you have learned in our course."
How Much Do We REALLY Know?
Ever since I was a little girl, I was known as “the animal lover”. All I wanted in life was to be able to purchase every single animal on this planet and call them my own. As I grew older, I realized that my dream of becoming the world’s biggest animal freak was impossible. […]
Changing Times, Changing Minds
I entered into ENVS 160 not exactly sure what to expect. It seemed like with every reading this semester, my own environmental thought was tested. This became a constant challenge in that I didn’t always know what to think about issues such as climate change, and I found that my opinion continued to flip flop the […]
Connections across ENVS 160 and beyond
As we have explored different issues in ENVS 160, connectivity is a predominant theme that I have noticed among many of our studies. Identifying connections between ideas is a way to bring about solutions and to think about issues at a larger scale and how they affect problems we are facing. The connectivity of topics […]
Post #1
Like many other people, intro to environmental studies has made me dramatically question my core beliefs. One of the hardest things for me to come to terms with was the idea that multiple, contradicting truths can exist in one debate. One example of this used in class was the energy efficiency of purchasing the New […]
A Ridiculous Number of Sides to Every Argument
My introduction to the world of environmental studies came at an exceedingly young age. Growing up in Salt Lake City, I watched every winter as a dense cloud of smog settled over the city. These inversions sparked my constant worry for the health of the people in my city and I immediately jumped into learning […]
Powerful Distinctions
Looking back, my past environmental education was very straightforward, possibly the most clear cut the subject could potentially be. Small moments of uncertainty, confusion and frustration were outweighed by fact and concrete answers that rarely gave insight into divergent ways of thinking about environmental issues, solutions, and concepts. In ENVS 160 this framework, was immediately […]
WARNING: ENVS 160 Will Squash the Hopes of Vegetarians Everywhere
Like many other free-range grass-fed liberals, I applied to Lewis & Clark College for the Environmental Studies major. I am, after all, the poster child for environmental studies: a privileged young hippie from an outdoorsy city (for me it is Seattle!) who spent her childhood playing in the nearby ocean and mountains, and who, after […]
Complicated Simplicity
I came into ENVS 160 a blank slate, not having any background in Environmental Science or Studies courses in high school. My misunderstanding of 160 as an intro class into the diverse sciences of ecology, geology and resource management was quickly corrected on the first day. Being an enthusiast for such subjects and a perspective biology […]
Mapping Out Wisdom: Lessons Learned in ENVS 160
When enrolling in ENVS 160, I had a minuscule if not nonexistent idea of what this course would be about and how it would challenge me as a freshly formed college student. I approached the class with what I thought was a pretty definitive idea of what environmentalism was and what it had to offer. […]
Three Tricks to be Instantly Intellectual!
Throughout the semester of ENVS 160 I have learned a vast amount of knowledge and gained new insights into environmental thought. Previously I have studied environmental science, but that was especially focused on specific mechanisms of species and how biological processes work. Rather, environmental studies is the investigation of how political, religious, and economic institutions […]
EVNS 160: Delving Deeper into Common Knowledge and the Surprise of Hulme
By: Max Lorenze Spring semester of ENVS 160 opens up as an examination and explanation of various ideas, policies, and philosophies. Overall it has been rather fascinating to delve deeper into topics and issues I had preexisting knowledge in. Specifically thru Vaclav Smil’s work Making the Modern World. His work went more in-depth to the […]
An unexpected take on the environment
When I entered the intro to environmental science course, I was expecting an even more in depth study of what I learned in AP environmental science and possibly some new facts that I didn’t know about. I was surprised to find out that this was a very different take on the subject at hand that […]
Eliminating My Environmental Tunnel Vision
Coming into ENVS 160, I had a lot of expectations. My preconceived notions of what Environmental Studies revolved around were deeply rooted in classic environmentalism. Throughout my life, I was spoon fed ideas of what it meant to be a friend of the Earth. Those ideas have been challenged this semester. The three lessons that […]
How Has ENVS Changed Me?
In ENVS 160, we like to have sets of concrete terms that we can compare and contrast that aid us in understanding and analyzing what environmental studies are meant to actually “study”. There are many comparisons that have come up in class multiple times and are addressed in various readings throughout the course. In environmental […]
A Growing Web of Knowledge
Upon enrolling to Introduction to Environmental Studies (ENVS-160), I expected myself to learn more about straightforward facts and ideologies of the environmental sphere. But instead I was introduced to a web of interconnecting thoughts and concepts in that tie into the field of environmental studies. Amongst many, the three key lessons that I have learned […]
What You See Is Not What You Should Believe
Introduction My favorite class my senior year of high school was AP Environmental Science. I’m not sure if it was because of the friends I made or the amount of information I learned about global warming. However, this had little impact on my decision to take the class. I had a fantasy in my head […]
My Shifting Environmental Thoughts
Three lessons I have learned so far from taking ENVS 160 are that individual actions are not always possible for everyone, they are not necessarily very impactful, and that the ideas and classic environmental thought and pure nature are not as effective or efficient as I, and many others, once thought. Individual actions are not […]
Irritation, well placed? Nope.
I transferred from Middlebury College where I was also interested in pursuing environmental studies. I came this year, irritated that Lewis and Clark did not accept my intro environmental studies class I took two years prior. My irritation grew as the works I was reading in this course felt broad, loose and far reaching. I, […]
A Vital International Interest
Over the course of the semester, the students in ENVS 160 have poured over a lot of material, in which there are endless lessons and take away messages. That being said, I think that one of the lessons that we discussed, regarding the importance of nature, social relations and meaning, is a good way to […]
Understanding Environmental Studies from Fragmented Perspectives
As a science-centered student, I came into ENVS 160 with only a notion that this class would provide me of the humanity perspective of environmental studies, to expand my understanding of this discipline beyond my scientific knowledge. However, at the time, I had very little knowledge of the expansive scope and depth in how these […]
My Newfound Confusion Surrounding Everything Environmental
When I was younger, I owned a U.S. Forest Service shirt. I wore it when my elementary school had a day that let us share what we wanted to be when we grew up. At that point, I was far too young to understand the complexities of ‘the environment’ or ‘climate change.’ All I knew […]
Good Intentions Leading to More Questions
Intro to Environmental Studies was not the class what I expected it to be. I was under the impression that the curriculum was centered on the factual characteristics of the environment, so I was surprised to find that it was an interdisciplinary class focused on various approaches to thinking about the environment. Nevertheless, I have […]
Breaking Barriers of Environmental Policy
Over the past weeks studying environmentalism here at L&C, I’ve learned three key things about how policies regarding environmental issues can be made. 1, Identifying environmental issues involves subjective, cultural, and educational boundaries, which make the measurements of these issues hard to communicate across cultures. 2, Communicating scientific information from the scientists of the world […]
I, Myself and Everyone Else
I, Myself and Everyone Else: Realizations of a Limited Individual Perspective by: Morgan Griffith I have realized, during the course of ENVS 160, that an interdisciplinary program such as this course requires me to dig deep into my brain and grasp for loose ends to tie together and synthesize the vast knowledge that I […]