The immediate benefit that I have found after taking this course is how I approach discussions of climate change among my peers. Before this semester, I was more than ready to jump on the fatalistic bandwagon and pull as many people onto it with me, thinking that it would help spur change. However, after reading […]
Post 4 (Due Apr 24)
Student posts below addressed the following: "How will you practice, in your scholarly and personal life, what you have learned in ENVS 160?"
Please Tell Me Why I’m Wrong
As briefly mentioned in my first post, this intro class importantly exposed me to new tools to help untangle webs of causes and effects, actions and reactions, processes and outcomes. How do these all play out in reality? Obviously processes don’t pan out in a linear fashion, as characterized by the “Facts & Action” framework we learned about […]
The Big Picture
The interdisciplinarity of ENVS 160 could not be more important. In this course we learned to look at things from many different frameworks. Continuing on with the rest of my college career and life in general I will try to apply these frameworks of thinking to help guide my thinking in one direction while understanding […]
All In A Semester
This year taking ENVS 160 has provided for some stressful and confusing times, showing signs of hope and contrasting dismality. Environmentalism and environmental studies are not easily navigable subjects. Coming into the class I recognized the high interdisciplinarity of the subject, but truly had no idea of what this connectivity was or how it functions. […]
Final Take
I have spent my time in ENVS 160 doing readings and quizzes, group and individual projects, as well as completing exams. When I take a step back from all of the work I have completed and the information I have learned my biggest takeaway is this; nothing can be done by a single individual, but […]
My Big Plan
When I consider how I will practice what I have learned in ENVS 160 in my scholarly and personal life, I am very conflicted. We need institutional change, right? That seems to be everyone’s biggest takeaway. But, on scholarly and personal level what does that mean? Who are the individuals that make the most […]
Learning from the Past for the Future
We all know the phrase “if you don’t learn from the past, you’re doomed to repeat it in the future”. The same can be said for ENVS 160, although not as the extreme that the phrase is usually used in context for. Once we know something, we generally use it either subtly or overtly for other […]
ENVS 160: A Study of How We Think About the Enviroment
By Maxwell Lorenze ENVS 160: Intro to ENVS spring semester 2017, has been a fascinating exploration into environmental theory and philosophy. It has been a introductory examination of overarching ideas and themes that are facets of Environmental studies. A seemingly large aspect of the course is dedicated to introducing students to the debated between classical […]
The Past (Semester) Educates (My) Future
An important part of how I will apply my ENVS knowledge in the future will lie in my increased ability to understand the differing points of view, of which there are many, to the global environmental issue. From this ability, I am able to inspect more critically political events relating to Climate Change, and the opinions […]
Take out or Take away
This last post is all about what I have learned from this course and how I will use it in my life as a person and as a student. It is important to reflect on what I have learned so I can think of how to use it effectively and correctly in order to get […]
Action Plan for Change
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Recycle Your Cans, But Don’t Recycle Your Thoughts!
Coming from Vietnam, a country where we still only talk about environmental problems as daily news, but never discuss it in a scholarly context in school or prominent public platform, I had very little expectations of how ENVS 160 would actually turn out, and I was not surprised to learn how challenging this course was. […]