Our Daily Bread

I watched "Our Daily Bread" and it had a very powerful impact on me. I feel that since there was no direct talking to the camera and just listening to the sounds of industrialization made it's point stronger. This movie is very powerful in the sense that it is very persuasive to try and change people's eating and consuming habits. More than anything I think this movie just opened my eyes to the horrors that are happening behind the scenes of our food, mainly. Initially this movie is a good educational tool, but it doesn't really set up people with ways to change their daily habits. Industrial food is EVERYWHERE so it's very hard for most people to change where they get there food right away. Changing people's habits and perspectives is going to take a lot of time. I think this movie portrayed awareness and knowledge but it didn't give people options of what to do next and how to act, which is what environmental education does.

This movie had a big impact on me because I am already environmentally aware, but I feel that people who don't have the same perspective as me wouldn't think anything is wrong with industrialization. A lot of people think that industrialization is the best thing that has happened to this world. But this movie might change people's perspectives a little by the method of filming. The movie was filmed by showing what goes on behind the scenes. It was very interesting to see and hear what went on behind the doors of the industrial chaos. I actually had to watch the movie is segments because I could only handle so much! I watched this movie a few weeks ago so not all the images are still vivid in my mind, but the one image that I can still clearly see is the mass amount of little baby chickens riding on these escalator things to be checked and then shipped off to live in a tiny, dark room until they were big enough to be killed. It was like that for all farm animals but I think the chickens stayed in my mind because they were so tiny and cute and I love eating chicken but after that I felt sick to my stomach.

"Our Daily Bread" did a very good job of portraying it's view and what it wants people to know, but like I said it's hard to change people's perception and habits. The movie changed my perception though and made me want to change my habits. It's hard to get to the farmer's market on Saturdays but I really want to make it a habit. I really liked this movie and I suggests others to watch it.

King Corn as EE-Heck Yeah It Is!!

I believe King Corn is a great example of teaching environmental education. The film is well done, easy to understand, and entertaining (plus, the guys aren't too bad to look at either). It not only tells a story of small town farming communities, but ties it to things that are in our every day lives that we don't think come from small farmers in Iowa. It was also great because you watch the film and not only feel like you are learning something, but that the guys that created the film are learning and about what they are learning their roots to the land.

The film starts off a little slow. We find out that the guys both have great grandfathers who were farmers in the same small town in Iowa. They find a guy to house them and who will let them grow one acre of corn on his land. One acre is pretty small, but when the film start, you get the feeling that they think it is going to be A LOT of hard work. It's amazing to see the process of them growing corn and the small amount of money that is made from their one acre. Since they don't have too much to do in their small acre, they try to follow all the possible places where their corn could end it. They travel to CAFO's, learn about High Fructose Corn Syrup and the low income people that it affects, look at grocery stores at all the ways corn could be used in everyday foods. They then look at the way corn had been grown and used back when their grandfathers were farming and the ways in which farming has changed over the years and who this change has happened.

So why do I consider this EE. Well, it teaches people to think about where their food comes from. When you go into a grocery store, I guess you just assume that everything comes from something that was grown by a little farmer on his farm as you sing "Old MacDonald" in your head. Not the case. Most things do contain corn, but the farmer has so little to do with the production of this corn that it doesn't even feel like a farmer-consumer relationship once it hits the shelves. It also teaches about the affect corn has had on the citizens of the United States and the problems that have come along with it. We learn that because of our diet, we are almost made completely of corn. Well, there's the old saying "you are what you eat" coming to haunt us. They talk about problems with diabetes in young children and the diabetes rates among lower income people. They also talk about the affect soda has had on obesity rates. Not only do you lean about the way corn is grown, the health risks, socio-economic impacts, but also about the history of corn and the way corn and farming has changed over the years. It is sad. It's nothing like us kids from the city would every think of. And, that is the problem, we don't ever have to think of any of it.

Which, is a great thing about the film, it makes you think. It makes you think about what you buy, what you put into your body and what it is doing to you and us as a nation. It makes you think of the farmer that grows this food and the way it must be grown. It makes you think of the injustices that happen to the farmer that doesn't listen to the big corporation and the way they tell him to farm. It makes you think of our change from slow foods to fast food. It makes you think about our connection to our land and to our food. It just makes you think, what else is EE all about?

DIRT! The Movie.

I've been working on curriculum all day long. Hannah went to Michigan for the weekend...a good time to get some work done. After my brain hit 3rd grade overload I decided to watch DIRT! The Movie. I'm not sure where to start. Let me premise the rest of this blog with these tidbits of information: I finished the movie even though I wanted to shut it off after the first 15 minutes; I had to put Mumford and Sons (buy this immediately) on the turntable before I started writing; and I fully recognize this year is going to change my life.

I did hate the first 15 minutes of this movie. Every time I watch a documentary like this I feel that I need to watch it as a 18 year old student. As this 18 year old, I hated it. For some reason the documentary didn't capture my attention at first. I thought Jaime Lee Curtis was going to narrate the whole thing, and I was annoyed. She didn't narrate the whole thing, and I decided to stick it out.

Maybe it's the mood of the day, or maybe it's this movie. I ended up loving it. If I did show this movie to students, I would encourage them to stick through the first half. There are a lot of super cheesy graphics. I don't think these graphics are necessary. I'd delete them if I had super powers. These movie tricks almost caused me to quit, but I'm glad I stuck it out. The movie has a message that can change lives...that's another blog I guess.

Is this advocacy? The movie can definitely be seen as a movie based on advocacy, but it doesn't promote itself as a movie for change. Aren't those the best? The ones that sneak up on you. It did me. I'm not sure if I can look at soil at the same way after seeing this movie. I hope it's not a camp high. I don't want this feeling to change...to fade.

From a friend - Bill McKibben!

But just remember 2 hats and we can wear both of them - we just have to make a choice of when!

-------


http://j.mp/BillGetMad
We’re Hot as Hell and We’re Not Going to Take It Any More
Three Steps to Establish a Politics of Global Warming

By Bill McKibben
7:40am, August 4, 2010

Try to fit these facts together:

* According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record.

* A “staggering” new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950.

* Nine nations have so far set their all-time temperature records in 2010, including Russia (111 degrees), Niger (118), Sudan (121), Saudi Arabia and Iraq (126 apiece), and Pakistan, which also set the new all-time Asia record in May: a hair under 130 degrees. I can turn my oven to 130 degrees.

* And then, in late July, the U.S. Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change. They didn’t do less than they could have -- they did nothing, preserving a perfect two-decade bipartisan record of no action. Senate majority leader Harry Reid decided not even to schedule a vote on legislation that would have capped carbon emissions.

I wrote the first book for a general audience on global warming back in 1989, and I’ve spent the subsequent 21 years working on the issue. I’m a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.

For many years, the lobbying fight for climate legislation on Capitol Hill has been led by a collection of the most corporate and moderate environmental groups, outfits like the Environmental Defense Fund. We owe them a great debt, and not just for their hard work. We owe them a debt because they did everything the way you’re supposed to: they wore nice clothes, lobbied tirelessly, and compromised at every turn.

By the time they were done, they had a bill that only capped carbon emissions from electric utilities (not factories or cars) and was so laden with gifts for industry that if you listened closely you could actually hear the oinking. They bent over backwards like Soviet gymnasts. Senator John Kerry, the legislator they worked most closely with, issued this rallying cry as the final negotiations began: "We believe we have compromised significantly, and we're prepared to compromise further.”

And even that was not enough. They were left out to dry by everyone -- not just Reid, not just the Republicans. Even President Obama wouldn’t lend a hand, investing not a penny of his political capital in the fight.

The result: total defeat, no moral victories.

Now What?

So now we know what we didn’t before: making nice doesn’t work. It was worth a try, and I’m completely serious when I say I’m grateful they made the effort, but it didn’t even come close to working. So we better try something else.

Step one involves actually talking about global warming. For years now, the accepted wisdom in the best green circles was: talk about anything else -- energy independence, oil security, beating the Chinese to renewable technology. I was at a session convened by the White House early in the Obama administration where some polling guru solemnly explained that “green jobs” polled better than “cutting carbon.”

No, really? In the end, though, all these focus-group favorites are secondary. The task at hand is keeping the planet from melting. We need everyone -- beginning with the president -- to start explaining that basic fact at every turn.

It is the heat, and also the humidity. Since warm air holds more water than cold, the atmosphere is about 5% moister than it was 40 years ago, which explains the freak downpours that seem to happen someplace on this continent every few days.

It is the carbon -- that’s why the seas are turning acid, a point Obama could have made with ease while standing on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. “It’s bad that it’s black out there,” he might have said, “but even if that oil had made it safely ashore and been burned in our cars, it would still be wrecking the oceans.” Energy independence is nice, but you need a planet to be energy independent on.

Mysteriously enough, this seems to be a particularly hard point for smart people to grasp. Even in the wake of the disastrous Senate non-vote, the Nature Conservancy’s climate expert told New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, “We have to take climate change out of the atmosphere, bring it down to earth, and show how it matters in people’s everyday lives.” Translation: ordinary average people can’t possibly recognize the real stakes here, so let’s put it in language they can understand, which is about their most immediate interests. It’s both untrue, as I’ll show below, and incredibly patronizing. It is, however, exactly what we’ve been doing for a decade and clearly, It Does Not Work.

Step two, we have to ask for what we actually need, not what we calculate we might possibly be able to get. If we’re going to slow global warming in the very short time available to us, then we don’t actually need an incredibly complicated legislative scheme that gives door prizes to every interested industry and turns the whole operation over to Goldman Sachs to run. We need a stiff price on carbon, set by the scientific understanding that we can’t still be burning black rocks a couple of decades hence. That undoubtedly means upending the future business plans of Exxon and BP, Peabody Coal and Duke Energy, not to speak of everyone else who’s made a fortune by treating the atmosphere as an open sewer for the byproducts of their main business.

Instead they should pay through the nose for that sewer, and here’s the crucial thing: most of the money raised in the process should be returned directly to American pockets. The monthly check sent to Americans would help fortify us against the rise in energy costs, and we’d still be getting the price signal at the pump to stop driving that SUV and start insulating the house. We also need to make real federal investments in energy research and development, to help drive down the price of alternatives -- the Breakthrough Institute points out, quite rightly, that we’re crazy to spend more of our tax dollars on research into new drone aircraft and Mars orbiters than we do on photovoltaics.

Yes, these things are politically hard, but they’re not impossible. A politician who really cared could certainly use, say, the platform offered by the White House to sell a plan that taxed BP and actually gave the money to ordinary Americans. (So far they haven’t even used the platform offered by the White House to reinstall the rooftop solar panels that Jimmy Carter put there in the 1970s and Ronald Reagan took down in his term.)

Asking for what you need doesn’t mean you’ll get all of it. Compromise still happens. But as David Brower, the greatest environmentalist of the late twentieth century, explained amid the fight to save the Grand Canyon: “We are to hold fast to what we believe is right, fight for it, and find allies and adduce all possible arguments for our cause. If we cannot find enough vigor in us or them to win, then let someone else propose the compromise. We thereupon work hard to coax it our way. We become a nucleus around which the strongest force can build and function.”

Which leads to the third step in this process. If we’re going to get any of this done, we’re going to need a movement, the one thing we haven’t had. For 20 years environmentalists have operated on the notion that we’d get action if we simply had scientists explain to politicians and CEOs that our current ways were ending the Holocene, the current geological epoch. That turns out, quite conclusively, not to work. We need to be able to explain that their current ways will end something they actually care about, i.e. their careers. And since we’ll never have the cash to compete with Exxon, we better work in the currencies we can muster: bodies, spirit, passion.

Movement Time

As Tom Friedman put it in a strong column the day after the Senate punt, the problem was that the public “never got mobilized.” Is it possible to get people out in the streets demanding action about climate change? Last year, with almost no money, our scruffy little outfit, 350.org, managed to organize what Foreign Policy called the “largest ever coordinated global rally of any kind” on any issue -- 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, 2,000 of them in the U.S.A.

People were rallying not just about climate change, but around a remarkably wonky scientific data point, 350 parts per million carbon dioxide, which NASA’s James Hansen and his colleagues have demonstrated is the most we can have in the atmosphere if we want a planet “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.” Which, come to think of it, we do. And the “we,” in this case, was not rich white folks. If you look at the 25,000 pictures in our Flickr account, you’ll see that most of them were poor, black, brown, Asian, and young -- because that’s what most of the world is. No need for vice-presidents of big conservation groups to patronize them: shrimpers in Louisiana and women in burqas and priests in Orthodox churches and slumdwellers in Mombasa turned out to be completely capable of understanding the threat to the future.

Those demonstrations were just a start (one we should have made long ago). We’re following up in October -- on 10-10-10 -- with a Global Work Party. All around the country and the world people will be putting up solar panels and digging community gardens and laying out bike paths. Not because we can stop climate change one bike path at a time, but because we need to make a sharp political point to our leaders: we’re getting to work, what about you?

We need to shame them, starting now. And we need everyone working together. This movement is starting to emerge on many fronts. In September, for instance, opponents of mountaintop removal are converging on DC to demand an end to the coal trade. That same month, Tim DeChristopher goes on trial in Salt Lake City for monkey-wrenching oil and gas auctions by submitting phony bids. (Naomi Klein and Terry Tempest Williams have called for folks to gather at the courthouse.)

The big environmental groups are starting to wake up, too. The Sierra Club has a dynamic new leader, Mike Brune, who’s working hard with stalwarts like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. (Note to enviro groups: working together is fun and useful). Churches are getting involved, as well as mosques and synagogues. Kids are leading the fight, all over the world -- they have to live on this planet for another 70 years or so, and they have every right to be pissed off.

But no one will come out to fight for watered down and weak legislation. That’s not how it works. You don’t get a movement unless you take the other two steps I’ve described.

And in any event it won’t work overnight. We’re not going to get the Senate to act next week, or maybe even next year. It took a decade after the Montgomery bus boycott to get the Voting Rights Act. But if there hadn’t been a movement, then the Voting Rights Act would have passed in… never. We may need to get arrested. We definitely need art, and music, and disciplined, nonviolent, but very real anger.

Mostly, we need to tell the truth, resolutely and constantly. Fossil fuel is wrecking the one earth we’ve got. It’s not going to go away because we ask politely. If we want a world that works, we’re going to have to raise our voices.

Bill McKibben is founder of 350.org and the author, most recently, of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. Earlier this year the Boston Globe called him “probably the country’s leading environmentalist” and Time described him as “the planet’s best green journalist.” He’s a scholar in residence at Middlebury College. To hear him discuss why the public needs to lead the fight against global warming in Timothy MacBain's latest TomCast audio interview, click here or, to download it to your iPod, here.

Copyright 2010 Bill McKibben

Step 1 is about telling the truth, not obfuscating it with what might "connect" with the audience. However, it is also important to state why "global warming" is an existential issue: is it because of the heat, droughts, floods, fires, hurricanes, arctic melting, glacier melting or sea-level rise as the AIT slide deck emphasizes? All these issues are perhaps, mere inconveniences to the well-heeled as they can crank up their indoor climate control systems and move inland. If anything, emphasizing these issues may have the effect of persuading people to secure more wealth for themselves by hook or by crook so that they can afford the climate control system or the house in the mountains when they truly need them in the future.

Actually, "global warming" is an existential issue mainly because it is going to accelerate the mass extinction that is already underway. It is the rapidity of the change in climate that is the problem as ecosystems are unable to adapt to the rapid change and they are being trapped in the wrong climate and dying out. As complex life is snuffed out, every one of us will feel the effects as our food security gets affected. It is not possible to take to the hills and ride it out when the local grocery shelves are bare. This is why the climate crisis and the extinction crisis are inextricably linked and the root cause of the current extinction crisis - our over consumption - is such a glaring omission in the AIT slide deck.

Step 2, the cap and dividend approach, if implemented as Bill McKibben advocates, will be branded as "socialist wealth redistribution" and indicates why there is such a left/right divide on taking action to solve climate change. By taxing carbon emissions, governments would be asserting commons rights over the atmosphere and the private sector would much rather own the rights themselves and make a business out of the pollution. Also, if biofuels such as firewood are exempted from carbon taxes, this might accelerate deforestation and may eventually be detrimental to preserving Life on earth.

contributed by Sailesh Rao on Aug 5 10:24am

Why is Minnesota so cool?

I dated a girl that lived in Minneapolis so I spent some quality time there. Minneapolis is cool for several reasons. Bryant Lake Bowl is at the top of the list for me. It's a restaurant, bowling alley, and theater all wrapped up in one location. It's also in a movie called "Beautiful Girls." If you haven't seen it, rent it soon. The movie captures the inner mind of men perfectly.

The thing I'll never forget about my trips to Minneapolis is how cold the winters were. The huge amounts of snow and the freezing temps never seemed to bother the locals. Tanya, maybe you can identify with this. I have a friend that is a principal at a school in Arkansas. He says the school shuts down when the forecast even mentions snow.

Oooo...side note...a Screech Owl is calling outside my window. That sound always hits my core.

Back to MN. I wonder if snow is a mindset. Arkansas freaks out because they are not acclimated to driving in snow. We do pretty well here, but Minnesotans do even better. They seem to embrace it. Maybe they have a stronger connection to nature. They see the aesthetic and economic value.

Plus, they elected a former wrestler for their governor and a former cast member of Saturday Night Live to the senate. Who else does that?

fears...

Holding a picture of being most attentive to the faces & voices of the little ones...though, not on the trails per se, I try to be aware of being excited to explore with kids. There is a sense of satisfaction with the plant communities I became familiar with back in chi. As these are still new terrains for me altogether, I don't want to be fearful of not knowing the "right" answers, but able to probe and connect with them as we trek along. "Boring" anything is of course the worst wall to break down, so bringing it back to them & the land will be key.

Be very afraid!

It's strange, but even though I run a children's community garden and have a 5 year old, kids still make me nervous sometimes. They ask some really great questions....and I wonder, what if I can't answer them? I do have a fear that perhaps some little guy will ask me a simple question like- "what kind of tree is that?" and I won't have the answer to it! What if i don't have ANY answers....whaaaaaaaa!!!!!! Ok, that's just my nerves talking. History has shown that kids tend to like me, listen to me, and sometimes make me really cute pictures. Whew. Now, if only I could get rid of that stage fright issue.....

Fear on the trails and my utopian guides

I have to say that my fear on the trail is that I won't be able to answer some kids question. There is so much to learn and know in order to effectively lead kids on the trail. I feel as though if I tell them that I don't know, they will be disappointed even if I am able to look it up later. I am not so worried about connecting with kids. Kids usually like me. In nature, kids really like me. I like to look at nature through a child's eyes. I like to help them explore things. I remember walks with my grandfather when I was a kid. It would take us an hour just to go 50 feet. He knew so much and let me explore so many things that we never got too far. The thing is, I never got bored with him. I remember one time laying in the grass with a hand lens and looking at insects that walked by a quad that we had laid out. It was the coolest thing ever when I was 8 years old! So, I guess my fear stems from the fact that I won't know enough to make nature interesting and fun for kids.

I have many utopian guides for my way of living. Many of them have just begun and some I have been taught since I was a child. Recently I have been working on thinking globally and acting locally. It is hard and I know that sometimes I don't always succeed and sometimes can't. But, the fact that I think about it even when I don't do it is good enough for me. At least I am aware of what I need to work on in order to live this life.

Another one is "the meaning of life is to live it". I use this in order to allow myself to look on the lighter side of things and have fun. It reminds me to stop being so serious and just enjoy the fact that I am alive.

fear response

What I am most afraid of when taking kids on trails is the kids not having fun. I want to be the humorous trail guide that gets kids excited about nature, heck I want to rock their socks off! So I do become a little nervous thinking about how the kids might take to my teaching. Sometimes my mind just becomes blank and I forget what I'm about to say so then I just stand there with a ridiculous look on my face and then one kid whispers to another "this is boring," that's what I'm afraid of. And I'm also afraid of loosing my cool when I come face to face with a sider, that would just be embarrassing! There are many things that freak me out when I think about them, but then I just think that it's going to take practice till I become the greatest trail guide of all time, and I mean the greatest! haha jk guys jk.

fears and guides

What are my fears.

I always wonder if this is just me or if it happens to everyone. But sometimes I just dont connect with kids. They think that I am the most boring person they have ever met and I think that they are little annoying creations whose mission is to bug me. I think that is my biggest fear when working with kids on the trail or where ever. Another minor fear would be a teacher contradicts me on information. Especially because some of the information I know I cant back up with evidence, it is just what I have been told. Oh someone might want me to pick up a snake and I wimp out

There are not any utopian documents that guide my life. What guides me in decisions and like is peace. I consider myself a pacifist (sometimes not a good one but I try) and so through my daily life, purchases and anything else I might do, I try to be aware and make the effort to not hurt other people. Not just though non-war but way of living too.

Fear!

Deer ticks, lyme disease, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, dirt, biting flies, mosquitoes, sinkholes, caves, bats, bear traps, mountain lions, prickly plants, hunters, the cold, frostbite, falls, blisters, and nervous parents. I could go on, but I won't. There's a lot of danger out there. There's a lot of fear. For some reason, it's not scary to travel 65 mph in a car down a highway, but it is scary to enter the foreboding woods. Remember the Blair Witch Project? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention witches and ghosts as well. These images are ever present in our minds, and in the minds of nervous parents. Before I take kids to the Everglades I meet with the parents. I'm completely honest about the dangers. I tell them we'll encounter alligators, crocodiles, poisonwood, poisonous snakes, stinging jellyfish, (the plane trip down!), and more. It helps that I've taken this trip 12 times now, but I know parents are still nervous. Sometimes I'm surprised that parents will even let their kids go on the trip. Maybe deep down they understand the importance of seeing rare places. Maybe they know this experience could be life changing. I hope so. We've vilified nature in nursery rhymes, novels, and the media. It's time we reclaim nature as a place we learn and grow rather than a place to be feared.

Bike the walk

There are many different aspects to environmental thinking when I think of how CMU did. Where they all talk or not.

Students. Mostly students did fairly well with being environmental. Most people lived on campus or were able to bike to school (I think on an average winter day there were about 15-30 bikes at school), car pooled, bused or walked. So I think that they did fairly well with this.

Food services started composting after I left and I am glad that they have started with kitchen scraps and plate scraps. One issue with food services is compostable vs real cups and plates for coffee breaks. Because of the extra work most people don't want to pay the extra price for real things. So although people want something environmental they don't want to pay for it.

Many teachers support scrap paper for papers.

I think that the people at CMU care and therefore have made changes. The people up top are sometimes not concerned with it and don't want to ever pay extra. It is a battle but I think the people are winning.

Walk the Talk.... Goshen College style

I felt that Goshen College did a pretty good job of walking the talk of things. In most of my science classes we defiantly talked about things that tied into environmental education and sometimes it would show up on tests, more in my environmental science classes. But my campus as a whole was defiantly aware of environmental education and the environment for that matter. We would always have people come from outside the campus to talk about the environment. For example, we had Dave O and Luke and Paul come to our campus to talk about the environment during chapel and convocation. GC did a very good job at getting well known people to come to campus and talk about environmental issues, like E.O Wilson, Bill McKibben, etc. I was a part of Ecopax (environmental club) that would put on events for people on campus to come to like earth hour (turn the lights off for an hour), 350 day, wild edibles, canoe race where people raced but also had to pick up trash in the Elkhart river. Ecopax would also join with other clubs to reach a greater audience but it incorporated environmental stuff. And last year GC finally got our dining hall to compost! We did a pilot run and it was successful so this upcoming year composting will be in place. So yeah I think GC walked the talk pretty good.

Walking and Talking....

Assessment is something art programs are good at. For every studio art class you take, generally you create a portfolio for that class by the end of the semester. Throughout the semester, we would have weekly or by-weekly critiques of the work that was being made- both students and faculty are involved in this process. I got a lot of good feedback from these critiques- and always felt I knew what direction I was going. Portfolios are a very good way, I feel, to assess work and also have a good "summary" of all the things that you learned that semester.

The biggest assessment process that a Bachelor of Arts Program initiates is the BFA review. This is a BIG review that is for all BFA hopeful students- just because you are enrolled in the classes, doesn't mean you are in the program! This takes place about late sophomore year, and it is a day long event. You wait until you turn, sitting in the hall while clutching the selected items from all the different studio art classes that you have taken, while still having most of the work represented from the field you would like to go into to (in my case, it was photography). Then, someone called your name, and you walked into a room where all the prof were, and they spend an hour or so assessing your work- looking at everything, asking questions, making comments . They want to see if you have been learning while making art- and if you can actually make art! Then, you get notice the next week if you have been accepted into the program....or not. If you don;t make it, you can always try again- revise your work, make new work, learn how to paint/draw/photograph/print BETTER. (thankfully, I made it in the first time!)

Walk the Talk.

I went to Taylor University from 1990-1994. I feel that the science department (especially the biology and environmental science departments) walked the walk, but we didn't talk about it that much. I believe Taylor had a recycling program, but it wasn't the main focus. The campus overall didn't focus on the environment like many campuses do today. It just wasn't something people talked about. Honestly, students there were more concerned about mission trips than they were about the environment. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. It has been a long time. Sustainability wasn't a word used at Taylor. I tried looking on Taylor's website to see if there was a policy concerning the environment. I found this quote, "The School's academic programs actively explore the many facets of Creation, and seek to more fully understand the ways in which God our Creator is revealed in Creation." Is this walking the talk? I guess so...if you are into that sort of thing. I wanted something a little more rounded. What I got was a debate on evolution vs. creationism rather than how you pair stewardship with sustainability. I would not be surprised if some faculty believed that the oil spill was in God's plan. Whew. I have a hard time thinking about my undergrad days as you can see.

walkin' da talk...

creative assessment? not for the general requirement courses...the few highlights that have stayed with me are from Spanish for bilingual native speakers -perhaps b/c Miriam was on her way to a PhD program, she was innovative in her assessment by assigning films that had to be reviewed (assessed our grammar/syntax skills) and we had to lead a discussion in spanish for our peers. One of my latin american/latino studies professors made us "work" quite differently by attending community-oriented events, outside speaker engagements, volunteering our time at a community-based org./center from which we wrote about in relation to the concept areas we we're covering. Some folks def. complained, b/c it wasn't as easy as just taking a test. You could of gotten away w/o reading and writing, but the time commitment for these "outside" assignments were real.
Bringing it back to that self-consciousness space about how our skills/attitudes/perspectives/and or behavior had changed from the inception of our class participation to its' ending was really rewarding and why not -most inspiring- some of my classmates had some real transformational experiences that really shifted the perceived ways we thought of interaction about some of the high-philosophizing subject matters we covered.
I'm really fascinated by this indicator of student self-assessment being facilitated from the start by encouraging involvement in the learning process. How to do this ?

Walking the Talk at Texas State

I feel as though some of my professors at Texas State did "walk the talk" of assessment. In the Geography department, my favorite professor and mentor hated testing and really didn't believe that it taught students much at all. In every one of his classes, he gave students the test a week before hand. He knew that we were only going to memorize the answers for the test and forget the information afterward, so he did not want us to spend time stressing about it. He simply thought that if he had to give tests, since we were at a state school, he would at least make it so each student basically got an A each time. Although he would have loved to think that all of us would grasp the information and know it after the test, he didn't believe that it was the only way to see what we had learned about the particular subject. His focus in each one of his classes was the project at the end of the semester. This project counted for most of our grade and he expected it to take some time and utilize the information that he taught throughout the semester.

In my Geography of Texas class, we had to make a guide to Texas. We could do this in many ways. In my guide, I chose a certain greenspace that was along the Balcones Fault Line and showed how the fault line changed the geography in a small area. Then I related it to the state of Texas as a whole. In this I had to look at the ecology, elevation changes, rivers, temperature and weather patterns, as well as changes in culture and history across the state. It was fascinating to be able to learn this on my own and put it into a well crafted presentation.

In my Nature and Heritage Tourism class we had to design a presentation that could be presented to city council that demonstrated a 3 activities that could be implemented in our area. Mine involved how to bring EE into after school programs in elementary school using many parks in the area as well as the river. We used many of the concepts that were learned in class to put this together and then had to present it to the class in a professional manner.

I also found that in my creative writing classes this was also true. Although I felt that this is just the basic flows of a creative writing class/workshop. In all of my classes, we did not have tests. Our grades were based on 3 portfolios that were submitted throughout the semester as well as our participation in workshop. We continuously brought in work to be critiqued by our class members as well as our professor. Some of our professors made sure that we wrote in certain forms in our portfolio in order to learn how to write different types of poetry. Throughout the semester we also read many poet in order to learn different forms and styles of writing. This was extremely helpful to me as a poet and as a critic.

Besides these, most of my classes were based on papers and tests. Although some had great projects that made up a good part of the total grade, tests were still held very high. I knew the way I tested, I am a horrible multiple-choice test taker. I made sure that most of the classes that I took were writing intensive, because I knew that written essay tests were the only way that I tested well and would make the grades that I wanted.

Friday's Visit to the Fair

Be ready for a wild and wacky fair that offers a giant ferris wheel, all the cows and horses you desire and a variety deep fried items including sticks of butter!

Double click on the map to make it bigger!

Multiple Intelligences Test

Linguistic - 25
Logical-mathematical - 25
Musical - 25
Bodily-Kinesthetic - 22
Spatial-Visual - 22
Interpersonal 22
Intrapersonal 20

I must say that I am not the biggest fan of these types of tests. My answer depends on the first example I think of that has to do with what they are asking. I don't think that these explain me very well. When I do look at my intelligences I am surprised that Linguistic, logical and musical were up there the most. I can't express myself that well (hence all the noises), I suck at figuring things out (like how the toilet dispenser stays on) and I suck at music, although I enjoy listening and watching people play.

All Powerpoint Presentations

All Powerpoint Presentations that you have seen in class are now on Moodle for your perusal. Enjoy!

M for Moodle and Massasauga Rattle Snake!