Work Products
Literature Review:
For my Environmental Junior Seminar course, I learned a lot about the different aspects of the climate crisis and learned from my classmates with their different perspective on the topics at hand. The semester-long assignment was a literature review and for this, I was mainly inspired by my environmental justice class so I wanted to talk about how natural disasters are impacting low-income communities. I wanted to incorporate the environmental and social injustices that low-income communities of color go through during and after natural disasters. I feel like these communities don't get enough attention because the government or other organizations don't help as much as they should. With natural disasters becoming even more severe and frequent because of climate change, the impact on low-income communities will just get worse if society doesn't do anything. Through writing this paper, I effectively learned how to write a literature review and I'm very proud of how it turned out. It was definitely a new and difficult experience for me but I'm glad I was able to do it in the end.
Final Project Proposal:
For my Field Study Sustainable Agriculture course, my final project was to propose to do something new at the Kate Community Campus Farm at St. Mary's. This course allowed me to have lots of hands-on experience and learn from others within our community. So, my proposal was to bring dairy cows to our farm and use their milk to make ice cream. I got this idea because near my house, we have a family owned creamery where they make delicious ice cream out of the milk from their cows. I actually worked there over the summer, scooping and serving ice cream. It was fun but I probably won't go back anytime soon. Then I thought why not try this at our own campus farm since ice cream is very popular and people would love it. So, I researched thoroughly on cows and ice cream and came to the conclusion that if this project would actually happen, it could be very successful. With taking this course, I found myself learning and doing a lot of new things and connecting with nature a lot more. Bringing cows to the farm allow more hands-on experience for students and be a great addition to the farm. I put a lot of work into this proposal and I'm very proud of it. Although, this project may be difficult to do, I believe St. Mary's would benefit so much from this project.
Zine Project:
For my environmental justice class, I worked with my partner to make a zine. A zine is essentially an electronic magazine or booklet that can be on various topics. Our zine was on the drinking water crisis in Prichard, Alabama and Jackson, Mississippi. This crisis involved low-income communities that don't have access to clean drinking water and it's becoming a major problem within today's society. By doing this zine, I learned how social injustices has impacted low-income communities and the struggles that these residents go through daily like trying to survive by only buying store-bought water. Finding viable solutions to solve the drinking water crisis will definitely be difficult to do but something has to happen to change the major issues within these communities. With the research and teamwork that went into this zine, I now realize how important it is to fight for these communities that deserve justice more than anything. Now I'm thinking that my potential career should definitely include environmental and social justice in some way shape or form.