The Story of Stuff

Have you ever looked around your house and thought to yourself, "Man! I have so much junk!" Why do we have so much useless stuff? And where does all this stuff come from and go after we throw it away? These are the questions that Annie Leonard explores in her short video, "The Story of Stuff." From extraction to production to distribution and consumption and finally to disposal all of our stuff goes through this cycle. But how does this effect us? Well, all along the way the environment, communities, and even our children are reaping negative effects from this process. In the past two decades alone one third of the planet’s natural resource space has been used up! In "The Story of Stuff," Leonard describes in detail each step of the process. From trashing the environment through extraction and the toxic chemicals used in production, to the government’s plan to create a nation of consumers by convincing us to buy more and more stuff. Can you believe that 99% of the stuff we consume is trashed within 6 months of us purchasing it? At the end of the video Leonard talks about how we can work together to change this vicious cycle and create a more sustainable future.

"The Story of Stuff" is packed with facts and fun animations, and Annie Leonard makes the whole process simple and easy to understand. Check out the video at www.storyofstuff.com and prepare yourself for an eye-opening experience.

Guiding Question: How often do you think about where you stuff comes from and what effect it might have on the environment and other people to create? How can you, as an individual, help stop this unsustainable cycle?

Useful Resources for Action Project–transportation

Car Sharing– Zipcar

The Green Streets Initiative — Walk Ride Days

Go Boulder

CU Environmental Center

Go Loco– A ride-sharing service in the Northeast.  This service uses facebook to connect people

Easy Environmental Action to Take…

Check out 41 Pounds  by Grist.org.  You can have your junk mail stopped or severlly limited for five years.

It costs some money – $8.50 per year. But look at what you get in return.  This from their website:

41pounds.org stops your junk mail and catalogs — protecting the environment. Junk mail wastes an incredible amount of natural resources and contributes to global warming. Our nonprofit service covers your entire household for five years, saving…

Time — No credit card offers to shred or unwanted catalogs.
Trees — Keep 100+ million trees in forests, cooling the planet.
Water — Protect 28 billion gallons of clean water.
Climate — Junk mail produces more C02 than 9 million cars.
Planet — We donate to your favorite charity when you sign up.

I just signed up, how about you?

First Overnight Fall Quarter!

The Fall 2008 Cap Crew has completed their first weekend overnight!  Well done ladies and gentlemen you were troopers through a sometimes wet weekend.  And your participation and enthusiasm wowed me as usual.

In our first overnight we….

• Learned back-country basics.
• Constructed Natural shelters.
• Played Capture the flag
• Explored and discovered…. the rock with the best view, how many people can fit in a very small tent and sleep through the night, the color of the sky at sunrise…
• Participated in an amazing mate circle, thanks Torie for facilitating!
• Played safely and ecologically with fire: strikers, one-match fires, and friction fires.
• Learned some new games.
• Fell asleep to the sound of the rain.
• And more…

To check out more pictures from our adventure.  Click here.

Web Journal Entry Due Thursday September 25th

QUESTION: How does your experience on our camping trip in “the backcountry” connect with our action project and your life back in “civilization?” 

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Grading and Expectations: The standard 4, 3, 2, 1 grading scale outlined in the syllabus will apply to these required journal entries. I expect you to put at least 15-30 minutes of time thinking about the question, writing and editing your response, and posting your comment. Comments that contain 2 paragraphs of well articulated thoughts with no spelling or grammar errors will receive a grade of a 4. If your journal entry is only 1 or 2 sentences you have not spent the time, energy, and level of thought I am looking for and will receive a grade of a 2 or 1. Because this is a public forum, proofreading, spelling, and grammar are key!

We're going camping!

This weekend we will be heading out on our first overnight.  Check out the pictures of students practicing tent set up!

 

Nice work!

Check back next week to find out how these students put their wilderness skills to use!

Two New Community Adventure Program Instructors

The Cottonwood Institute is proud to welcome two amazing young woman onto our staff as instructors for the Community Adventure Program. Paige Doughty will be instructing at New Vista High School in Boulder, CO and Leslie Douglass will be instructing at P.S.1. Charter School and Manual High School in Denver and will teach camping and wilderness survival skills to help students to tackle important environmental issues. Paige and Leslie are both thrilled to be working with the kids and teaching their shared passion for the outdoors and the environment.

Paige Doughty is a writer, artist and environmental educator who is always looking for new ways to blend her creative passions with her commitment to education towards a sustainable culture. Paige received her Masters degree in Environmental Education at Lesley University and the Audubon Expedition Institute. Since then, she has taught high school and middle school in Australia and has worked for various environmental organizations including, Living on Earth, The Green Streets Initiative, and the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Through teaching, Paige was inspired to act on her passion to make the world a healthier happier place by working with high school aged students.

Leslie Douglass grew up with the Rockie Mountains as her playground and she took full advantage. Today Leslie is an avid hiker, cyclist, skier and gardener, who enjoys being able to share her passion and knowledge with others. Leslie received her Bachelor’s degree in psychology at Butler University in Indiana and her Master’s in Secondary Education from George Fox University in Oregon.

Solar Cooking

Today our friend Patty with SolChef came to teach us about solar cooking. We had no idea we could cook just about anything using the energy from the sun!

First Patty explained to us how the ovens work.
Next she showed us the various types and how you can bake in some and fry in others…

And last we got to eat!

While enjoying our treats, Patty informed us that over 1/3 of the world cooks their food over an open fire because they don’t have electricity. These people do not have clean water either. Solar ovens are an affordable way to cook and clean water. For more information check out Solar Cookers International.

Tent Competition

Our overnight is coming up in just a few weekends so we thought we’d have a little tent competition: Boys vs. Girls. With a little teamwork, and lots of confused onlookers from Speer Blvd. our tents were complete and ready to be used! I think we are ready for the mountains!

What do we need to bring?

Today students at PS1 took a field trip to REI’s Denver flagship store to learn about the various items they need to bring on our first camping trip. Each team of students was responsible for learning about different gear:clothing, tents, sleeping bags, backpacks, food and cooking, and footwear. Based on our upcoming trip to Golden Gate Canyon State Park, they interviewed an REI specialist as to what they should bring, and then reported back to our group. We learned a ton, including why not to bring our favorite cotton hooded sweatshirt, what the temperature rating on a sleeping bag means, why we need a sleeping pad, and how in the world we are going to fit all the stuff we need in a backpack!

D’Razane trying out a sleeping pad

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