Action Project Journal

EVEN THOUGH YOU MAY THINK THAT PAPER AND PLASTIC IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS FOOD AND WATER WE STILL USE THEM IN OUR DAILY LIVES. FOR INSTANCE, WE USE PAPER FOR THINGS LIKE TAKING NOTES IN CLASS OR WRITING IMPORTANT LETTERS TO OUR FAMILY. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, WE USE AND NEED PAPER TO BETTER OUR FUTURE (SUCH AS TURNING IN ASSIGNMENTS TO OUR TEACHERS SO THEY WILL KNOW WHERE WE ARE WITH OUR EDUCATION).

WE ALSO USE PLASTIC DAILY TOO. LIKE GOING ON A WALK, WE USE OUR (PLASTIC) WATER BOTTLES TO HAVE ENERGY AND TO STAY HYDRATED. ANOTHER WAY WE USE PLASTIC IS TO CARRY OUR GROCERIES OUT TO THE CAR. IF WE DIDN’T HAVE PLASTIC BAGS IT WOULD BE VERY DIFFICULT TO CARRY OUR GROCERIES OUT OF THE MARKET.

OUR PROJECT, DESIGNING AND SELLING CLOTH GROCERY BAGS, WILL BENEFIT THE LOCAL COMMUNITY BECAUSE PLASTIC BAGS ARE RECYCLABLE AND IF WE USE CLOTH BAGS THAT SAVING A LOT OF MONEY AND HARM TO OUR ANIMALS. TO ENSURE THIS PROJECT IS A SUCCESS I WILL TRY MY HARDEST TO SPREAD THE WORD AROUND LETTING EVERYONE IN OUR COMMUNITY KNOW ABOUT OUR PROJECT. IN CONCLUSION, DESIGNING AND SELLING CLOTH GROCERY BAGS INSTEAD OF PLASTIC WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN OUR COMMUNITY.

First Overnight Trip

Sept. 15-16, 2007-  We took our first overnight trip at White Ranch. Skills we learned and practiced during the weekend included friction fire, fox walking, the 360 degree stalking game, how to set up camp, use cook stoves, and hanging a bear bag. The weather was great, and we all enjoyed plenty of jokes and music around the campfire. 

The Deadliest Item at Your Grocery Store?

Somewhere
in the northern Pacific floats a non-biodegradable petrochemical
blob that’s twice the size of Texas. Much of this deadly mess
originated when someone innocently took home their shopping in a
plastic bag.

In the U.S. alone, we throw away 100 billion plastic bags each year — the equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil. Yikes!

What can you do? Tune in to Orli Cotel’s Sierra Club Radio interview with Katherine Mieszkowski, of Salon, to find out.

Source: Sierra Club Insider

Web Journal Assignment #2

This week we chose an environmental issue affecting our community for our action project: Grocery bag waste/pollution. This is a fairly specific project, that we will continue to research in the next two weeks. Your homework this weekend is to learn as much about paper and plastic pollution as possible. After completing yout research, please answer the following questions: 1. Describe all of the ways you depend on paper and plastic products and how you use them in your daily lives. 2. How will our project (designing and selling cloth grocery bags) benefit the local community? What can you do to make sure this project is a success?

Journal #1

The last two weeks have been the first two weeks of our class with CAP. Mainly, we have been focusing on getting to know each other. We played a few name games, interviewed and introduced each other. We also met the founder of the CAP and went on a nature walk down the Cherry Creek bike path. There we learned about tunnel vision and wide angle vision. We took a moment to see what our senses told us about the surroundings, and learned about the water pollution in the creek. I also learned that dandelions are edible!

The second week we started to talk about big projects that we have to do. As a part of learning more awareness about environmental issues, we took a day trip up to Lookout Mountain’s nature center. There we took a small guided hike. Some of the things we learned were that the Pine Beetles are going to wipe out 90% of all of Colorado’s pine trees. We learned that Ponderosa Pines are supposed to have 100% sunlight on their needles. We also learned that if we let wild fires burn through, it would help the forest by taking out all of the dead trees.

On Friday we brainstormed ideas of what our project could be. We came up with a few good ideas, like learning about alternative fuels and making cloth grocery bags.

-Maria