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Year in Review (essay)

 This year, I haven’t made drastic plans to live differently, but I have decided to take more opportunities in the future to do more outdoor activities. So far, I haven’t a had a lot of opportunities while I have been in college to take more trips, but this summer I plan on focusing on doing more activities outdoors than just staying inside, as well as working to save up for a cross country road trip I would like to go on next summer. After going on the ENR camping trip and learning about the national parks, I started to want to plan more trips based on what I want to see, rather than the typical beach vacation my family plans.

During the Earth Month Action Plan, I switched from a pescatarian to a vegetarian and I found this change to be a lot easier than I expected. It wasn’t hard to just make different choices when going out to eat or eating in dining halls. I plan to follow this for the most part, however I am okay with occasionally eating some more local fish that are more sustainable rather than predators, like tuna, that are highly overfished. I chose to change how much fish I eat after doing more research and watching ted talks by people like Sylvia Earle, I realized how the issue was really important to me.

As a part of my Earth Month Action Plan, I also watched a documentary with friends. I watched Racing Extinction, which I had already seen before, but I wanted my friends to see it because it is really great. After watching the documentary, I felt really inspired again to think about my life and how I could make changes and I watched a few ted talks about girls who have gone zero waste and I think this lifestyle idea is really cool. Moving out of my dorm and helping my mom move as well has made me realize how much stuff I have that I just don’t use or need. Over the process of moving out, I plan to get rid of trash and papers that can be recycled that I just keep in my room as well as put aside the clothes I am not wearing to be donated. In the future for clothes I plan on only shopping second hand and only buying clothes if something is ruined or I get rid of more clothes first. For certain things that I may not want to buy second hand I will try to buy from more sustainable and ethical brands. In general I want to decrease my consumption and instead of buying a lot of things, I would rather just have a few nice things that will last me a long time. As far as food, I am planning to shop locally at farmers markets more often and I learned that at farmers markets they organizations set up to pick up compost, so I am really interested in trying this out. Also, I’m planning on avoid plastic straws, cups, and utensils when eating out by bringing my own reusable cups and utensils. Making these changes to go low waste will require more preparation before leaving, which I think will be very beneficial to me because I am somewhat of a forgetful person. I am planning to take a tour of the Rumpke landfill as well as a recycling plant and I think getting a real view will help make the issue more clear and educate me on the actual issues. I think the amount of trash each person produces is pretty crazy and I hope to at least greatly decrease my impact.

Mid-Action Plan Check In

My first week action has gone really well. I have not had any fish since April 1st and it is easier than I thought it would be. At dining halls, I just walk past those options and at home I just tell my family that I am not planning on eating fish this month and they come up with other dinner ideas. I haven’t been out to eat yet, so I haven’t really been tempted by well cooked fish, but being a full vegetarian is a lot easier than I thought it would be. For this week I am drafting my letters to senators and I plan on mailing them out before this Sunday. It is a little more difficult than I thought it would be to write something that senators or governmental officials would be receptive to.

I have learned that although this issue is really important to me, I think it is easier to have a more receptive audience when they can actually see the environment that is impacted by their choices. A lot of people are very separated from their food and most of the popular fish like tuna is not being caught close to Ohio, so there is a big gap in what the consumer gets and how the fish is caught and this is something I would like to learn more about. I think that the project so far has really showed me how far even I am removed from the process of food production.

The next two weeks include continuing not eating fish and mainly awareness through posters and sharing with friends. I think the most challenging part of the next two weeks will be how to communicate the issue most effectively to people without completely lecturing about the topic. Relating to the audience is important, but tricky because I want them to be receptive to the information rather than just listening to me.

Earth Month Action Plan

Week 1: Eating no fish for the whole month of April

I am already a pescatarian, but for the entire month I am choosing to not eat fish and be a vegetarian because of the issues associated with overfishing. The biggest challenge will be when I go home to visit family because both my mom and my dad tend to cook a lot of meals with fish in them. Also, if my family goes out to eat I usually enjoy sushi or ahi tuna, but tuna is highly overfished. However, on campus I think it is easier to choose the vegetarian options. In order to accomplish this on campus, I am planning to eat more fruits and veggies and pick up the bulk buying options weekly for $6 from the Best Food Forward club. If I have more healthy fruit and vegetable options I will be less likely to be hungry and eat more fish.

Week 2: Write a letter to my senators addressing environmental concerns

It is hard to promote political action as a college student, but I can let Ohio legislatures know my concerns about the issues of overfishing. I plan on sending handwritten letters to Senator Rob Portman, Senator Sherrod Brown, and my US Representative, Pat Tiberi. A challenge of this task will be addressing my concerns in a way that appeals to legislatures especially because they get so many letters. Although many people send letters to senators and representatives, I still think this task is important to being heard. The resources I will need to complete this task will just be looking up on how to write appropriate letters to senators and representatives. It would be wasteful to spend time on letters that wouldn’t even be seen due to mistakes on how they were written.

Week 3: Put up posters in Morrill

I think putting informative posters about overfishing and the effects of overfishing on different floors of Morrill would be beneficial because there are a lot of people who don’t pay attention to the food they are eating and how it could have impacted the environment. Creating awareness throughout moral would be beneficial, especially because there is a dining hall in Morrill, so it may be more impactful if people see the posters as they are going to eat. One challenge I may have, is figuring out if I am actually allowed to put up posters around Morrill. I plan to use computer programs to make attractive, eye-catching half sheets of paper to hang up by elevators on different floors of Morrill.

Week 4: Awareness Event with Friends

I am planning to set up an event with some friends in order to inform them more about problems with overfishing and steps they can take in order to make less of a detrimental impact on the environment or to make steps towards improving the environment if they want to look more into incorporating their skills to creating new tools for fishing or spending time volunteering at sea turtle rescues. I was thinking that I could make the event more fun by going paddle boarding, kayaking, or hiking with a group of friends and sharing the information I have learned. If the weather doesn’t work out, I was thinking that I could hold a TED talk showing or documentary showing with friends and talk about ideas on how to change small things in our lives to better the issues with overfishing, spread information, and address the root cause of the issue. Although I am not exactly able to address the root cause of the issue, I think by sharing the information and encouraging other people to share the information I am undressing the issue of an undereducated public.

Lens Reflection: Non-Profits

Hearing from the guest speakers impacted my initial thoughts about non-profit work on how much of a difference a local non-profit can make. Local non-profits working to help a specific community may not seem like they have a huge impact, but they can really help address the problems many people have and communicate with other communities nationwide to see what solutions are feasible and make positive changes. Something I need to consider as I look more into my topic is how non-profits are trying to address the over fishing issues even in places that are not costal fishing areas, basically how they are trying to address the problems with consumers everywhere.

My biggest takeaway from this class session is that volunteers are essential in non profits because there isn’t enough money to pay a bunch of people to work for them. Also, before the class session I thought of volunteering as something that would be in the second group in the citizen model because I thought that they were just helping out, but after listening to the speakers I realized that volunteers can have as much influence as they would like. Because non-profits rely so much on the work of volunteers, if a volunteer had advice on how to address a situation they are able to listen to the idea and evaluate if it is something that can be put into place.

After listening to the discussion, I think it would be interesting to see if there is any way that I can volunteer to help out with problems of over fishing or possibly educating others on over fishing and how it impacts ecosystems in the ocean.

Through the Lens: Non-Profits

There are a lot of non profit organizations working to make a difference in the sea turtle population and prevent them from being affected by overfishing. World Wildlife Fund and NOAA are both large organizations working to create legislation that regulate fishing and the equipment used. World Wildlife Fund also looks into finding new equipment with community interaction in order to decrease by catch when fishing. There are also smaller non profits that work to help sea turtles at the local level. In North Carolina, there is a sea turtle hospital called the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center that takes in injured sea turtles and provides medical care to the turtles so they are hopefully able to return to the wild. If someone lives near a more local non profit, they are able to volunteer there and help out on a second citizen model level.

The most important thing for me to consider when viewing my topic through the lens of non-profit is how people not directly around the issue can help out whether that includes going somewhere else to volunteer at a non profit or providing education about the work of a non profit in a location that is separated from where the non profit works.

The work being done at the first level of the justice oriented citizen model would include donating to non profits or participating in a fundraiser held by non profits so they have money to help out more turtles and complete research that will be essential in creating legislation to protect sea turtles from overfishing. The work being done at the second level of the justice oriented citizen model may include volunteering at a local non profit like the sea turtle hospital. The hospital preventing sea turtles from being hurt, but they have visitors, so it provides education outreach to the public about the issues. The turtle hospital is fairly popular and attracts long lines of tourists wanting to visit, which helps educate people which raising money for the non profit. The third level of the justice oriented citizen model is mostly done with larger organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund, Oceana, and NOAA who all work to solve the overfishing issues by creating policies that limit the amount of fishing allowed to happen. WWF also runs an international competition where people submit ideas for smarter fishing gear in order to decrease or hopefully eliminate by catch which would significantly help sea turtle populations.

The TED Talk I listened to given by Jackie Savitz, the Vice President for US Oceans at Oceana. In her talk, she spoke mostly about overfishing and how to fish in a better way to restore the ecosystem. Jackie’s three main goals to improve fishing is to set quotas on the amount of fishing that can take place, reduce by catch, and protect habitats. Although she did not talk specifically about the effects of overfishing on sea turtle, the ideas she talked about would improve the ecosystem and sea turtle population. Jackie talks about making fishery management more efficient. The ideas she talked about were very interesting because she isn’t persuading people to stop eating fish, but she wants to address how can the production of fish be better for the environment and become sustainable. Her ideas would fall around the third justice-oriented citizen model because she is addressing how the problems could be solved through policy to make changes based on previous research.

Lens Reflection: Community

The guest speakers in class made me realize there a lot of options to organize a community. There are going to be people that are already really interested in the idea and invested in helping, however community organizing is also about just being around the community and having people accidentally finding out about the issue. Although many members of the community may not know much about the issue at first, putting the information or idea out there is the first step into getting the community interested in an issue. Additional things to consider when exploring my issue would be how to make more people in the Columbus and Ohio State community care about sea turtles and fishing while we are more detached from the issue by not having and ocean and strong fishing industry near by.

My biggest takeaway from the class was to be passionate about the issue, let it show through to other people and they are more likely to want to learn more about the issue or even join in helping.

To take action on this issue, I haven’t decided exactly what I want to do, but I think community education is an important part of what I would to do. Because of the location it is unlikely that I would be able to do anything to directly impact the sea turtles, but I think it would be helpful to raise awareness on things people can do from anywhere to adjust their diet and lifestyle in order to better care for the earth.

Through the Lens: Community Organizing

The issue of overfishing and how it can affect sea turtles relies a lot on community organizing because members of the community are the consumers for the fishing industry. What people choose to buy and how much they buy affects the demand for products and therefore how much will be produced. At the first level of the Justice-Oriented Citizen Model, I think this would include people who choose to not eat fish or to limit their fish intake. This is a realistic goal to encourage many average people to accomplish. In Bowen House on OSU’s campus there are Meatless Mondays every week where they offer vegetarian food and give a speech about how fish or agriculture (depending on the week) affect the environment. This event would fall under the second category of the Justice-Oriented Citizen Model because a couple of students are working to educate their peers on the issues. I attended the Meatless Monday on February 20th and they talked about the fishing industry and offered vegetable sushi as well as tofu sushi. Although a lot of the information was stuff I already had researched on my own because of my interest in how the food we eat affects the environment, I was surprised that a lot of the people there really did not know a lot about the issues so they were able to learn and possibly make better choices in the future because of the students who organized the event. The third level of the Justice-Oriented Citizen Model would maybe organizations like the world wildlife fund that works with communities by having scholarly competitions to create better equipment for fishermen to use in order to minimize by catch. A third category goal for a student on the university level might be to find out more about where the fish for OSU’s dining halls come from such as whether OSU uses farmed fished or wild caught fish. A challenge that exists with organizing community members is that they have to be encouraged enough to make a change. Then students could take this further by finding out how to have OSU make this information more accessible to students, such as by seeing if something could go up in the dining halls where students who see the signs can then choose to make different choices.
In Columbus, Ohio there a re less community organizers talking about fishing by catch and the affect on sea turtles than there would be in fishing towns where people are closer to the issues. For example, my grandma lives near the beach in North Carolina and their community cares a lot about the sea turtles that come and nest on their beach and this even draws some people to come and visit their town so there is more of a community investment in the safety of the sea turtles and more locals that would demand safer fishing practices, since they are able to personally see the effects. A lot of people like their current lifestyle choices, so in order to inspire a change in something as integrated into a person’s life as their diet, it is important to appeal to something they value. Also, figuring out how to get the information out to people is also a challenge when reaching out to the community.

The Ted Talk I watched was “Barton Seaver: Sustainable Seafood? Let’s Get Smart.” In the video, the speaker addressed overfishing in the context of how the fish we eat affects the balance of the ocean’s ecosystem. The speaker talked about a few different methods that the community could do in order to improve. For example, the speaker mentioned choosing to eat more vegetables and smaller protein sizes can be beneficial as well as diversifying the sea food eaten and choosing to eat fish that are more abundant. These ideas are something that are only in the first category of the Justice-Oriented Citizen Model, however they are easy tasks that the majority of average Americans would be able to adopt and can make a difference if there was a widespread shift towards this thinking.

Issue Exploration and Choice

One of the issues that I decided to look into was the food waste in America. In the United States about 40 percent of the food produced is wasted. This percentage includes the food that is not harvested from farms, thrown out in grocery stores, thrown out at homes, leftovers at restaurants and more. Food waste affects the economy because although some of the food is being wasted, there grocery stores and restaurants are still making money for the food people buy and don’t finish. However if a grocery store or restaurant has to throw away food because it was not finished, then they are losing some money. The issue affects the environment because a lot of times people are not composting the wasted food and if less food needed to be made or were made more efficiently, there would be less of an impact on the environment. There is also a social aspect to the issue because there are a lot of people and families that have too much or not enough food and there could be a way to better distribute the food. Also, there are a lot of people who are involved in the process of making and selling food and if people used food more efficiently and less food was sold it could affect how many workers were needed.

Another issue I wanted to look into was the fishing industry and specifically the effect on sea turtles. Many sea turtles get caught up in fishing nets, which causes them to drown. Economically the fishing industry has a lot of value because it supplies many jobs at different levels. Completely taking away fishing would hurt a lot of people, but overfishing to a point where ecosystems are ruined could also create the same effect. Eating certain types of fish can be related to different cultures or just what people were used to growing up. By completely taking away fishing it would affect a lot of people because food is a large part of ones culture and their identity. Sea turtles are important in oceanic ecosystems to help maintain coral reefs and they also carry nutrients from the ocean to beaches and also from one part of an ocean to another. They are important in the maintenance of sea grass beds and provide food for fish. By continuing certain fishing practices at the same rate, there would be a large environmental impact with the death of more sea turtles.

The last issue that I chose to explore is apart of animal agriculture. Specifically I am really interested in the methane gas that is produced by dairy and beef cattle. The methane gas produced by cows contributes to a large amount of the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. The issue affects the environment by contributing to climate change. Researchers in Australia are looking into adding small amounts of seaweed into the diet in order to decrease methane gas production not only in cows, but in small ruminants as well. The studies are early on so there are not a lot of concrete answers on how the cow’s health or products may be affected. A lot of people and families are apart of the process of producing cow products and completing shutting down the industry would cause a huge job loss. The industry also makes a lot of money and has a large economical impact. Socially, food is a large part of one’s culture and a lot of American culture revolves around eating beef at barbeques and drinking milk once a day, so changing the industry would alter the diet and culture. Although I find this topic really interesting, I have already looked into it somewhat in previous classes, so I thought it would be better to learn more about something new.

I chose to explore more about fishing and its effect on the sea turtle population. I thought this issue would be interesting because I have looked into the effects of overfishing before, but I haven’t looked at it through a lens of an animal that is unintentionally affected by it. I chose this issue over the other two because I have a lot of interest in wildlife and how our actions and purchases affect their habitats. One of the struggles that I may face when addressing this issue is figuring out what changes can be made to reduce the by catch of sea turtles or fishing in general. Trying to think of the issue through the Justice-Oriented Citizen Model will be a little harder because it is easier to think of small changes that can be made, however I am not sure right now how I would be able to achieve systematic changes with the issue.

Columbus To-Do List Part 2

The remainder of my experiences included going to Mission, Fox in the Snow Café, The Roosevelt, and Impero. My favorite experience from this semester while doing this project was when I went to Mission. Mission had the most comfortable seating and it was perfect for working on homework. Also, there were dogs there dressed up in Halloween costumes. My favorite dog costume was a three-legged dog dressed as a pirate. During this project, I learned a lot about how to get around Columbus. I feel more comfortable taking a COTA bus to the Short North and I feel like I could attempt to go further into downtown Columbus with a COTA bus. I still feel kind of confused when ordering at a coffee shop, but I am slightly more capable of the task. I also realized that I am really bad at remembering to take pictures of coffee shops which would explain why the pictures from each coffee place are random and the best quality.

I went to Mission with Valerie and Claire from ENR. I just kind of guessed and ordered an iced vanilla late and it ended up being okay, however I usually prefer even sweeter drinks. I was able to sit in Mission and work on a lot of homework there. The couch was very comfortable and a lot of people brought their dogs into the coffee shop that day. The coffee at Mission makes me a little jittery, however I would definitely go back and recommend Mission to a friend because I love dog friendly places and I plan on taking my dog there sometime.

 

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I went to Fox in the Snow Café with Tess from ENR. It was kind of hard to get to because we got off on the wrong stop and ended up walking quite a bit. Fox in the Snow Café had the best pastry options out of all of the other coffee shops. All of the food displayed looked really good. I ended up getting the cinnamon roll and a coke. The cinnamon roll was really good and I would definitely go back in order to try some more of the food there.

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I went to the Roosevelt with Tess from ENR. I have been to the Roosevelt before in high school to help my friend take pictures for the feature story on the coffee shop for our school’s newsmagazine. I really like how the coffee shop is a nonprofit that supports really great charities and I would definitely recommend this place to a friend. I got an iced mocha late at the Roosevelt. It was really good and this was one of the first coffees that did not make me feel very jittery. I do plan to go back to the Roosevelt in the future.

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I went to Impero with Olivia from ENR. I went kind of later in the day, so I didn’t want to get a coffee. Instead I ordered a vegan cookie they were selling. As far as vegan desserts go I think the cookie was really good, but in comparison to non-vegan desserts I would consider the cookie mediocre. I ended up giving half of it to Olivia because she’s a vegan so she likes cookies like that. I would go back to try more of the coffee, but I don’t think that I tried enough of the food or drinks to be able to recommend it to a friend.

Career Exploration Assignment

When I was about five years old, I decided I wanted to be a veterinarian. Since then my ideal job has not changed much except for a brief period when I was ten years old and decided being a dolphin trainer would be the most fun job ever. This period of my life did not last very long and I soon went back to wanting to become a veterinarian.

Right now, in the career exploration process I am in between a lot of steps. I really want to do something in veterinary medicine, but I am still researching what jobs interest me in the field. Veterinary medicine has a lot of options including working in a practice or receiving a specialty in behavior, cardiology, neurology, oncology, anesthesiology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, sports medicine, zoological medicine, and many others. It’s also possible to work for production animal operations. The field a total of 22 recognized specialties and I haven’t had a large variety of experience yet, so there is still a lot more I need to learn about and try before I could make a better assessment of what kind of veterinary medicine I would like to go into.

After completing this workshop, it really helped me clarify my plans and realize that I have a lot of decisions figured out already, but I still have the opportunity to change my mind or further explore.

Based on my results of (I)nvestigative, (R)ealistic, and (S)ocial, O*Net recommended the following careers: nuclear medicine technologist, anesthesiologist, dentist, nurse anesthetist, orthodontist, prosthodontics, radiologist, surgeon, and veterinarian.

I was actually really surprised that all of the jobs recommended by O*Net were in the medical field and all were something I could see myself being interested in. Out of the jobs chosen other than my ideal job I would consider being a nurse anesthetist, a radiologist, or an anesthesiologists. These jobs interest me because it involves a good amount of contact with people and would still involve a lot of learning about medicine.

My current career path showed up as a result. Also, the other results were mostly things that I could also choose to do in veterinary medicine. For example surgeon was one of my results and surgery is one of the 22 recognized specialties for veterinary medicine. I was surprised about these results mostly because I chose my letters kind I,R, and S as well on the order without really overthinking it at the time, but it just happened to work out to match my projected career path. Some of my favorite things about my projected career path is that I would be able to work with both animals and people, learn more about medicine, and there are so many opportunities in the field. There are also a lot more qualities about the career choice that I enjoy.

My current academic plan is to get a major in animal science on a pre-veterinary track and I am possibly considering a minor in Spanish because I would like to travel a lot either though work or just for fun. I took Spanish in high school and really liked it, so it would be nice to try it in college. After my undergraduate school, I plan on applying to vet school. After that I like the idea of completing a specialty, but I don’t have anything in mind as of now, so I plan on spending a lot of time exploring the field of veterinary medicine.

My next steps for right now are to receive more experience in veterinary medicine especially in clinics and to apply to internships for the summer. I also plan on receiving more experiences through volunteering for example right now I am volunteering in oncology at the OSU vet hospital. I also plan on working a lot when I can because vet school is very expensive so I think it is important to prepare financially ahead of time. Lastly, I also plan on working to achieve good grades because a good GPA is important in having a competitive vet school application.

There are also a lot of goals that I have that do not have anything to my academic plan. One of my goals is to travel a lot more with my dog, Finn. I want to go on more hiking and camping trips with him. Also, I am teaching him to get used to being on a paddleboard so I would like to do more outdoor activities with him. I would really love to go on a whale watching tour in Oregon. Lastly, I want to become a better skier.