Earth Month Challenge is winding down to an end, but that doesn’t mean the habits have to stop. As cheesy as that sounds, what I mean is that myself, along with many other scholars, have challenged themselves this past month with sustainable practices that occur in their daily lives. I believe that scholars will decide to implement these challenges that they chose in their daily lives hopefully for years to come, even if they just choose one.

My challenge mainly focused on diet and how changing my diet would be more sustainable to the environment. Having a purpose behind the challenge allowed me to be more focused on what I was doing. I will admit, as my challenge progressed, I did slip up a little bit but by making mistakes I learned how to apply those to my daily life when dealing with diet.

The overall experience for me was very powerful. I have been wanting to go vegan for quite some time. This challenge allowed me to wean myself off of meat and animal products. When I go home for the summer I want to practice veganism, I believe it will be easier once I am able to produce my own meals and buy my own groceries, it’s possible on campus but a bit more stressful.

I learned that you can do anything sustainably, but the choice is only yours and not everyone will go to such lengths to do things the right way. Being sustainable will save you money in the long along with helping the planet. Economics aside, it is very beneficial for your health (if you do things the right way). What I mean by this is if you become a vegan and only eat Oreos and bread, that’s not very healthy. But, if you become a vegan and utilize locally grown, in season, and organic foods like fruits, vegetables and grains, your body and the earth will thank you.

I want to do some more research on diets and examine their effects on my body before I entirely commit to veganism, but like I mentioned before, it is something I am going to experiment with for some time this summer and possibly commit to as a lifestyle choice.

I definitely would try another challenge, not just during Earth Month but year round. I am always looking for ways to be more sustainable and even picked up some good habits from other ENR scholars’ challenges, like eating at sustainable restaurants.

Overall, I would say this challenge was very unique, personal, and rewarding. It was great how students got to pick what challenges they wanted to do and what difficulty they were comfortable with. I liked how my challenge built on itself every week and would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to practice sustainability in their diet or just considering veganism.

This semester I decided to go on a trip the Outdoor Adventure Center. Actually, I decided I had wanted to go on this trip a year ago in the winter of 2015 at Scholars Day here at OSU. I had been sitting in a meeting for prospective ENR scholars and Esther mentioned a sea kayaking trip they were going to take to the Florida Everglades and 10,000 Islands. Immediately this drew me in to and helped my seal my decision for choosing ENR Scholars.

            This trip was nothing like I had expected it to be. I heard I would be sleeping on beaches, kayaking all day, and spending time in the sun. All I could think about was adventure and how great it all sounded. I didn’t consider the strenuous activity, the bugs, and the heat. Truthfully, I was mostly worries about alligators, and I didn’t see any of those during my time in the water, I did get to camp next to a baby one though.

            Throughout this 10-day journey there were a lot of highs and lows, along with some self discovery and mindfulness. Some of my favorite experiences of the trip would include the drive down there. While feasting in Wal-Mart parking lots and playing hackey sack at any moment we could get, the group instantly bonded with one another. We also played a game called five minutes of fame, it was uncomfortable talking about yourself for five minutes but I enjoyed hearing about everybody else. Tasks were abundant, from loading the kayaks, cleaning the kayaks, cooking dinner, cleaning up, directing the group and navigating. However, they held everyone accountable to be a team player.

            Once we got to the 10,000 Islands, we spent an entire day kayaking for about seven or eight hours. This was pretty irritating because the tandems were having trouble learning to navigate, those things are hard to get the hang of, and kept bumping into the mangroves and other single kayakers. I kept getting ran into so I decided to hang out in the back most of the time with one of the other leaders, Harry. Harry asked me random questions at the time like what I was thinking about and how I was feeling. Later that day he explained that he was trying to get others to practice mindfulness. He gave us prompts for the rest of the trip and these soon became a highlight to look forward to every day.

            If I had to pick a favorite experience, I couldn’t do it. I loved too many aspects of this trip. I could pick a favorite experience from every day, but for the sake of this paper’s length I will just name a few, but don’t worry there are many more than this. The ultimate experience was waking up at 4 a.m. to go paddle through a bioluminescent channel and catch the sunrise on Panther Island. The bioluminescence was unlike anything I had ever done before. As I scraped my paddle against the water’s surface glowing sparks shot off in every direction. The beauty of a glowing channel of water with a full sky of stars above you head is indescribable. I also like coconut bowling, Ethan and Harry snuck off to get some coconuts and surprised is with them. We turned it into a game by setting up our Nalgene’s as pins, our headlamps as strobe lights, and the coconuts as bowling balls. It was even better accompanied by the opening of the golden egg and s’mores. I also enjoyed our zero day, probably more than anything honestly. We didn’t paddle at all this day and just stayed on Panther Island, in the shade while some read, some napped, some drew, and some aspired to build a kite. It was nice because all of our clothes got to dry and we got to rest. Also Stan’s, a memory that I will never forget.

            The most important skill I learned on this trip would have to be navigation. Everyone on the trip, excluding the leaders and the leaders in training, helped to get us back to the marina on the last day successfully. I also learned a lot of the Everglades how the public views them as opposed to how they should be seen, along with the programs in place to protect them. Teamwork was definitely enhanced as well as mindfulness and perseverance. This trip has led me to want to develop another skill, trip planning. I would like to be able to go on a trip like this again one day, but without the assistance of the OAC. I would like to plan and navigate myself.

            Although this trip was one of the best experiences of my life, there were some lows. No matter how I adjusted my seat, the plastic kept digging into my back rubbing it raw every time I paddled, slowing me down substantially to adjust it every couple strokes. On the second day, I was way behind the pod with another girl, Hannah. She asked me what was wrong and I instantly spewed everything on my mind, from my broken seat to the wind blowing my kayak in the other direction and everything in between. It was comforting to know that I wasn’t the only one having a hard time. At that time, me and her were the only non leaders in single kayaks, everyone in the tandems were beginners, and those things are much easier to control due to the power and rudder they have, so in retrospect we weren’t doing too bad, but I didn’t know that then. Also the sun had burnt me so bad that a layer of my lips had been shed and there were blisters on my neck. I learned to cover everything, sunscreen doesn’t completely shield you. Along with there being a crack in my bowl at the bottom, so I ate a lot of sand. Not to mention the no see ‘ums and the mosquitos. My hand and my feet were open season. Although everything else that was covered up wasn’t so bad.

            If I had to give advice to someone else aspiring to go on this trip I would say push through the first couple days. The leaders will challenge you and so will the elements, we did a successful sea launch into the Gulf of Mexico our second day, a feat not many people thought we could accomplish. I would also say bring enough clothes to cover your body all the time, gloves and a buff are personal recommendations for those who burn easily like me, seriously my hands were scabbed even two weeks after from the sun. Also I would say invest in some good camping gear. My own pack towel, bug jacket, wool socks, and mountain pants were very useful and helped to reduce a lot of stress. Also practice mindfulness, even if your leader doesn’t encourage you to. Most importantly, keep an open mind and share with your group, it will bring you close and make the journey a lot more enjoyable.

Three weeks into Earth Month challenge! I must say, this past week has definitely been harder than the past two. This week I eliminated all meat from my diet along with always carrying a water bottle or reusable mug everywhere I went, on top of not eating meat on Fridays, but this was expanded into no meat at all. Because I was practicing pescatarianism for some time, this challenge was entirely too bad and helped jump start me back on changing my diet to being a vegetarian. I am nervous for next week which is no dairy on top of all of the challenges I am working on now. This is going to be hard because I love cheese and ice cream! If I had to chose to do one thing differently to help with my challenge, I would say bring more snacks! Having filling snacks on hand really helps keep me full and not tempted to eat meat and unhealthy foods. I have learned that I have more will power than I would’ve thought and that eliminating meat isn’t really bad because there are still great food options! I have felt like I’ve had a little bit more energy since cutting out meat, which is a plus! My CO₂ savings for this week were a whopping 91 pounds! I calculated this because each vegetarian day that I ate saved eight pounds lbs., multiplied by seven days a week totals to 56 lbs. of CO₂ saved plus the 5 pounds of CO₂ I saved each day for using a recyclable water bottle, seven days a week is an additional 35 pounds. Approximately I have saved over 134 pounds of CO₂ during these past three weeks. I would say I probably saved around $30 this week due to not buying disposable water bottles and having vegetarian meals be slightly cheaper in most cases. I am very nervous for this nondairy week but I believe it’s possible! I’m going to have to stock up on almond milk, which luckily I recently trained myself to like.

Two weeks through of Earth Month and going pretty strong. My challenge this week was to carry a reusable water bottle or mug everywhere I went along with no meat on Fridays. It wasn’t too bad because I typically do this most days but it was especially helpful this week because I just started training and needed all the water I could get. I also made my own tea in a reusable mug and brought that to class instead of buying tea in a disposable mug. However, the no meat on Fridays was a little challenging because I did go out to eat with my friends at Panera Bread and they didn’t have many protein packed options other than the meals that included meat, everything else was mainly carbs. However, on campus there were lots of vegetable and grain options that helped get me through the day. I am nervous for week 4 because I am nervous to cut all dairy and meat out of my diet, I think I will have a nice group of people to give me advice and tips though. I wasn’t able to update my carbon and financial savings on the website provided but I calculated it on carbonfund.org. I saved around 51 lbs. of carbon this week. This is because I saved 5 lbs. for each water bottle I saved, one a day for 7 days and I also saved 8 lbs. for each vegetarian meal I had, which was twice. If I had to pick one thing to do differently I would say plan ahead so that it’s easier to pick vegetarian options.