Blog #5 Green Learning Communities

Outline the goals and specific characteristics of a green learning community. 

 How would you know one if you saw one?  

Obviously, a green learning community would embrace living a greener lifestyle, but what else makes these communities different than how most of us are living today? A green community would try to embrace characteristics such as those laid out in the 10 Key Values essay, which include social and economical justice/equality, non violence, decentralization, and personal and global responsibility, to name a few. They would also probably emphasize that humans are a part of nature. 

One of the main goals of such a community would be for its members to achieve ecological literacy. What this means is that instead of just looking at things as they are, there needs to be an over arching question of 'what then?' What's going to happen after that? In a green community, this will have been achieved, but in society right now, as seen in David Orr's "Ecological Literacy" we just aren't there as a whole. Orr thinks that we do not think broadly enough, we see education as a purely indoor activity, and that we lack aesthetic appreciation. So wow that's a bunch of words that don't really mean anything to me. What I think he is trying to say is that we think too one dimensionally  We need to get over ourselves and start considering all of the parts not just the whole. 

Some of the ways I think a green community would be easy to spot is in its lack of a societal hierarchy and its use of a consensus decision making process. These two features combine many of the other values and are easily recognized from the outside looking in as something radically different. Also, of course, there would be an emphasis on all of the other green values and sustainability. Everyone would be encouraged to express their opinions. I wonder how many of these characteristics the Green Quad here expresses. 

Blog #4 "Green Values"

What do you think of Green Values? Which ones do you believe in? What surprised you from the readings?

I think that green values are both similar to and crazy different from the values for other parties. The green party believes that all humans are equal and have the right to have a say in things that will affect their lives. I would be inclined to agree with this. All humans deserve to have the same rights and the same opportunities. Another value of the green party is that they believe that there should be no societal hierarchy because that goes against nature. I think this is kinda silly. Even animals have a social structure in their communities. It's a perfectly natural concept that is not man made like the green party seems to be trying to insinuate. The green party also believes that a large problem with the world is its centralization of wealth and power and wants to revamp the social, political, and economical systems. I kinda agree with this...but at the same time I tend towards capitalistic tendencies. Although I really want to believe that the people are capable of making the correct decisions, sadly, I don't. People are better educated now days than they used to be, but at the same time, a lot of people just don't care. This could be a product of the centralization of wealth and power and also of the way we were raised. I don't think decentralizing everything would really be the best thing. A green value that I REALLY like is that everyone needs to step up and take personal and global responsibility. Some of the green values seem a bit wishy washy to me. Let's decentralize EVERYTHING into small little communities all around the world with no hierarchy and yet try and get EVERYONE to work together...would this literally be everyone or could we have representatives? Maybe I'm a bit confused, but it seems like this would be really difficult to do. 
I was really surprised that a green value says that humans are going against nature with our societal hierarchy. The cream rises to the top! Even ants and bees have a societal hierarchy centered around a queen. I think that this is a perfectly natural concept that shouldn't be dismissed, it should be changed. 

Blog #3 AASHEand Sustainable Carolina

So, after perusing the Sustainable Carolina website for approximately 3 episodes of Law and Order, I've finally found a program that reallllly interests me: The Leadership Training Program. I feel like the only way that things are really going to change for REAL is for there to be more education and more green skills to be available to everyone! Without strong leaders, no movement would ever be successful, and I think its fantastic that our university has a program like this. It's easy for students be unaware of a lot of the things that this campus does to be green, and I admit, I was pretty clueless myself, but Sustainable Carolina seems to be involved in so many different things around campus. I can't believe I'd barely heard about them before! Also, I love the little side bar on the website with tips on how to green up different aspects of your life. 

Wow, I crept the AASHE site for a real long time and maybe I'm website challenged, but I couldn't find many programs. Luckily, I quickly became obsessed with the STARS program! STARS stands for Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System, and it allows universities to get a kind of measurement of how sustainable they are. I was REALLY happy to find that the University of South Carolina was rated GOLD, which is the second highest ranking possible. A school gets a bronze rating for 25 points, silver for 45 points, gold for 65 points, and platinum for 85 points. Points are awarded in several categories including education and outreach, operations, planning, administration and engagement. A school can also receive innovation credits which factor into the overall score. 

A question that I would ask Margaret Bounds about Sustainable Carolina, is how effective she thinks that the Leadership Training Program here at USC is at turning out green leaders to go on and make a difference with their leadership skills after leaving university. 


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Blog #2 So Dis Is Me...

HERRRRRO! 

My name is Sarah Bailey Petersen, and I am a sophomore Marine Science major with a concentration in coastal resource management and marine policy. I'm originally from Chesterfield, Virginia and have lived there my whole life, but now I love living here in Columbia. Before winter vacation, I adopted a kitty named Raisin from Pets Inc., and she's pretty much freaking amazing. She lives in UOaks with me and my 3 awesome roomies and causes mischief pretty much every minute she's alone...and when we're there...and basically she just gets into everything all the time. 

I love travelling and have been to Europe and visited England, Ireland, and Wales, and plan to go to France and Italy next spring. I have a brother who is also a sophomore but at Davis and Elkins in Elkins West Virginia, and we are really close. 

I played soccer, field hockey, and rock climbed in high school, but haven't done much of any of them since because my right ankle is pretty much destroyed. For as long as I can remember, I've had chronic ankle instability that has resulted in numerous ankle sprains and too much time spent on crutches. Basically, each time you sprain your ankle, the ligaments stretch and weaken, and if you don't recover properly, the damage can become permanent. That's what's happened to me! I never give my sprains enough time to heal so my ligaments are held together by scar tissue. Sometime soon, I plan to actually get the surgery to reconstruct two of the ligaments, but until then, I wear an ankle brace almost always on my right leg and sometimes also on my right. 

As of right now, I am planning on graduating in the fall of 2014 and taking the spring of 2015 to get and recover from my surgery. I'm looking into applying for a program here at USC (the real one) called the JD/MEERM. This program will allow me to get my law degree (J.D) and a Masters of the Earth, Environment, and Resource Management at the same time. I've always wanted to go into law, but only recently have I become interested in environmental law. Before this particular plan, I wanted to be a marine veterinarian, but found out quickly that I'm a bit too squeamish. Ever since I was a little girl, I've been OBSESSED with marine mammals, particularly manatees, and I'm sad that I can't really pursue that career. 

Soooo BASICALLY that's me in a nutshell...a tiiiiiiny nutshell. 

Just chilling out after a hike and a dip in the waterfall.

Halloween with my roomie! I was a black widow (cuz I'm afraid of spiders)

and this is Raisin :)

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Blog #1 Introductory Questions

**What do you want to get out of the course?  
What interests you about “green politics?”  
What do you want to explore?**

Honestly, I'm not even sure how one would define being 'green' anymore, so figuring that out would be awesome! It seems like everyone defines it in their own way, and hearing everyone's personal definition will be a helpful way for me to develop my own definition. What I'm really looking forward to taking away from this class is a new set of leadership skills that will better prepare me to help educate others about being 'green.' Also, I'm REAL excited to become more involved in the green movement here at Carolina. I had no idea that there were so many ways that students and faculty members were doing so much to make out campus more environmentally friendly.

I think that those who have the most knowledge about the earth and environment will be better off in the coming future. The environment has become a hot topic around the world, and it's not going away. I'm tired of being ignorant and misguided. My future plans might include becoming an environmental lawyer, and I want to know as much as I can about creating sustainable, green communities. Learning about the different schools of green political thought is something I'm really curious about because I've honestly NEVER heard of most of them! 

What I really want to explore during this class is all of the different ways to get involved on campus. As previously stated, I also really want to explore my leadership potential in this field. I'm actually like mad shy so I'm hoping that with all of the forced interaction in this class I'll be more comfortable about stating my opinions and taking charge of situations. 

PeaceLoveEarth