Intro to Environmental Studies 24

      In class on September 27th, our guest speaker mentioned that Native Americans generally have a strong spiritual connection with the land. He noted they care a lot about environmental concerns like endangered species and human impact on nature. I experienced this firsthand during a service trip I went on this summer to Navajo Nation in Arizona.      This trip was a great experience because I got an inside look at the Navajo culture and learned a lot about the environment as well. One particular experience I had, was at a farm near Tuba City. We spent the day helping to clear weeds out of their fields and, during breaks, the owners would tell us about their experiences and culture. A few hundred yards from the fields was a canyon and just beyond that, a huge plateau. Rose Marie, who owned the farm with her husband, could point to any rock on the mountain and tell you a story from her childhood that occurred at that exact spot. Her family has farmed...

 My grandparents live along the Miles River in Long Haul Creek, part of the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay was fairly polluted for a while, causing the wildlife and plantlife to decrease. There used to be tons and tons of horseshoe crabs along the shores of Long Haul Creek, my grandfather would draw many sketches of them with detailed descriptions. But with the continued degradation of the bay, fewer and fewer horseshoe crabs are living past adulthood, I remember seeing many dead horse crabs floating along the creek. It has been a few years since I have seen a living horseshoe crab and even longer since I have seen a baby horseshoe crab. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) have worked hard to clean up the bay and its tidal rivers, and much of the bay's wildlife has come back including the horseshoe crab. During the summer I was at my grandparent's house in Long Haul Creek, I was standing along the small beach that they built ...

Recently, I was talking to my friend who was telling me about how she learned about mountain lion, also known as cougar, inbreeding as a result of highways in one of her classes. I decided to do some of my own research on this because I found the topic to be interesting. I came across an article titled "Southern California mountain lions show first reproductive effects of inbreeding" published by UCLA in 2022 that discusses the effects of this inbreeding. The cougars in California, specifically ones in the Santa Monica Mountains and others in Santa Anas, have been closed off from other cougar populations because they cannot cross the highways that have been built in the middle of their territories. This has caused them to start inbreeding in order to survive, which is resulting in a great loss of genetic diversity. The article states that scientists found that the cougars had a 93% abnormal sperm rate. Some of the physical signs of the inbreeding include deformed tails and te...

Recently, I started reading Mary Shelly's Frankenstein for my English class. I just finished up reading volume II and I noticed a few details that could apply to this class. First off, I would like to explain little bit about the story. After Victor Frankenstein creates his creature, he's horrified at his creation and flees. The creature disappears for around two years and Victor has no clue what happened to it. In volume II we learn the story of what happened to the creature in those two years, from his point of view. When the creature is brought to life, he has no concept of words or language. He's confused and scared, but is also fascinated by humans, utterly fascinated. He tries to make contact with the humans, and they run away in fear because of his horrid appearance. His journey ends up taking him to a small hovel attached to a little cottage in the German country. The monster stays in the hovel and observes the peaceful family through a little peephole. With no way ...

Today in class we were discussing curated nature scenes and the brushing aside of Native Americans due to the western movement at the founding of the United States. However, the landscapes we now look at seem beautiful but it is curated to be that way and the beauty is a cover-up. It does not show the truth of how the native americans used to live there in peace. This discussion reminded me of an experience I had during my Study Abroad experience in Prague, Czech Republic. We visited the site of Lidice and at first glance, it looked like a beautiful green meadow. But an entire village once existed there and it was completely obliterated by the Nazis and the evidence of the small town was completely hidden/ destroyed. This cover-up has occurred many times in history and creates an illusion of natural beauty but behind this beauty hides an ugly truth. 

      In Chapter 6 of American Camino by Dr. Redick, there is a section that discusses the exegeting and rescripting of one's life-story. How someone tells their life story is dependent on their own unique experiences and how they interpret meaning of life. I like the inserted quote from Paul Ricoeur, “construction of a life-story is necessary to give shape and meaning to one’s experience.” I feel like I can take this conversation in multiple directions just from this one quote but the first thing that came to mind when reading this section of the chapter was the value of who we choose to experience our life with. I think who we go through life with is crucial aspect to how meaning is determined for each experience. I saw this idea somewhere that talked about a reason we crave a long-term relationship with a person is because we want to have someone to be a witness to our lives. It increases purpose and value of life. A story often feels meaningless unless it is intended...

 While reading the section of Chapter 6 of  American Camino titled "Flow and Memory" I found the concept of flow to be very helpful in my understanding of my experiences in nature. Flow is when a hiker is walking along a trail and taking in their surrounds without having thoughts about what is happening in the moment. My interpretation of this is that the hiker is communicating with the environment through their senses and then undergoing certain emotions and feelings. Later on, when the hiker recalls the memory they will then use language to describe what they saw and what they felt in the moment. I believe that it is impossible to fully capture what the hiker was experiencing in that moment through language. What was happening to the hiker during flow was beyond what language can explain. However, the word choices used to describe the memory can create different interpretations of the same moment. The word choice of an individual is unique to that individual's experienc...

 Last Friday CNU hosted a "petting zoo" on the great lawn and a friend of mine had a picture of her posted on CNU's instagram page holding a ball python. For the weekend following, I kept hearing these comments that people were making to her about that picture. "Wow, you are so brave" or "disgusting" for holding the snake. "Ew, I can't believe you touched that." And a personal favorite, "snakes belong in the woods on the ground not in your hands." If you ask anyone that has actually spent time with a ball python they would probably say (for the most part- yes there are exceptions they are animals) that these snakes are very docile and most have great temperaments, which is why many people have them as pets. However, snakes are bad. They are a sign of deception or evil. They are reptilians who have wreaked havoc on people for centuries and must be eliminated. As someone told me on my last day at work this summer "the only go...

 This past summer I attended a study abroad to the Bahamas with Dr. Tweedt where we studied business ethics and sustainability. I learned so much about the tourism industry there that I did not know before. We explored the effects of large resorts on the Bahamian culture, environment, and economy. While we were there, we stayed on two different islands, which were New Providence and Andros. These islands were very different in how tourism played a role in the lives of the people who lived there. New Providence contained large-scale resorts and tourism practices, whereas Andros focused on ecotourism. The focus of ecotourism is to bring people to a relatively undisturbed area and teach them about conservation. Tourists through this practice are able to enjoy nature without having a harmful impact on the environment while also becoming educated on how to better the environment.  On the trip, we visited Atlantis on the island of New Providence, which is one of the largest resorts ...