Here is a link to our final EACAP presentation.
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Tag Archives: The Environmentalist
Culiminating Thoughts on EACAP Project
This project ended up being a huge success for myself, Derek, and Ben. We had expressed uncertainties with how to go about what our goal was (and sometimes did not even know what we were aiming for), but we were able to get it together and create a successful sustainability website that will eventually have its content copied to the official Penn State Berks Sustainability website. I think this will end up being very successful in terms of getting people aware because there are a lot of people out there that care about creating a better environment in which to live, and I would venture to guess that people would view information from a world-renowned university’s web page more than just a personal web page like the one we created, however we have seen the site pick up some views over the course of doing the project.
For now, the web page can be seen HERE. (https://eacapenvironmentalist.wordpress.com/). Eventually, it will be linked on the Penn State Berks website and much more accessible and much easier to locate for the average person who is looking up sustainability topics.
Also successful was our research on deforestation. We were able to tie that in with our service project of creating the web page quite well, and the great amount of information we were able to get on the topic will hopefully help everyone who stopped by our poster and everyone who saw the presentation in class.
Our poster presentation and our slide show presentation were both very successful in terms of relaying the large amounts of information we gathered to the public. In total, 11 people stopped by our poster, and over 20 students were in attendance at our slide show presentation. If every person shared our website (or eventually the PSU Berks Sustainability web site) with someone, and they shared it with someone, the site should accumulate hundreds or even thousands of views, at which point people would likely be acting on the issues at hand.
This project was worth the time and effort we put into it. We got out of it what we put into it, and based on what we got out of it, all three of us can tell that the great amount of effort we put into it has paid off.
Ready, Set….
As a group, we further discussed our plan about how we are going to go about the EACAP project and broke it up into more specific parts.
We still plan to distribute to about 10 people a list, where they will write down a large amount of things that they use, what they use that can be recycled, and what they actually recycle. This list will be formatted in the form of three columns, and was made today. The columns will consist of one of each thing listed above: what people use, what recyclable products they use, and what they actually recycle. We will then construct a graph for the 10 people with three lines: one with total things that they use, another with total recyclable things that they use, and another with things that they actually recycle. We will note how much larger the overall usage of recyclable materials is in comparison to the overall recycling to better understand how important it is that we make people aware that waste reduction needs to take place.
We will then write blurbs/short articles about each of the six initiatives (Bee Hives, MOBIUS Recycling, Food Recovery Network, Rain Barrels, Paper Waste Reduction, and Bat Houses) on the Sustainability website providing an overview of each initiative and adding an appropriate image to each. The images were all gathered this morning.
Knowing that our graphs will most likely show that not everything that needs to be recycled gets recycled by the people we survey, we will also mention how improvements in terms of increased recycling and waste reduction will help each of the initiatives be more successful not only at Penn State Berks, but anywhere.
The Environmentalist Stirs Up Plan A
Loads of cans have been recycled by consumers and are ready to be hauled away to be remade into new and more useful products.
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
Our first plan to increase the awareness of the need for recycling involves having a couple of randomly selected individuals record everything that they use on a daily basis that are recyclable. This could be anything and everything that at some point in time can be recycled. It will also include a section of the things that they totally use up that are recyclable, and whether or not that person actually took the time and effort to recycle them or not (things like aluminum cans, paper, etc.)
This plan could turn out very successfully, or it could be flawed, as people could purposely just give us the best possible more “environmentally friendly” answer we could ask for just to gt the project done with, so the plan is to not make it long or boring. Hopefully this will not be the case, and we can make it interesting enough for people to actually want to participate, but we will see what we can do.
The Environmentalist Begins to Take Action
Photo Credit: Penn State Photographer
Real life photo of the carelessness of college students on campus in terms of recycling
We met with the Sustainability Team and talked about how the lack of recycling on the Penn State Berks campus is disturbing and students are not doing their part to help the environment and recycle even though there are a lot of efforts being made by the people on campus to allow recycling to happen and to make it easy to do so.
We decided that our project would revolve around a web page that intends to give incentive to students around campus and around the world to put in the little effort that is needed to recycle materials, and it is meant to teach those students that that little effort can go a long way in protecting the environment and, in turn, making their lives better as well as the lives of those around them. We want to try to get students to recycle recyclable materials and throw true waste in trash cans and make sure nothing ever gets littered.
-Asher Fair, Ben Straka, Derek Dewald