Group 2 Project Evaluation and coarse wrap-up

I wasn't sure if each member had to post separate project evaluations, so i posted the group's evaluation again to make sure that Dr. Becker is aware of all the members who contributed to Group 2.

On November 30th, my group (group two) presented our project “Plant It Forward” at a booth in campus center plaza on-campus. We gave away free plants (beans, corn, tomatoes, chives and native trees that we grew) as well as a gardening starter kits. Inside the kit were seeds, information on how to plant and care for them, as well as composting tips and tricks, pete moss, information on risks of genetically modified plants, community resources and our mission statement and what we wanted to see happen with our project. The idea of “Plant It Forward” is to encourage members of our community to sustain an organic garden and passing on plants from their garden to people they know so they too can promote sustainability through gardening.

We gave away 25 kits and spoke to people who visited our booth about growing their own food and to help promote sustainability by encouraging them to “Plant It Forward” after starting their own gardens. We had students as well as faculty visit our booth who praised our goals as well as showed excitement about our idea and mission. We explained that we have a website (www.plantitforward.wetpaint.com) that discusses our mission and goals to start a discussion and to share their personal experiences with us about how their gardening experience has been since receiving their starter kits. We collected email addresses from all the visitors of our booth so in the future we can contact them to see how our project has impacted them, as well as to encourage them to continue gardening by showing our progress through our group website.

Our group was able to communicate with people on-campus interpersonally during our event to promote a cultural shift to live a more sustainable life. We also felt that by creating our website, that we could contact these people in the future to track their progress. At the same time, we thought we could reach out to a larger population that may stumble upon on our site to see how a group of university students can, and has made a change in our community and to encourage others in their location to do the same. Since we are living in a time where online communication is a cultural aspect and priority for many people, we thought to use it to our advantage by promoting social change on a large scale. I feel that our project was a total success and I am thrilled to have worked with Curtis, ‘Alohi, Patrick, Robbie and Jessica. We utilized leadership skills from our “Beyond You & Me” readings, as well establishing conflict management strategies to ensure group success.

Podcast

The PODCAST

Ecovillage questions and Dr. Becker's teaching.

After listening to the podcast i enjoyed hearing that living in an ecovillage was a nice balance between privacy and community. Being in harmony with nature and gardening has been a positive aspect of living in a sustainable community. Taking part in cooking and sharing the responsibilities of cleaning helps to establish community. Gardening and eating locally develop a bond between community members. I have witnessed this form of social bonding during times like Thanksgiving diner. Everyone comes together and contributes to making a large family meal and it can be a very positive uniting factor.

Even the children get to take part and learn from the other community members. They become friends with the other young people and are able to watch out for each other while hanging out naturally.

Post-graduate sustainability classes may be found in the Northwest United States. Oregon and Washington have made efforts to support the education of sustainability. Another option to further your knowledge of sustainability is by taking part in an actual ecovillage. Some universities allow you to use this experience as part of a masters program. There are many ecovillages that allow people to come visit with out having to buy property.

It can be difficult to keep up with a sustainable lifestyle when having to also maintain work, school, and family. Dr. Becker admitted to having a hard time giving up her car. She thinks the county should have a better public transportation system. Andreava said that she had a problems eating healthy in the winter. One benefit of living in Hawaii is that fresh fruits and vegetables are available year round.

Dr. Becker plans to come back to Hawaii and create a connection with the big island, ecovillage, and Cornell. More development is needed and the people of hawaii have a good opportunity to be sustainable, but the only way it can happen is if the students of UHH and our generation take the initiative.

Questions on teaching seemed limited to the summer class. The answers the students give in our responses to the modules are supposed to reflect our understanding of the readings. That is why we have 3-4 paragraph response to asses the students without testing. Dr. Becker is not sure whether she prefers online or in class teaching. There are positive and negative aspects of having an online class. I would also prefer a high bred or mix of online and in class learning structure.

My questions for Dr. Becker are:

Was it hard to keep up with the over 250 blogs that were posted on the Fall sustainability class's blog-site? Would you have started with the individual blogs from the beginning? Did the class run into problems posting blogs?

Thanks for the opportunity to be part of your class.

PLANTITFORWARD.WETPAINT.COM Plant Give away!!!

On November 30th 2009, The members of Plantitforward had a table on the Campus Center Lanai at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, giving away free plants and sustainability kits. These kits included seeds, pete moss, information on sustainability, instructions of how to grow vegetables, the mission statement of the organization, homemade pots, labels and more. The plants were given as a head start for recipients in started or building their own garden. The event was a success. All of the plants and kits were distributed and a list of over 22 names was collected. These people are the next step in the plantitforward process. Great work GROUP 2!!!!!