Final Project Format and Expectations

*Please read ALL OF THIS before coming to us with questions!

As we have discussed in lab, each project should include an introduction/context statement and a report on the project itself.  Both of those will be posted to the course website.  Each of you will also make a brief (but inspiring / challenging / amusing / otherwise engaging) presentation in lab about your experiences.  Below, find our expectations for each of these components.

Note: if your project does not fit this format, you MUST let us know ASAP.

The Introduction (Due Wednesday, Nov. 23):

For those doing a more applied project, this section should provide some background information that will help us (and others) better understand the rationale behind your work.  You might survey previous projects that have addressed a similar issue, or you might present an overview of whatever problem it is you are trying to address.  Aim for a focused account; the information you provide should not be arbitrary, but directly related to the work you are doing.  Reading this, then reading your project, we should say “aha! I see why you did what you did.”  You’ll want a minimum of 5 academic sources, though drawing on more will make your statement richer.

For those of you doing a more scholarly project, this section introduces the main ideas and organizational framework of your work.  Like your applied peers, you want to focus your introduction on only those details relevant to understanding the project you have done.  Since your work is largely research based, you will likely need more sources overall – assume a minimum of 10 for the whole project.

Regardless, introductory statements should be somewhere between 4 and 7 pages, double-spaced, in Word – but you’ll be posting them to the WordPress site.  Feel free to include figures, links and images in the post if you like. Remember that even though you’re posting in the form of a blog, you are still expected to maintain a scholarly approach and tone. Please use standard in-text citations (Collins and Allen 2011) and list all references at the end.

The Project (Due Dec. 14):

Obviously, this portion will vary widely among students, but should include the final product of your scholarly work (a feasibility statement, a meta-analysis, etc) or a summary of/reflection on your applied work.  Include any resources, videos or images you created while completing your project, and any relevant information for their use.  Again, this should probably be between 4 – 7 pages and will be posted to the WordPress site – though lengths will depend on the nature of your project.  Talk to us if you are unsure about how long this should be, but also trust your intuition: tell us as much as we need to know to understand what you did and what it meant to you.

The Presentation (to be given during the last week of lab):

Seriously, go watch some TED talks before you work on this.  They are exemplars of informative and inspiring presentations, and you can learn a lot from them.

We’re not looking for a step-by-step PowerPoint here – we want you to tell us what you got out of this project (even if it’s not what you thought you would learn going in) in a way that is as interesting for us as it is fun and worthwhile for you.  Think about the challenges you faced and how you addressed them – think about surprises along the way – think about what you will take from this work and how it will impact your future.  That’s what we want to hear here.  So be thoughtful, and tell a good story.

These presentations should be short, 5-8 minutes.  They can be interactive, and you may use any props you like.  PowerPoint is fine, but make sure you use it creatively.  Prezi is also a fun online presentation manager you might want to play around with.

We will be presenting in lab on the week of Dec 5^th. Come ready to be enlightened by your classmates, to ask good questions, and to applaud the efforts of your friends and peers.

sustainability narrative narrative

We’ve had some excellent discussions this week following the sustainability narrative assignment. We’ve been muddling our way through some major questions. You all got to interview, analyze, and create. Now its my turn. Here’s my sustainability narrative narrative –  a meta-analysis of your analyses and responses along with my own response. 

what is sustainability?

The most common responses revolved around perpetuating a certain way of living indefinitely. Notions of balance and equilibrium.  Not consuming more resources than the earth can generate. But when asked what are we trying to sustain, there seems to be a glaring paradox. We are mostly saying that we want to sustain our current way of life, which we all agree is unsustainable. Hmm…

One of the most often mentioned obstacles to achieving sustainability was overpopulation. There are just too many people on the planet. But the problem isn’t really that there are too many people, but that all those people are really poor and want to have our level of resource usage and material comfort. Earth just doesn’t have enough resources for everyone to enjoy our level of consumption. Sorry southern hemisphere.

So with 7 billion, it’s obvious we can’t sustain our current standard of living. So then we must sacrifice material consumption for the benefit of human kind and the rest of the planet, right? But using concepts like “sacrifice,” simply reifies the desirability of our current way of living. But are we really happy with the way we live?  I mean, McDonalds and Wal-mart are open 24/7 selling loads of food and stuff. But does convenient and cheap equal satisfying and fulfilling? Several folks pointed out that often the most successful people, making the most money, consuming the most resources, are often the least happy. But yet we still all want to make more money, consume more stuff. What’s wrong with this picture?

Human nature, you say. We’re social animals evolved in hierarchically organized societies where the ones with the most wealth were the most successful – reproductively and socially. The caveman with the most meat gets the most cavewomen. The scientist published in Nature gets the most respect from other scientists. We’ve all experienced these instincts. We want to fit in, we want people to like us, we want more stuff. If I just get the new igadget, people will think I’m super cool and want to hang out with me. But often when we get that stuff, we realize we still aren’t happy. There’s a moment of panic. “I thought this would make me happy, but I still feel lonely and empty.” This moment is usually fleeting though, because it’s painful.  And  so we usually push it away and forget all about it. We quickly figure out the next thing that we really need to be happy. And of course, this isn’t always something material. “If only she liked me!” Usually these “if only ___” qualifiers to happiness are things/events/relationships that stroke our ego. Make us feel liked, special, and important. But it seems like our egos are pretty insatiable. Even after the temporary ego rush – getting compliments on your new clothes, making the crowd laugh with your funny joke, getting that new iphone – we still want more. More clothes, more laughs, more gadgets.  Do you see the positive feedback here?

So we gotta make money to buy more stuff, so we gotta work in jobs we probably don’t like. And we’re stressed out and overworked, and we don’t have time to think about being sustainable. Even if we want to. We gotta get to work. I don’t have time to cook breakfast today, give me that McMuffin. Why does my stomach ache?

My definition: Sustainability is a word without a clearcut meaning. It means different things to different people. It can’t be reduced to one single meaning. And I think that is exactly why the word is so powerful. It inspires us to imagine better ways of living our lives, organizing our societies, and relating to our environment. To me, sustainability means living within our local ecosystems, coevolving with plants, animals, insects, fungi, and bacteria in a way that perpetuates the functioning of the whole biotic system.

are we sustainable now?

Nope. We have no connection to our local ecosystem. Our food comes from all over the globe. We do not and can not see the social and ecological ramifications of our decisions. We can’t see the slave laborers with third-degree burns on their arms from spraying pesticides on our bananas. We don’t see the families displaced from their traditional homelands and forced into the slums, sold out by their governments to multi-national agribusiness. We don’t see the dead fish, birds, insects, in our farm fields and polluted waterways. Well maybe in Madison, where we can smell the dead fish even if we can’t see them. The point is, that as long as people do not and can not see the social and ecological consequences of their behavior, how can we expect anyone to change?

The reason consequences are so difficult to see is that we live in such a complex, global economy. And of course there are some benefits of living in such an economy. Computers and the internet are powerful technologies that have the capacity to unite and catalyze change. So I’m not talking about going back to the stone age. But computers represent a small percentage of the stuff we consume. Top on the list, in terms of volume, is food. There is absolutely no excuse for globalized food systems. We humans are pretty clever, and have figured out how to grow most things in most places. And we absolutely should. This is the biggest step toward connecting with your local ecosystem. Eat food from it, so you know where it came from and how it was grown. Better yet, grow it yourself. Then you can be sure. But food isn’t the only thing. Clothes, furniture, jewelry. How much more would you appreciate these things if you knew not only the materials and where they came from, but also the person who crafted them. We’ve lost crafts. Makers of fine items who take pride in their work and see their craft not just as the production of stuff, but also the creation of art. We’ve sold them out, so we can get more stuff for less at Wal-mart. But at what cost?

can our society become sustainable? how?

Yes! Theoretically, we could become vastly more sustainable in a very rapid amount of time. Unfortunately, we have built ourselves into urban and rural environments which will make the transition difficult. We don’t really know how to do much without lots of oil. And we all know that oil won’t last forever. I think we need to start large construction projects all over the world, taking the last of our oil, and using it to create infrastructure that doesn’t require it. I could go on and on about ways I’d do that, but use your imagination. We also need to start growing food all around us. And in that process, reconnect with our local ecologies. We need to be not just buying seeds to plant, but saving them and planting our own. In this way we consciously interact and coevolve with the species that we depend on. There are lots and lots of things to do, but I think you get the point.

what can we as individuals do about it?

I think the most significant thing we can do is to find ways of being genuinely happy. Ways to live materially, socially, and spiritually fulfilling lives. Thats it. Nothing to do directly with resources or population. Nothing to do with sacrifice. Actually, it’s quite the opposite of sacrifice. Living a fulfilling life is all about finding ways to create and appreciate value in the world around you. But we have to be honest with ourselves. Just buying more stuff won’t cut it. Overconsumption is a sign of a lack of happiness. Contant egostroking won’t fulfill us. We need to find fulfillment not just in our own satisfaction, but in the well-being of the whole planet. Because we’re all in this together. You and me, peasants in Afganistan, the birds and the bees.

To me, happiness comes from being able to appreciate the beauty of life. I can’t appreciate this beauty with a TV dinner. But watch me eat a dinner of garden veggies in homemade pesto. Or sitting and watching bumblebees pollinating rosebushes. Or engaged in a philosophical conversation with friends. These are the moments that make life worth living. And they can’t be bought. Only created and enjoyed – by us.

We need to create value in the world around us, and its up to us to define that value. And it probably won’t be defined in dollars. Unfortunately, that means that for now, it’s difficult to make a living creating real value in the world around us. I want to make a living restoring degraded ecosystems so that they are not only healthy, but provide material goods and services to people. Right now we only define value in terms of dollars, and we don’t put dollar values on ecosystem services, so I can’t make a living creating this kind of value. For now. But I’m working on it.

What do you value? Now go create it! And help bring about a world where we can all thrive by creating real value, not just making dollars.

Posting Instructions

1. Go to wordpress.com and set up an account. You’ll get an email to activate your account. Activate.

2. Let your TA know what email address you used to set up the account, and we’ll add you as an author to the site. Email us your email at pclarkallen@gmail.com or jcoll08@gmail.com

3. Once you’ve received and accepted an invitation to join the blog, sign into wordpress and navigate to the website ils252improvesyourworld.wordpress.com

4. Move your mouse to the upper left corner over the course site name, and click on “dashboard” which is the first tab in the drop-down menu.

5. Now you’re ready to post. Click on “Add New” under “Posts” on the left-hand side.

6. Title your post and create content. Make sure to click on your name under “Categories” in the lower right corner of the window. This will make sure that your post will be archived on your individual page.

7. When you are ready, click on the blue “Publish” button on the upper right hand side of the window. Don’t forget to spell-check and proof-read!!!

8. If you’d like a short bio to appear on your page, email it to me, and I’ll load it on.

9.  If you’d like to use Tags, feel free to create your own in the widget on the lower right corner of your window. These are keywords that website viewers can see and use to find posts relating to their interests.