Go Beyond Teach In

As Amy mentioned in her last post, we were recently invited by our professor Dr. Mary Stockdale to help facilitate a teach-in in our classroom. Our teach-in was a part of a larger campaign put on by the GoBEYOND campus climate network, an organisation dedicated to getting post-secondary students involved in environmental and climate action issues. The idea behind the teach in was to get as many professors as possible to dedicate at least 15 minutes of their class time to an activity designed to teach environmental and climate change issues. Although our entire course is designed to get us taking about these issues, we dedicated our class time in order to show solidarity for the cause.

Although we did not design the teach in activities we were asked to give a short talk about our experiences as students trying to lower our footprint in order to set the tone for the rest of the discussion. The main activity which we facilitated during the teach-in was splitting into groups and reviewing different tips for greening your life by BC Hydro. While reviewing these tips we were asked to pick the top three easiest and the three hardest from each of the three categories of food, shopping and transportation.

The answers were:

Food

• Three easiest ways to make an impact:

1. Eat Meals
2. Compost Your Waste
3. Learn to Cook/Eat Food, Mostly Plants (Tie)

• Three most difficult ways to make an impact:

1. Preserve for Winter
2. Practice Energy-Efficient Cooking
3. Grow Some Food

Shopping

• Three easiest ways to make an impact:

1. Reduce, Reuse, Repair
2. Shop Locally
3. Become Non-Toxic

• The most difficult way to make an impact:

1. Join a Local Exchange Network

Transportation

• Three easiest ways to make an impact:

1. Ride a Bike
2. Reduce Personal Automobile Use
3. Adopt Efficient Driving Habits

• Three most difficult ways to make an impact:

1. Consider Where You Live
2. Keep Your Car Tuned
3. Choose an Efficient Vehicle

When considering how our class answered these it must be remembered that these are students. For most students making decisions about where you live, what sort of car you drive and planting food are out of reach.