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I enjoyed my experience with the EcoChallenges. I learned quite a bit about sustainability from browsing the website, answering the reflection questions, and performing the challenges. My house has become greener as a result of my participation.

Looking back on my experience with the EcoChallenge, I found reducing animal products the easiest challenge among the five I had selected. However, during this challenge, I significantly changed my dietary habits by eating meat again after being a pescatarian for nearly six years. This decision was due to being diagnosed twice with anemia, which made me realize I needed a more balanced diet to provide my body with adequate nutrition. This change can work for most people if they plan their diet accordingly. Although I now eat meat, I only have it once daily.
The most challenging aspect of the challenge was keeping track of wasted food and eating mindfully. I am used to multitasking during meals, such as watching court shows or studying. While cooking more has helped me connect with food, I still need to master taking the time to enjoy it fully. Furthermore, while I attempted to keep track of wasted food, I found it more difficult than anticipated due to my busy schedule. Nevertheless, I tend to have small portions, and I have been incorporating more fruits and salads into my diet lately, which was not a problem for me.
In the future, I would like to reduce my waste and track food better. Although I am already conscious of not wasting food (e.g., I keep leftover vegetables for broth and use what's about to go bad in the fridge), writing it down on paper can help me realize how much I need to reduce. This can help me spend less on groceries in the future.

Eco Challenge: Reflect on Experience

My experience throughout this eco challenge experience has taught me a lot about various ways that I can practice sustainability. I calculated my household's carbon foot print, did a virtual tour of a local green roof, learned more about regenerative agriculture, learned about society's need for family planning, and even increased my daily fruits and veggies intake. I was successful in meeting all of my eco-challenges. I was delighted to discover a virtual tour option for touring a green roof, as I anticipated that I wouldn't have enough time to tour one in person. Additionally, I found it unexpectedly easy to find ways to increase my daily fruits and vegetables intake. After considering which challenge I would attempt in the future, I would choose to continue the challenge of increasing my daily intake of fruits and veggies. Over these last few months, I have noticed such an improvement on my energy levels, mood, and stamina through out the day just from eating more fruits and veggies. Increasing your daily intake of fruits and veggies is a great habit to get into as it promotes ones overall health, longevity and well being. Increasing ones fruit and veggie intake is also better for the environment, as a high intake of animal products contribute to factory farms, factory farm emissions, and animal waste. In the end, this Eco-challenge has taught me a lot about the many small actions we can take as individuals towards sustainability and towards finding solutions for this climate crisis.

Thanks,
Olivia Timothee

I have calculated my household's carbon footprint to be 5,689 lbs of CO2 emissions for two people. To reduce my impact on the environment, I have adopted various sustainable practices. During the summer, I use cold water to dry my clothes and hang them to dry 10% of the time. I also regularly maintain my transportation to lower my CO2 emissions. Moreover, I must replace all my traditional light bulbs with ENERGY STAR lights to reduce my CO2 emissions by 1386 lbs. Since I reside in an apartment, recycling is managed by the building, and I appreciate this effort toward sustainable living. Additionally, I have planned to take further action that can make a considerable impact in the long run. I can save 65 gallons of gas, plant 15 trees, or recycle 415 tons of waste by reducing my usage. Though these may seem like small numbers, they can add up to make a meaningful difference. I was astonished to discover that the average American household emits almost 29,000 lbs of CO2 annually. This experience has taught me that sustainability starts with each individual, and we mMy Caust all take responsibility for reducing our carbon footprint. By working together and implementing small changes, we can significantly mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.

My Carbon Foot Print Reflection

After calculating my Carbon Foot print on the United States Environmental Protection Agency website, my family's foot print was 20,061 carbon tons, for a family of 4 . The country's average for a family of 4 is 47,354 carbon tons, which is way higher above my carbon foot print than I anticipated. Perhaps is because we do not drive that often, as we live in the city. After my 'planned actions' our carbon foot print would be reduced to 10,791 carbon tons. My planned actions include installing energy meters, lowering the heat/ ac, replacing lightbulbs to energy efficient bulbs, washing clothes with cold water, and driving less. These actions would reduce our carbon footprint by half, which is super significant. In the end, this assignment has opened my eyes to all that can be done within my family to reduce our carbon foot print.
*A link to my results are attached below.
https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:5f764142-a1f4-3c5d-94ea-76cad7834c3b
Best,
Olivia T

Good afternoon,

I have been working on caring for my plants, the basil that I harvested and left a little bald is now sprouting new leaves and getting taller. I love growing basil because is so forgiving and is easy to maintain. The seedlings that I planted a few weeks ago are now one to close to two inches tall, I will wait for them to get bigger to plan them outside but it will be in a raise bed as I want the soil to be rich, i live in the Rockaways and the soil can at times be sandy and not great for planting a garden. This would be my first garden after a pause of a few years so I want a small garden nothing to big that when I go on my yearly vacation in the summer time it would required extra care. Having a garden is a commitment and a big responsibility but once you plant that first seed you want to take care of it because you want to enjoy the "fruits" of all the work put in. It is also a great activity to do with kids and show them something different by caring for the environment and having them learn new things like composting and how simple things like egg shells and banana peels can be mixed into the soil of the garden and it will provide nutrients. Also being careful as to what can be done to avoid having animals or insects eat the plants and teaching kids about the right kind of fertilization. There are many environmental lessons involved in gardening and it is such a fun things to do with kids that can carry on into their adult lives like it did me.

Thank You
Aybe Umana