Energy and Place project:
Humanities and Chemistry Combined
Essential Questions:
1. How does energy production impact* place?
2. How does your sense of place**, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your
perception and decisions regarding energy production
1. How does energy production impact* place?
2. How does your sense of place**, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your
perception and decisions regarding energy production
Poverty Affected Environmentalism:
Abstract:
My sense of place regarding my environmental ethic is a place where I feel a strong spiritual attachment and connection to. In this essay I write about my environmental ethic and our obligation to preserve nature for future generations,“Rather than using what we have to preserve the environment and fix problems people live with everyday, many of us use what we have to benefit ourselves. We live in a beautiful country, and have the resources, responsibility, and obligation to preserve and protect it for future generations.” Visiting Africa, this ethic of preserving nature if we have the energy and resources to do so, became very prevalent to me. I realized how rich we are compared to much of the world, and that we should use what we have to protect the untouched parts of nature, and the places to which we have made connections. I developed a spiritual connection to Malawi while there,“I knew I belonged in this setting, in the hot sun draining all my energy, poking fingers, taking blood pressures, doing medical work to help the people here too far into poverty to get help. It clicked.”
As I step out of the tiny airport I am met with cries of, “Madam! Madam! I have a taxi, where do you need to go? I take you!” I glance quickly up from guarding my luggage and see a line of men staring intently at me, hoping to make their days' living by driving me to various places around Lilongwe, Malawi. I smile and keep walking, too jet lagged to try to speak, and to understand the thick Malawian accents. After sitting at the miniature airport for what seems like hours, an American family picks me up. The same family with whom I will be staying for the next month while doing medical work in a small clinic.
The drive is about 45 minutes from the airport to the campus at which I will be staying, and I spend the entirety of it gazing out the window at passing street vendors and squat mud and brick buildings. We swerve several times down the highway to avoid hitting people carrying tall stacks of wood stretching up from the backs of their rusted bicycles, or groups of women wearing colorful cloths and babies strapped to their backs. These people and vast amounts of corn line the streets throughout Malawi.
Looking closer, I begin to see the vacant, run down buildings, and immense amounts of trash lining the streets. Maybe I was expecting mud huts, bright red dirt, and smiling children on a background of no technology: The “expected picture of Africa.” I knew how poverty could affect the people, but I never for a moment thought about how poverty could affect this beautiful land. Things like trash services and septic systems I am used to living with in the USA don't exist here. The poverty is too great. In the United States, people are worried about saving the environment, and not overusing our resources. Here, people worry about coming up with the resources to live on. They don’t worry about the plastic bags littering the rolling hills, or the burning trash releasing dangerous gasses into the deep blue sky.
My mind begins to wander back to Durango, where I am currently calling home, and to a camp at which I have spent the past five summers. I wake up every morning to the smell of soft rain gathering on the crisp blades of summer grass peaking through the hard ground. I step out of the small wood cabin used to house yet another year of campers wishing for a week of outdoors. Directly in front of me stands a larger cabin, its dark wood stained with years of campers, dirt, and rain, holding a history of each year that has changed the lives of kids. The sun begins to rise over the dense forest at 8,000 feet, beginning to clear the fog that has settled into the tops of the pines over night. Unlike Malawi, this place remains untouched by the hand of development. We need to preserve the places like this, leaving them as a sanctuary of nature for future generations.
In 1943, a man by the name of Abraham Maslow proposed a psychological theory known as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This theory states that in order for humans to realize their full potential, which he termed self-actualization, they must first have acquired a series of needs. The needs are arranged in a triangle formation, where the criteria of one category cannot be met without first obtaining the category below it. His theory states that one cannot have a sense of security without first acquiring the essentials for living such as food, water, shelter, etc. One cannot feel love and belonging without first having a sense of security, and one cannot have self-esteem and confidence without first feeling love and belonging. When all of these needs have been attained, only then can one realize their full potential and engage in self-actualization and creative acts.
What does this have to do with Africa, Durango, and environmental needs, you may ask? Maslow theorized that if given the essential resources such as food and water, humans can then use their genius to accomplish great things. If this theory is true, then someone living in poverty has no chance. If someone is starving they could care less about which bucket they throw a can into, they wont have time to worry about anything other than their next meal. However, if the basic needs of someone living in poverty are met, they could move on to do great things, and attain all the essentials for life listed in Maslow's theory, working to save their own corner of the earth, and preserving it for those after them.
Coming back to the U.S. after a month in Africa, I was enraged to find people who are too rich to throw things away. Trash litters the streets, not because the country is too poor to take care of itself, but because the U.S. Mentality says we don't need to make decisions based on poverty. Even a month after being back in the U.S. I still find myself noticing and hating the overuse of “stuff.” I have to remind myself over and again that the mentality is the opposite from Malawi, living with overuse is part of the culture here.
We are living in such great wealth compared to the majority of the world around us. We take for granted the places we have to live in, and get used to the beauty of it. We don't realize that on the other side of the world 1,400 children die each day because they don't have clean water to drink. Rather than using what we have to preserve the environment, many of us use what we have to benefit ourselves. We live in a beautiful country, and have the resources, responsibility, and obligation to preserve and protect it for future generations. Only then can our children learn to love and make connections to the earth we live on.
A 48-hour plane ride away from the camp deep in the hills, lies another world, entirely different than anything I am used to, but one that holds significant meaning to me. Despite the trash and run down areas, I learned to accept Malawi for what it is. I learned to look past the underdeveloped world and instead see a place I loved, where I could spend my life helping the people who need it most.
While in Malawi I took a three day trip out to Lake Malawi. This lake covers close to a half of the country, and is too wide to see across. Sitting out on the beach, I watched the sunset go down over the lake, turning everything to gold. I watched the endless amount of water stretching out before me. I watched a group of Malawian men and boys working to pull in long, green nets full of tiny fish; their way of feeding their families. I watched village children beg me for just one more glow stick, bright smiles on their faces as they watched the Jesus film. I watched as sick person after sick person was brought in with suspected malaria, and tested positive. I watched all of this and was blown away by the clarity it gave me. I knew I belonged in this setting, in the hot sun draining all my energy, poking fingers, taking blood pressures, doing medical work to help the people here too far into poverty to get help. It clicked.
Many people have a spiritual connection to the Earth. Nature has been a part of human life since we were first created. It has been a place where we can find clarity and perspective, where ties between people and the earth are formed.
My spiritual ties lie in Malawi, Africa, near a lake stretching across the beautiful country, with people I gave medical care to, and along the dirty streets snaking throughout the city. My spiritual ties also lie in a camp nestled deep in the Animas River Valley, among vast forests of pine, surrounded by bright red dirt. These are the places where I have had experiences I can explain as nothing less than spiritual. These places change the way I see the earth and myself, they are places worth protecting.
My “Malawi Mamma” drove me past the rows of corn and small shops set up in lean-tos made of dead trees and old plastic, back to the airport on the final day. I wished above all else that I would miss my flight and have to stay in Malawi forever. As I stepped back into the tiny Lilongwe airport, a man scanned my bags, me, and then looked back down at what he was reading. I took that as a sign that I wasn’t a terrorist and could go on my way. I maneuvered my two bags around a line of people and met up with my host mom to check in for the flights that would take me back to Durango, Colorado. The only thing that kept me walking towards the plane was the fact that in Durango is camp. And at camp there are friends, family, and the peaceful stillness I would need to reflect back on everything I experienced in Malawi. As the ground began slipping out from under me, Lilongwe disappearing into the distance, I noticed the bright red dirt still clinging to my shoes. I will always come back to the place I love, where the land pulls me in, where the ties and promises I made will never be broken.
My sense of place regarding my environmental ethic is a place where I feel a strong spiritual attachment and connection to. In this essay I write about my environmental ethic and our obligation to preserve nature for future generations,“Rather than using what we have to preserve the environment and fix problems people live with everyday, many of us use what we have to benefit ourselves. We live in a beautiful country, and have the resources, responsibility, and obligation to preserve and protect it for future generations.” Visiting Africa, this ethic of preserving nature if we have the energy and resources to do so, became very prevalent to me. I realized how rich we are compared to much of the world, and that we should use what we have to protect the untouched parts of nature, and the places to which we have made connections. I developed a spiritual connection to Malawi while there,“I knew I belonged in this setting, in the hot sun draining all my energy, poking fingers, taking blood pressures, doing medical work to help the people here too far into poverty to get help. It clicked.”
As I step out of the tiny airport I am met with cries of, “Madam! Madam! I have a taxi, where do you need to go? I take you!” I glance quickly up from guarding my luggage and see a line of men staring intently at me, hoping to make their days' living by driving me to various places around Lilongwe, Malawi. I smile and keep walking, too jet lagged to try to speak, and to understand the thick Malawian accents. After sitting at the miniature airport for what seems like hours, an American family picks me up. The same family with whom I will be staying for the next month while doing medical work in a small clinic.
The drive is about 45 minutes from the airport to the campus at which I will be staying, and I spend the entirety of it gazing out the window at passing street vendors and squat mud and brick buildings. We swerve several times down the highway to avoid hitting people carrying tall stacks of wood stretching up from the backs of their rusted bicycles, or groups of women wearing colorful cloths and babies strapped to their backs. These people and vast amounts of corn line the streets throughout Malawi.
Looking closer, I begin to see the vacant, run down buildings, and immense amounts of trash lining the streets. Maybe I was expecting mud huts, bright red dirt, and smiling children on a background of no technology: The “expected picture of Africa.” I knew how poverty could affect the people, but I never for a moment thought about how poverty could affect this beautiful land. Things like trash services and septic systems I am used to living with in the USA don't exist here. The poverty is too great. In the United States, people are worried about saving the environment, and not overusing our resources. Here, people worry about coming up with the resources to live on. They don’t worry about the plastic bags littering the rolling hills, or the burning trash releasing dangerous gasses into the deep blue sky.
My mind begins to wander back to Durango, where I am currently calling home, and to a camp at which I have spent the past five summers. I wake up every morning to the smell of soft rain gathering on the crisp blades of summer grass peaking through the hard ground. I step out of the small wood cabin used to house yet another year of campers wishing for a week of outdoors. Directly in front of me stands a larger cabin, its dark wood stained with years of campers, dirt, and rain, holding a history of each year that has changed the lives of kids. The sun begins to rise over the dense forest at 8,000 feet, beginning to clear the fog that has settled into the tops of the pines over night. Unlike Malawi, this place remains untouched by the hand of development. We need to preserve the places like this, leaving them as a sanctuary of nature for future generations.
In 1943, a man by the name of Abraham Maslow proposed a psychological theory known as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This theory states that in order for humans to realize their full potential, which he termed self-actualization, they must first have acquired a series of needs. The needs are arranged in a triangle formation, where the criteria of one category cannot be met without first obtaining the category below it. His theory states that one cannot have a sense of security without first acquiring the essentials for living such as food, water, shelter, etc. One cannot feel love and belonging without first having a sense of security, and one cannot have self-esteem and confidence without first feeling love and belonging. When all of these needs have been attained, only then can one realize their full potential and engage in self-actualization and creative acts.
What does this have to do with Africa, Durango, and environmental needs, you may ask? Maslow theorized that if given the essential resources such as food and water, humans can then use their genius to accomplish great things. If this theory is true, then someone living in poverty has no chance. If someone is starving they could care less about which bucket they throw a can into, they wont have time to worry about anything other than their next meal. However, if the basic needs of someone living in poverty are met, they could move on to do great things, and attain all the essentials for life listed in Maslow's theory, working to save their own corner of the earth, and preserving it for those after them.
Coming back to the U.S. after a month in Africa, I was enraged to find people who are too rich to throw things away. Trash litters the streets, not because the country is too poor to take care of itself, but because the U.S. Mentality says we don't need to make decisions based on poverty. Even a month after being back in the U.S. I still find myself noticing and hating the overuse of “stuff.” I have to remind myself over and again that the mentality is the opposite from Malawi, living with overuse is part of the culture here.
We are living in such great wealth compared to the majority of the world around us. We take for granted the places we have to live in, and get used to the beauty of it. We don't realize that on the other side of the world 1,400 children die each day because they don't have clean water to drink. Rather than using what we have to preserve the environment, many of us use what we have to benefit ourselves. We live in a beautiful country, and have the resources, responsibility, and obligation to preserve and protect it for future generations. Only then can our children learn to love and make connections to the earth we live on.
A 48-hour plane ride away from the camp deep in the hills, lies another world, entirely different than anything I am used to, but one that holds significant meaning to me. Despite the trash and run down areas, I learned to accept Malawi for what it is. I learned to look past the underdeveloped world and instead see a place I loved, where I could spend my life helping the people who need it most.
While in Malawi I took a three day trip out to Lake Malawi. This lake covers close to a half of the country, and is too wide to see across. Sitting out on the beach, I watched the sunset go down over the lake, turning everything to gold. I watched the endless amount of water stretching out before me. I watched a group of Malawian men and boys working to pull in long, green nets full of tiny fish; their way of feeding their families. I watched village children beg me for just one more glow stick, bright smiles on their faces as they watched the Jesus film. I watched as sick person after sick person was brought in with suspected malaria, and tested positive. I watched all of this and was blown away by the clarity it gave me. I knew I belonged in this setting, in the hot sun draining all my energy, poking fingers, taking blood pressures, doing medical work to help the people here too far into poverty to get help. It clicked.
Many people have a spiritual connection to the Earth. Nature has been a part of human life since we were first created. It has been a place where we can find clarity and perspective, where ties between people and the earth are formed.
My spiritual ties lie in Malawi, Africa, near a lake stretching across the beautiful country, with people I gave medical care to, and along the dirty streets snaking throughout the city. My spiritual ties also lie in a camp nestled deep in the Animas River Valley, among vast forests of pine, surrounded by bright red dirt. These are the places where I have had experiences I can explain as nothing less than spiritual. These places change the way I see the earth and myself, they are places worth protecting.
My “Malawi Mamma” drove me past the rows of corn and small shops set up in lean-tos made of dead trees and old plastic, back to the airport on the final day. I wished above all else that I would miss my flight and have to stay in Malawi forever. As I stepped back into the tiny Lilongwe airport, a man scanned my bags, me, and then looked back down at what he was reading. I took that as a sign that I wasn’t a terrorist and could go on my way. I maneuvered my two bags around a line of people and met up with my host mom to check in for the flights that would take me back to Durango, Colorado. The only thing that kept me walking towards the plane was the fact that in Durango is camp. And at camp there are friends, family, and the peaceful stillness I would need to reflect back on everything I experienced in Malawi. As the ground began slipping out from under me, Lilongwe disappearing into the distance, I noticed the bright red dirt still clinging to my shoes. I will always come back to the place I love, where the land pulls me in, where the ties and promises I made will never be broken.
Visual Piece:
Artist Statement:
To accompany my essay, I created a book that showed pictures of Malawi, and used direct quotes from the written part of this project. I decided to add quotes from my essay that show my perspective and topic. In this way, my perspective is clearly shown through my visual piece. To go along with the quotes, I added pictures of where I went and who I met in Malawi to give an idea of where I was and what inspired the perspective written in the essay. I wrapped the cover of the book in chitengi cloth, a cloth I got in Malawi that women where as skirts. This made the book more interesting to look at, and made it more specific to Malawi.
I originally met with Ashley to brainstorm ideas for how I could create a visual piece with my lack of artistic ability. I then decided I would create this book, and incorporate pictures I had taken while in Malawi. I spent a long time laying out all the pages and covering the covers with chitengi cloth to make it look as good as possible. I made the pictures I added with the quotes on each page specific to what was being said so each page made a point and the book flowed together. I did not have a lot of time to create this piece, most of the time I spent working on the essay and refining that as much as I could, but I put a lot of energy into making the best work I could in the amount of time I had.
I knew that I wanted to use pictures of Africa in my visual piece to give people a sense of where I was and what I saw. I love the pictures I took while in Malawi because of how they bring me back there and bring up memories of places I went and people I met, I wanted readers to be able to see this. Meeting with Ashley inspired me to create this form of a visual piece because she gave me the idea, and it was a way I could incorporate my pictures, and could use the writing I had already worked on.
To accompany my essay, I created a book that showed pictures of Malawi, and used direct quotes from the written part of this project. I decided to add quotes from my essay that show my perspective and topic. In this way, my perspective is clearly shown through my visual piece. To go along with the quotes, I added pictures of where I went and who I met in Malawi to give an idea of where I was and what inspired the perspective written in the essay. I wrapped the cover of the book in chitengi cloth, a cloth I got in Malawi that women where as skirts. This made the book more interesting to look at, and made it more specific to Malawi.
I originally met with Ashley to brainstorm ideas for how I could create a visual piece with my lack of artistic ability. I then decided I would create this book, and incorporate pictures I had taken while in Malawi. I spent a long time laying out all the pages and covering the covers with chitengi cloth to make it look as good as possible. I made the pictures I added with the quotes on each page specific to what was being said so each page made a point and the book flowed together. I did not have a lot of time to create this piece, most of the time I spent working on the essay and refining that as much as I could, but I put a lot of energy into making the best work I could in the amount of time I had.
I knew that I wanted to use pictures of Africa in my visual piece to give people a sense of where I was and what I saw. I love the pictures I took while in Malawi because of how they bring me back there and bring up memories of places I went and people I met, I wanted readers to be able to see this. Meeting with Ashley inspired me to create this form of a visual piece because she gave me the idea, and it was a way I could incorporate my pictures, and could use the writing I had already worked on.
Project Reflection
Link to Chemistry Portion of Project: http://asrdp.weebly.com/energy-and-place-chem.html