BIOGRAPHY & ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT

Hi! My name is Chloe, and this is our first blog post that we are meant to do for our Wednesday night Environmental Science class, which is required to start with a biography of ourselves. So, where do I begin? Well, I guess I can start with the basics. I was born in Riverside, raised in Moreno Valley and Corona, and I am now living in Riverside again, just about ten minutes down the road from RCC. This is my first semester at RCC, but I have previously taken classes at the Norco campus, and even before that at San Diego State University. When I first started at university, I planned to pursue a film degree, and become a successful director. However, I quickly changed my mind and decided that I wanted to follow in my mom’s footsteps and become an elementary school teacher. I really did enjoy being a liberal studies major and learning about what it takes to become a teacher, but I have changed my mind again, and I’m hoping environmental science is the true major for me.

As for personal information, I am passionate about a ton of topics and activities. I have always loved movies and music since high school. Going to the movies and concerts are two of my favorite hobbies. One of my favorite movies is the 1997 Romeo + Juliet starring Leonardo Dicaprio (I went through an intense Leo phase in high school).  My favorite musicians—at the moment—are Radiohead and Björk, both of whom I had a chance to see in concert this year. I also love to read, watch television shows, go to Disneyland, go to the beach, swim, bike, and draw. I have five dogs: two beagles, two yorkies, and one chiweenie. Although I love music, I do not really play any musical instruments well, but it is my dream to play the harp perfectly someday.

I am mostly taking this class, because I have always had an interest in the environment and sustainability, and I want to explore it further in order to see if it is something I could have an enjoyable career in. I took AP environmental science in high school, and I really enjoyed it and became passionate about it, as challenging as it was for me at times. I also took a botany class last semester, which had some topics on the environment as well. I’m very excited to take this class, and I’m hoping I will finally be able to decide on a major in environmental science.

MY FOOTPRINT:

The second part of this blog requires us to calculate our ecological footprint on footprintcalculator.org. I answered all the questions on the website to the best of my ability, and I was surprised to find that if everyone lived like me, we would need four planet earths to supply enough resources. That’s three too many! 

When I viewed the detailed bar graph after receiving my results, I found that the aspect of my life that accounts for the largest part of my footprint is food. I tend to eat meat everyday, sometimes in both my lunch and dinner, which I know plays a huge role in depleting grazing land and fishing grounds. As I viewed the different solutions that were suggested to me by the website, I thought one of the best suggestions was to try to be a smarter shopper and maybe even try a vegetarian option once a month or once a week. I thought this option sounded easy and especially good for me since the largest part of my footprint is due to my meat intake. Eating vegetarian options does not require as many resources as eating animal products. I hope to start trying this solution out as soon as possible in order to decrease my footprint for good!

gif source: http://coderavana.me/aboutme.html

footprint picture source: http://www.smart-development.org/news/2017/5/18/5-worst-and-best-countries-for-the-environment-ranked-by-ecological-footprint

ecological footprint website: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/calculator