McKayla's Site

Moving online with college courses from on-campus learning was tough–most notably, keeping motivated and staying on track. One of the biggest helps to staying on task with my schoolwork was staying in tough with my peers and professors throughout all this havoc. In sustainability lab, I made sure to check in occasionally on Zoom during class time. Here, I listened to what my classmates were up to and any class related conversations. I discussed my project proposal a few times as well. This was really helpful for not only helping me to understand the proposal better, but also to encourage myself to actually get it done.

Zoom is an incredible platform that I believe will continue to be used long past this pandemic. It enables people from anywhere to meet within seconds, as opposed to traveling tens to hundreds of miles. A difficulty I noticed with Zoom is paying full attention to the screen while I am in my room. I tend to wake up a little late, so I usually keep my camera off because I sit in my robe. I’m starting to try to at least get dressed for my meetings and turning my camera on.

I have had an interest in blogging for quite some time now. It is a terrific tool for spreading information and ideas with a range of people. But i was never able to start a blog on my own. I’ve had a lot of fun and learned a lot from playing around with the WordPress website.

First, keeping up with regular posts can be difficult. While for the semester I knew what I had to write about, it isn’t always the easiest staying up to date with the posts. I overcame this though by sticking to deadlines, as these deadlines typically overlap with the project due dates. I also tried writing my posts soon after I complete my work so the details are fresh in my mind.

The second thing I learned from posting on ePortfolio is that writing can be fun! Blogging is all about having your own voice and style of writing. This way of writign for me is so much easier, and it is something I haven’t really done before. I can stress myself out a lot with large writing assignments, and blogging is a much shorter, relaxed form of writing; I finally enjoy writing again! Who would have thought!

I hope to use my website building skills to make a blog about environmental awareness and advice to minimize ones impact. The internet is the largest platform for spreading ideas today, so building an online presence is an absolute must. Eportfolio is a great place to start building that presence.

Keeping track of project tasks is crucial to success and organization. My partner, Lily, and I chose to use the project management tool, Asana. This task tracker allows the user to create tasks which can fall under sections. Each task can further be organized by due date, contributor, assignee, and more. Asana also sends notifications out to the users involved in a task. We first outlined our class projects through the course of the semester within the sections: the STARS report, the case study, and final project. Beneath each section, all the tasks we had to complete for each project was listed below.

This isn’t actually my first time using Asana. I began using Asana as an Eco-Rep last rear during earth month. Asana is a really efficient tool that helps to keep organized among a group of people. But using it last year, I wasn’t as familiar with it as I am today. Asana has turned out to be really helpful for me, as I demand all my tasks and work to be organized, or else I go a little crazy. This tool made it really easy to communicate with my partner on which parts of the project were completed, which is an issue I have experienced a lot in the past.

The program itself functions really well. I didn’t run across any issues while using it, although it would be even better if the tool could send out reminders before the due date. But overall, I can definitely picture myself using this tool in the future, especially when engaging in group projects. Organization is a key component of project planning, and Asana enhances it greatly.

Parkhurst, I have come to learn, puts a lot of energy into making sure that we eat fresh, sustainable food here on campus. Know Your Source is a program intended to inform consumers of where their food is coming from: local sources. Their program for locating and acknowledging local food sources is much more complex than I thought “local” foods entailed. The majority of foodstuff on campus comes from local sources, which implies a certain distance depending on the product. Milk, for example, I believe is delivered locally within 250 miles of the source. Some dining services go even farther, and even attempt to find products that use local ingredients. Parkhurst’s sustainability director, Jamie Moore, thinks that taking this extra step is far more challenging and nearly impossible.

While I have once researched the agriculture and animal agriculture industries, the depth of my findings weren’t comparable to what Jamie had to show us. The chicken industry was most shocking, especially finding out that “cage-free” eggs isn’t actually an improvement unless they are certified organic. Homogenized milk also intrigued me, as I probably drank it for the majority of my life. I am curious if drinking those hormones has impacted my body in any way. Agricultural pesticides on non-organic produce have always been distasteful in my opinion. It wasn’t until this year that I truly began enjoying fruits when I first tried organic. Organic fruits didn’t have the bitter, sour taste I associated with normal fruits, which is why I know there’s a difference.

Culinary services seem like a solid ground to implement numerous sustainable initiatives. Parkhurst takes any attainable step in furthering the sustainability of the services, from low impact take-out containers to local foods. I am confident in Parkhurst’s ability to continue striving for sustainability along with the rest of the campus.