Individual Portfolio: Social Responsibility
Averie Lehman - AIS 1203, Section 2
For my individual portfolio, I focused on social responsibility. More specifically, I strived to answer the question "As humans, what can we do in our day-to-day lives to help our environment, ensuring its ability to sustain future generations?".
I chose this theme as environmental sustainability is very important to me. As humans, we have a very damaging effect on the global environment and climate. While I believe advocating for regulation and restrictions of large businesses and corporations is extremely important, it is also crucial that we, as average citizens, do our part in caring for the environment.
From this project, I was able to learn a lot, not only about what I, as an individual, can do to help the environment, but also what we can do as society, and what we can advocate for in our local and national governments to help. I also learned how bad our environment truly is, and how we only have less than 10 years before irreversible change occurs.
As individuals, simple activities that allow individuals to help their environment each day, without inconveniencing them to go out of their way, include:
- Using reusable waterbottles!
- Using reusable grocery bags
- Avoiding single use plastic items, such as straws and ziploc bags
- Recycle items intended to be recycled!
- If your community doesn't have a pick-up recycling system, there are many centers throughout the city that will take bags of recyclables for you!
- Opt to use public transportation or carpooling!
- Through UTSA, students are able to get free VIA passes, taking you all over San Antonio for no cost to you, and less cost to the environment!
- Turn off your AC and Heat when your not home and unplug devices not in use!
If you want to help the environment even more, you can participate in litter cleanup, planting trees, joining clubs, volunteering, and participating in rallies advocating for governmental regulation.
Other than researching, ways I decided to broaden, and share, my knowledge on environmental sustainability included joining UTSA clubs, such as Texas Rising and The Green Society. Additionally, I decided to pass out and hang up flyers that promote environmental friendly activities that students can do in their daily lives to lessen the impact on the environment.
Furthermore, we participated in volunteer opportunities at St. Stephen's Care Center and the Cibolo Center for Conservation. St. Stephen's Care Center allowed us to give back to the community while also teaching us about waste and the importance of recycling. The Cibolo Center of Conservation allowed us to walk trails and pick up trash and litter, allowing for all humans, animals, and plants to have a better experience in a clean environment. Lastly, as an individual, I went on weekly walks around my neighborhood and picked up any prevalent litter, which was quite a lot due to the construction of new houses in my community.
To provide extensive background knowledge and educate me on just how important environmental sustainability is, I used research from scholarly sources to inform me about nearly aspect of how humans impact the natural environment as well as educate me on the motivations of humans to want to practice environmental sustainability, as it relates to feelings of life satisfaction and happiness. Additionally, I use non-scholarly sources such as National Geographic to educate myself more about air pollution, as I feel I lacked knowledge in that topic, as well as revisited lectures from a high school AP Environmental Science course to further refresh my knowledge.
Sources:
Human Impact on the Natural Environment: Past, Present and Future - Wiley Blackwell
Consumer Environmental Activism, Sustainable Consumption Behavior and Satisfaction with Life - The Life Science Journal
Why Are You Doing Things for the Environment? The Motivation Toward the Environment Scale (MTES) - The Journal of Applied Social Psychology's
Air Pollution - National Geographic Society
While my individual portfolio never truly had an end goal, as I strive to keep seeking out new ways to practice sustainability, I believe what would've helped me best in my research and implementation of these practices would be time management and motivation. Sometimes, environmentally green practices, such as taking recycling to a local facility every now and then, take time, and it may be hard to remember to do these practices while balancing school, work, and other obligations. It is also important to stay motivated! I do this by remembering that, by using environmentally friendly practices, I am directly helping care for the environment to ensure it will be healthy enough to sustain future generations.
Lastly, I will learn more about this topic by continuing to attend UTSA club meetings, researching on my own time, and using environmentally sustainability practices in my daily life to ensure I am doing my part and lessening my carbon footprint.
