Environmental Sustainability Reflection Paper

I have learned so much during my time in the Key Global Environmental Sustainability class. I realized that service and sustainability are much larger than I originally thought. Sustainability can also manifest in so many different forms. Participating in service projects this semester was so rewarding and informative. I was exposed to some things that I would never have been otherwise, and I feel better prepared for volunteering and more in the future as a result of the things that I was to do during my time here.

I know now that service means a lot more than helping out at a soup kitchen or spending time with patients at hospitals. Service can be as simple as helping someone in your community rake leaves or do other chores that they can

Most people can think of how to promote environmental sustainability, like putting solar panels on their house or recycling their garbage, however these are often hard to implement over a wide area because they can be expensive. Some people also just don’t believe that they need to participate in environmental sustainability because the reasons why they should are made up or blown way out of proportion and that there isn’t really a reason to support this. Social sustainability isn’t often something that people think of first, however, we see acts of this everywhere. There are food drives, and winter clothes drives, as well as organizations that connect people in the community in order to provide house repairs or simply being able to talk to someone every once in awhile. It could be said that social sustainability is the easiest to achieve. As a contrast, economic sustainability does seem to be pretty exclusive to people who lead businesses. It just isn’t something that a lot of people think about, however, it can be easily achievable through mindfulness and a strong desire to do

Our assistance helped make sure that they were not short staffed and could meet all the needs of people who attended, either as a business or as a fair-goer. Our time spent at the farm, as cold and muddy as it was, exposed many of us to some of the many difficulties of agriculture, especially small, organic agriculture. Thereafter in class, anytime food or farming was brought up, many of us had formulated impassioned opinions that we did not hold before. Native Hill Farm was able to get done what they needed to in a much shorter time than what it would have taken them alone and was able to save money at the same time. The Fall Clean Up helped an elderly couple in the area clean the massive amount of leaves in the yard in one day that they likely couldn’t have done at all. The couple also likely felt grateful for our efforts, and value CSU more and feel more involved in the Fort Collins community. Part of social sustainability is caring for everybody, and the Fall Clean Up tries to do just