Name of Assignment: Mitigating Climate Change On Maui Subject: Field Ecology Facilitator/Teacher: Ms. Wilson
Description of Work/Assignment: For this assignment we started by making posters researching one of eighty project drawdown solutions. Then we had to come up with a form of action or experiment we can take to help Maui mitigate climate change. Since my poster was about integrating bicycle infrastructure into Maui’s transportation system, we (Dustin, Etienne, & I) chose to pursue a project following that topic. Right now we are designing a business plan to sell bikes to hotels in the area to lower automobile usage.
Which 21st Century Skill do you feel this assignment addresses, and why? I feel this assignment best addresses civic literacy and engagement. This is because we are coming up with ways to help our island lower CO2 emissions and help traffic by getting cars off the road.
What are you most proud of from this assignment, and why? I am most proud of this assignment for taking on such a big idea. We have the option to get help from Mr. Wilson with actually becoming a business or becoming one for somebody’s senior project and that would look amazing on college applications to actually have a running business that made transactions.
How did you develop and/or improve upon your 21st Century Skill with this assignment? I developed my civic literacy and engagement by learning more about what Maui’s DOT is trying to accomplish and what other advocacy groups are trying to make bikes a more significant part of our island life.
What was most difficult about completing this task? The most difficult part about working in this group was working around Ms. Wilson’s old and tired opinions of my group mates and me. I didn’t live up to my potential on one project, Dustin is absent too much, and Etienne is too distracted, so we get biased grades.
How could you improve this work? If you could start over, what would you do different? If I were to improve this I think I would have just tried to come up with the idea sooner. We spent a month cycling through ideas, all were good enough for the project, but then another would come along Ms. Wilson would nudge us towards, so we ended up with a late start on the idea we intend to stick with.
How does this relate to what you have learned in the past? I have done a lot of personal research on climate change that has proven useful during this project and since it is a background passion of mine I think this was a good creative use of that information.
How can you apply this to future learning? As climate change is an ever growing project that is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially for my generation, this will be useful throughout my entire life. I am also strongly considering becoming some sort of environmental activist that works with/through the government so I will need to know a lot about mitigating climate change.