Share & Voice: Environmental Tips- How To Go Green

I found this little video from Youtube, called Environmental Tips- How To Go Green. It is short but it includes good information with how you can help save our environment. It talks about recycling, using reuseable bags, using your own coffee mug, and using your own water bottle. I grew up recycling almost everything and I am still doing it. However, I should really start using reuseable bags when I go to the grocery store. I have those bags at home but too many times I forget them and I need to ask for the plastic bag or paper bag. I don't buy water bottles from the store because I use my own water bottle.
These are small things, but if everyone would make better choices we would be able to save our environment.
You can watch the video here: http://www.sustainourplanet.com/

Reflection: Weeks 1-4

I feel like I have already learned so much in four weeks. The biggest thing I have learned so far is probably creating a blog and everything that comes with it. This is my first time using my own blog and I really like it.
After taking the ecological footprint quiz and seeing how many planets it would take to support my lifestyle it really made me think what habits I could change to become more green. From now on I am taking the bus to school every day and I am using a reuseful bag when I go to the grocery store. I am also trying to eat less meat and trying to buy food from locals.
I really liked our last class when we went to the eco friendly building. Hopefully one day I am able to built my own house and by learning about the eco friendly building it really made me think what I could have at my own house. For example, I really liked those windows which are letting the light come in and that would be something that I would like to have at my own house.
I am learning something new about our environment and other topics every day when I read other peoples posts.

Read ‘N’ Seed 2: Prevention is Primary: Strategies for Community Well-Being

1. I read the first four chapters.

2. The first chapter is called The Imperative for Primary Prevention. It talks about how important primary prevention is and how it helps health care system not to be overbooked because less people would need medical care. Also, the chapter presents individual-based prevention and treatment model, as well as shows recent and historical examples of prevention successes.

The second chapter is called Achieving Health Equity and Social Justice. This chapter talks about how health differences are primarily the result of social structures and processes, rather than individual genetic factors. It also discussed how making the community environment healthier can decrease the number of people who become ill or injured.

The third chapter is called Gender, Health, and Prevention. It focuses on how gender affects health outcomes.

The fourth chapter is called The Hope of Prevention: Individual, Family, and Community Resilience. This chapter talks about how strong social networks and partnerships, caring relationships between community members, and education and literacy are protective factors and help people grow stronger. These factors also prevent illnesses and injuries.

3. I learned that primary prevention should generally be aimed at populations, not just individuals. A goal of primary prevention is to eliminate unnecessary illnesses, injuries, and even deaths.

I learned about health disparities and health equity. Health disparities are defined as “differences in health that are not only avoidable and unnecessary, but in addition unjust and unfair.” (Margaret Whitehead, 1990). Health equity is defined as “providing all people with fair opportunities to attain their full health potential to the extent possible.” (Braveman, 2006).

You can read more about health disparities and health equity from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_disparities.

I learned that we should consider gender differences when we want to improve individual’s health.

Also, I learned about resilience research and practice which provides the prevention field with nothing less than a fundamentally different knowledge base, one offering the promise of transforming interventions. Resilience is defined as “a class of phenomena characterized by patterns of positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity or risk” (Masten & Reed, 2002).

You can read more about resilience from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_resilience.

4. I think we should pay more attention to the primary prevention and try to prevent people from become ill or injured. I think it starts with health educators to teach people in communities how to prevent diseases and eliminate health disparities.

Eye Openers: Ecological Footprint

I did the EarthDay Footprint quiz and the result was shoking. If everyone would live like me, we would need 5.7 Planet Earths to provide enough resources. My biggest ecological footprint was services, which was 35% and most of that is because of all the flying I do from Finland to school.
http://earthday.net/footprint2/index.html
 
I calculated my carbon footprint and my total metric tons was 31.73. My greatest one was flying, which equaled 48% of my total usage. I was really shocked when I saw how high my emissions were. I had no idea how much CO2 I was putting in the air.
http://www.sustainourplanet.com/

I calculated how much energy I saved by figuring out how much I recycle. My total savings were 389.80 kWh. I didn't realize how much energy is saved by recycling.
http://www.facilities.fsu.edu/CUP/recyclemania2010.html