Reading Reflections

Reflection #1

How has the process of planning your individual products and group project been going so far, and how can aspects of adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy inform the work you continue to do?

Overall, planning my group’s products and project has been going well. The main struggle we have faced so far is figuring out how to sharpen our project so that all of our products help show a cohesive story. I think that we can utilize sections of Emergent Strategy to learn how to better adapt and work with one another. One of the greatest problems that our group consistently faces is that we are all strong-willed individuals so we can sometimes struggle with letting go and allowing others to take the lead. In Emergent Strategy Brown discusses how when working collaboratively with a team it is essential to let go of your need for control and trust the people you work with.

Reflection #2

What aspect(s) of “land as pedagogy” do you see reflected in your work in CODES/in your life?

I feel that the main point of land pedagogy was to explain that our education system needs to be reworked to adjust to our ever-growing world. This needs to include expanding education outside the classroom and connecting students more with the outside world. This is relevant because my group is focused on the idea of how we can expand environmental education to be more present during students’ younger years. We also want to give students the opportunity agency to learn more about the environment themselves by creating a new resource for them. But, as mentioned in the text, the reality is that we can tell students everything we know and they can understand everything we say but in the end, nothing can teach them better than experiencing that environment themselves. We can teach them how to properly dispose of their recycling and trash but nothing will ever educate them as well as experiencing the environment when it is improperly disposed of.

Reflection #3

Which of the five principles has been most relevant in your work with CODES in previous semesters? Which of the five principles is most relevant now?

During previous and current semesters in CODES, the most relevant principle has been the call to action. When tackling an issue as complex as environmental sustainability, it is easy to get lost when first trying to make a change. We often hear calls to “save the environment” and “save your local wildlife.” However, it is rarely laid out how an individual can accomplish or aid in a goal as broad as that. Through our work at NGRREC, our group has attempted to try and solve that issue through education. By educating the public about how humans affect the environment through day-to-day choices such as trash production or water consumption we can help encourage them to be more conscious of those choices.

Reflection #4

Think about the target audience for each of your products. Now, consider yourself at the age of that target group, and/or in the context of your other shared identities. What drew/draws you in to peoples’ work? Think about aspects of writing, imagery, sound, design, etc. How might you shape/modify your own work, with this in mind?

When considering other people’s work I think I am most drawn in by visualizations that can help me understand the verbal context. I think this is because I often struggle to connect words to the larger picture when they are only spoken and have no visual reference. When reading a text or listening to a presentation I love when visual elements are added to show further context (ex. PowerPoints, maps, pictures, etc.). I am also heavily drawn to design elements that help convey emotion when reading texts (ex. bold, italics, different colors for different contexts).

When considering my own work I realize that this desire for visuals heavily influences the way I present my findings. With a major in geography, a lot of my information is based on numbers such as coordinates and statistics. When presenting this work I often lean towards the incorporation of graphs or other visuals such as maps.