Hey everyone!
I have a question for you:
Who has been/is your biggest role model for living an environmentally-friendly lifestyle?
After doing the eye opener activity the other day, I began wondering when I started becoming environmentally-conscious and who first taught me the importance of taking care of our planet,and I realized that it was my grandma and grandpa. They are the biggest nature lovers I know, and since I was fortunate enough to spend a huge amount of my childhood with them, they tried to pass their knowledge and their awareness on to me. They succeeded in doing this first and foremost by instilling in me an appreciation for all living things. My grandparents live by a state park and we would often go for walks through the woods. Whenever we heard a bird singing, they would stop and quiz me on what type of bird it was; when we saw any sort of tracks in the woods, we would talk about the animal that made them. My grandpa was always pointing out deer, eagles, and beaver dams, and my grandma was always picking up caterpillars for me to see or showing me some gorgeous wildflowers. Also, they taught me the importance of taking care of the environment: after almost every walk we went on, we ended up back at their house with a bag of trash that we collected from the woods. They showed me that even though I was a little kid, I could still help out.
Besides their nature enthusiast ways, my grandparents live a very thrifty lifestyle, always looking to conserve water, not waste food, not purchase unnecessary material items, etc. I realize that they were both raised in this manner out of necessity, but I think these are important skills to have nowadays, too, to reduce our impact on the environment. Skills such as gardening, which once may have been the only means for food, are now looked at in a new light - a way to lessen one's carbon footprint.
Now that I'm a little older, I realize how many important things my grandparents taught me, and I feel deeply indebted to them. Now, my goal with this post was not just to tell a heartfelt story, but to give a huge THANK YOU! to my grandparents and everyone else who has stressed the important of living an environmentally-conscious lifestyle.
And so here is my challenge for you:
Think about those people in your life who served as role models! I would love for you to acknowledge them in a comment to this post. After all, they deserve a big thank you, don't you think?
Posts
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI love the idea behind this post! I never really have stopped to think about who influenced my perspective on the environment. I decided that it was probably my mom who taught me to be unwasteful of our resources in general. My mom takes 5 minute showers every day, recycles on a regular basis, and buys most of her clothes and furniture at thrift stores. I don't think she is consciously thinking of preserving the environment, but her actions definitely help to lessen her impact! Kudos to you, Mom! :-)
I agree with Lauren... this is a great post! I had never really thought about the people who have influenced me to go "green" and how their actions have affected mine. After thinking about it, my roommate is a person who makes sure I am doing my part. She's a person who refuses to let anything go in the garbage that can be recycled. I make sure I recycle everything possible because after roommates doing this, it's not exactly fun standing outside in the cold, re-sorting everything because she's noticed a few odds and ends in the garbage and they need to be picked out :)
ReplyDeleteExcellent question! My concern about the environment actually didn't start until I was taking a graduate course and watched the documentary "Green." It challenged me to think about the choices I make and how there are human rights issues, such as environmental justice and environmental racism, connected to environmental issues. It sparked my interest in becoming more self-aware and involved.
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