Sustainability Blog Post #6

Participating in this blog has been a great push to be sustainable. Prior to this blog, I had only thought about how good a job my school is doing, but never about what my family could do. Having a graded assignment motivated me to make sure that I kept improving my ways of living. I also gained a ton of knowledge when I had to look through websites and find information that I needed. I never knew that there were so many helpful tips on this subject.
I made the mistake of not setting any solid goals in the beginning of this project. If I had challenged myself with goals each week, that I knew I could tell when they were accomplished, then reaching them would have been much more fulfilling. Instead, I reflected on each week's progress. I tried to relate being sustainable with what I did every week. My family greatly improved the areas that I focused on, electricity and water. The way I helped was, I looked up information and then relayed those ideas to my family. They kind of needed someone to tell them what to do since they don't have any other way of finding out. I think that my family has changed a lot because they really didn't know anything about sustainability before I introduced it to them.
A challenge I can think of was getting my family to cooperate. It was easy for me to follow my rules but it was hard to control everyone else. Also, continuing these rituals will be a challenge. I encountered barely any challenges because I planned ahead and I could pretty much see if my ideas were going to work or not. Some advantages of this project are that we get to save money and the environment, and grow good organic fruit.
I think that our school's next step would be to focus on energy conservation in the academy and all other buildings, not just Case Middle School. I think that the balance is tilting because we've been trying to use less paper, but more electricity is used. If we found better ways to conserve energy, or use alternative sources, then we could re-balance the scale.

Sustainability Blog Post #5

This week I ran out of my own ideas to conserve water and energy so I looked up a couple of sites to help me out and I found a ton of tips so here they are. If you put a brick in the tank of your toilet, your toilet will save the volume of water that the brick takes up. However, more isn’t always better and if you put too many in, your tank will probably overflow, or there won't be enough water to flush the toilet. The average American uses about 80 to 100 gallons of water per day and hotels are one of the greatest wasters of water, because people think that they aren't paying for it so they can use as much as they want. When you are on a trip, just because you aren't paying for it, doesn’t mean it isn’t being wasted. The most wasted type of water in a household is grey water, which is used water from sinks, washing machines and baths. This water isn't super dirty so you can still use it for toilet water or watering plants. While taking showers, some people put the plug in and after they are done, they carry their water outside in buckets and water their plants.
Here are some household tips for energy conservation. Use compact fluorescent bulbs and try to make it a habit to turn off lights when leaving a room. Install motion detector lights by your garage so that they don't stay on all night. Keep your refrigerator full of food because it takes less energy to cool a full fridge and clean the lint out of your dryer's coils. I will try and incorporate all of these tips into my new conservation habits and hope that others find this list helpful too. (To the left is a pie chart of percentages of household water usage.)

http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/water/overview.php
http://www.thriftyfun.com/Home%20Improvement_Conservation_574_581.html
http://www.popud.com/energyconserv.htm

Sustainability Blog Post #4

This past week I was at camp and although I wasn't thinking about it at the time, I realize how easy it is to live without wasting all these valuable sources of energy. In the coops that we slept in there was no electricity or lights so we got to tell stories and talk by flashlight, which only used the tiniest amount of battery power. Also, we only used the cafeteria during the daytime and Mr. Sun already lit it up so even less electricity was being used.
Water conservation up there was a scary subject. We got to take showers but the shower was merely a hose thrown over a tree branch. Since the water was freezing cold we had to get in and out as quick as possible to get to our towels. Since everyone in that particular campsite used it, there was a line and everyone combined ran in and out in a matter of 15 to 20 minutes. I've been trying to think of ways to convert my lifestyles to the simplicity of that at camp.

Sonnet Analysis

1. Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?/
(This line means happiness is shown through music, so why hear it sadly and ruin it?)
2. Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy/
(Happy people don't fight with other happy people and they delight in the company of others.)
3. Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,

(Why love someone if they don't love you back just as much?)
4. Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?/
(Do you enjoy something that pains you?)
5. If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

(If the agreement of perfect people)
6. By unions married, do offend thine ear,
(When well tuned sounds are together, if it discomforts you.)
7. They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
(They will gently reprimand those who are offended.)
8. In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear./
(While you are single you are missing the parts you should play in a marriage.)
9. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

(When two strings are played together on a string instrument it makes better harmony.)
10. Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;

(The strings strike each other in a pleasant order.)
11. Resembling sire and child and happy mother,/
(The strings making harmony together resemble a happy family of a mother, father, and child.)
12. Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

(The happy family sings all together in harmony.)
13. Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,

(They aren't actually singing but them being together makes a song and they are in such great synchronization that it sounds like one person.)
14. Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
(Being single means that you will never have a family producing harmony.)

I chose this sonnet because the word music in the first line caught my eye. Music is a commonly used metaphor and I wanted to see how this sonnet would use it. It ended up focusing on the harmony of a family together and how the sounds of strings (members of a happy family) mesh together to create beautiful sounds.

Sustainability Blog Post #3

Last week was an important week for sustainability and helping the environment. There was Earth-day and the sustainability fair at our school. Earth-day wasn't very popular or advertised, but the sustainability fair was a huge success. At the fair there were booths that promoted all kinds of suggestions and ideas to make the word more sustainable. It ranged from buying organic food to cut down the costs of importing to reusing your shower water. It also helped support some businesses like one I saw that takes down houses piece by piece and then sells, but ultimately reuses everything in other houses.
In the past week, I have tried talking to my parents about alternative sources for the electricity in our house. I am trying to advertise solar energy because of the effect it will have on our energy intake and electric bill. Over the weekend we also bought compact fluorescent light bulbs and are beginning to install them.
For water conservation, it is hard because I cannot control how long they are in the shower for but I found this video that shows what happens if you are in the shower too long. {http://youtube.com/watch?v=eKYdmZ-FTV8&feature=related} We have also been air-drying all of our clothes instead of using the drying machine. I already thought of this for something my family should do, but an idea for our school to help our energy costs would be to spend a day without using any. This would probably be hard and miserable because of no air conditioning but it would raise awareness throughout the whole school.

Sustainability Blog Post #2

Over the past week, not much of my energy or water consumption has changed. I have tried to turn off lights in rooms that aren't being used but my little brother and sister keep going back into those rooms and turning them on. I will have to do something about that. Also, I realized that the light in my room stays on for quite a long time after dark because of how late I am staying up. A solution for this will be somehow convincing my teachers to give less homework. I have a fan in my room that I don't use very often but I opened my windows to let in a breeze so that if it does get hot I won't be tempted to use the fan. Since I have a lot of chargers, a radio and a lava lamp I took a power strip from my sister's room because she is on a trip. Now when everything is finished charging and I am bored of watching my lava lamp I can just unplug the whole strip.
Luckily, as for water usage, it has rained a couple of times on my hill so we haven't had to use too much water to water our plants and yard. Also, to lessen my water usage from showers I have started to take them in the morning. The reasoning for this is that instead of having no time limit to my showers at night, taking showers in the morning forces me to take a quick one so that I get to school on time. A suggestion I have for Punahou this week is to do something about the locker room showers. There are at least 30 showerheads in the locker room and after sports they are filled with people. If the people in the locker room did something about the time spent in the shower it might help their water use.

Sustainability Post #1

My definition of sustainability is, "The ability of a community or the world to be able to keep running on its own power if all outside sources fail." This means that a society can provide its own food and energy for a substantial amount of time without destroying our planet.
My family is not very great at conserving energy. We regularly have our lights on and they only go off when there are termites or during the night. We remind each other to save electricity but still don't turn out the lights if no one is in a room. Recently, my family has started recycling cans and glass or plastic products. At times it seems like it just isn't worth the labor of sorting them and taking them to the recycling trucks but its not all about the money. For water usage, we try to turn off the tap when brushing our teeth or when it is not being used but we could still lessen our showering time. For traffic I think that my family is doing quite well. We live very close to Punahou so almost everyday we walk down the hill instead of driving. We have been trying to eat healthier and add more vegetables and fruits into our meals but there is always room for more broccolis! My mom also usually buys her fruit from the farmers market in Manoa marketplace and we grow our own bananas, papayas and citrus fruits.
The two areas of improvement picked are energy and water. I picked these because they are the two with the most area for improvement. I also picked these because energy if such an easy thing that you can improve but no one really looks into it. I also chose water because Hawaii is getting desperate to lessen water usage, as it is a pure source that is beginning to diminish. To improve my energy use I will enforce turning off lights in unattended rooms and also unplugging appliances that are not being used. I could also set up a day once a month or once a week to we live in old times with no energy. As for water consumption I will set time limits for showers, dry laundry outside instead of in a dryer and regulate plant-watering times. If everyone in my family agrees with these terms we can start a new household sustainable way of living.