Julia McLagan

For the final week of the Eco challenge I decided to choose challenges that would not be too difficult to add on to what I already had on my plate. This may seem a bit lazy, but as professors are piling on the work and exams right before spring break, I was trying to be realistic as to what I thought I could accomplish. I chose two daily challenges that involved researching environmental issues and telling 2 friends about them, one was based on public transportation and the other about any environmental issue that I was passionate about. Most of this involved ranting to my roommate about various climate change related impacts and issues surrounding public transportation, and luckily she is my very good friend so she was able to put up with it for the week. It made for some good before bed time conversation. Almost all of my friends have some sort of interest in the environment so I found it pretty easy to carry out conversations with them on these topics. I also chose the one time challenges of watching a documentary about food sovereignty and planting an eco friendly garden. At home, my mom and I have always talked about planting a garden of native plants. Seeing that some of the challenges involved planting gardens, I talked to my mom last week about the eco challenge and she seemed very interested in moving forward with our plans to plant a native species garden. We are planning to get the supplies we need and choose plants and mulching methods while I am home over spring break. Due to the record breaking amounts of snowfall in Minnesota, however, we may have to wait for a while to fully complete this challenge. Regardless, I am excited to see how everything turns out in the spring and summer!
The biggest barrier that I have noticed over the duration of the eco challenge is time. It is very difficult to work in something like watching a documentary about food sovereignty when we already have so much on our plates as college students. However, it has been really interesting to see what it would be like to truly live as an environmental activist for a while. It takes a lot of conscious thought and constant reminders to yourself to make time for what you have morally obligated yourself to do.
It was interesting to read about rain gardens in the resources of the eco friendly gardening challenge because it is something I would not necessarily think to do when creating a garden. I always thought that it would not be feasible in my small backyard, but I think that even a small rain garden would have a big impact on the runoff from my community. I live in a city so there are tons of impervious surfaces and not enough chemical free landscaping and soil to allow for healthy runoff. Hopefully, if I implement a rain garden in my yard at home I can make it beautiful and encourage others in the neighborhood to do so as well. This change would be something permanent that I could monitor for years to come.

As with every week of this challenge, it has gotten increasingly difficult, but at the same time I have also noticed that many of the challenges are becoming second nature to me. In the past, I had to think a lot about making 2 of my meals a day vegan whereas now I am in more of a routine where I get a vegan breakfast everyday (still obsessed with vegan earth balance butter and have not grown tired of it yet :) ) and then choose if I want a vegan lunch or dinner based on what is being offered at the V2 station on that day. I have also adjusted my schedule everyday so that I can see the sunset whether that is stopping and looking at it on my way to dinner or moving my homework breaks to take a short walk and see it that way. This week, I leveled up to using reusable bags, meditating 10 minutes a day, powering down my computer for 2 hours a day while I am not using it, and the one time challenges of improving a bus stop and supporting native communities. It is really challenging for me to find time to do the one time challenges since they do not have the same routine as daily challenges. It is hard to fit them into my schedule especially with extra studying for exams this past week. I hope I will be able to get to them this weekend, though, since I really look forward to completing them it is just time that is serving as a barrier (subtle reference to the article we read for Tuesday). My favorite challenge this week was definitely meditating! It is something I have done many times in the past but never really made a routine habit out of and I am so glad that I did for this week. I downloaded Headspace and started falling asleep to their “Sleepcast” meditations, and my favorite is the story based around a cat marina which is just as great as it sounds. Who doesn’t want to fall asleep listening to a calming voice with ambient waves and meows describing the various cats that live on boats in a beautiful marina? Every sleepcast begins with a wind down which always relaxes me so quickly that I often don’t even stay awake for the cat stories unfortunately. I have noticed that I sleep much better though and can fall asleep a lot quicker. It has become my favorite part of the day and I really look forward to meditating tonight!
Specific to my reusable bags challenge, the only barrier I have in making this permanent is that I need a better system of reminding myself to bring reusable bags. I have plenty of them, but I often get to the store and then realize I left my bags at home. I need to devise some sort of system so that I never forget them, maybe by hanging them on the back of my door or hanging a big sign reminding me NOT TO FORGET MY REUSABLE BAGS.
The challenge of powering down my computer really surprised me and inspired me to make this change permanently. I never realized that keeping my laptop on was contributing a pound of CO2 to the environment for every 2 hours that it is on. The resource “Shrink Your Dorm Print” also informed me that dimming the brightness on my laptop screen could contribute to better sleep at night and help me feel more drowsy. With that and meditation, it looks like the eco-challenge is bringing me the best sleep I have gotten in college!

This week, I added on the daily challenges of eating 2 vegan meals a day, writing down 3 things I am grateful for, and de-cluttering my dorm room. My one time challenge is to audit toxic cleaning products in my home, which I have not yet completed. Adding more challenges was definitely a difficult change to adjust to at first. I had to keep reminding myself of everything that I was committed to. Luckily, I had already made pretty good habits of watching the sunset everyday and using a reusable mug, which were my daily challenges from last week. I already am a vegetarian and have gone vegan for periods of time in the past, so eating 2 vegan meals was not very difficult in theory, I just had to remember to do so. I will admit that it is very hard for me to resist cheese, but I just need to constantly remind myself of the environmental impact of producing cheese and it keeps me away for some time :). I have found my new favorite thing in the caf which is the vegan earth balance butter! It is incredibly delicious and I highly recommend it; it has gotten me through many vegan breakfasts this week. The daily challenge of de-cluttering my dorm room could not have come at a better time, as I finally got approved for a room change last Friday when we were to begin our new challenges. Everyday since then I have spent chipping away at organizing my new room, and it was really great to be able to simplify my life and have a more deliberate organization structure. Now I have plenty of things I realize I do not need anymore to ship home, so it will feel great to get those items out of my room this weekend! As for writing 3 things that I am grateful for everyday, I have really enjoyed setting aside time to reflect on my day and be present with myself. Even though my challenges this week were not as much geared toward direct environmental impacts, I feel as though I am exiting this second week with a much clearer head and open mind. I never realized that I need the time to reflect on myself and organize my life until I was forced to set aside time to do so.
In terms of making these changes permanent, I think that the only unrealistic one is eating more vegan meals. As I mentioned before, I really love cheese, and it is also very difficult to eat vegan in the caf when there are not very many options. However, it is relatively easy for me to eat a vegan breakfast so I may incorporate that into my daily life moving forward. I also think it would be difficult for me to de-clutter my room on a daily basis, since I am a slightly messy person by nature and feel comforted by a little bit of mess in my room. It would be a good habit to pick up though and would keep me from being lazy and letting my dishes and laundry pile up. I am really hoping to incorporate writing down 3 things that I am grateful for everyday because it is a short and simple task that has a great affect on my day and my mood.
Looking at my resources this week, I noticed that the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals popped up in the audit toxic cleaning products challenge! I have spent a lot of time working with and learning about these SDGs throughout various different projects in high school and they have always been a huge topic of interest for me. The SDG connected to the toxic cleaning product audit is “Good Health and Wellbeing” and I really enjoyed brushing up on this goal. I feel as though health and wellbeing is often overlooked as a sustainable goal because most of us think that sustainability only has to do with the environment. But how will we sustain future generations without a global population of healthy minds and bodies?

I had a lot of fun completing my challenges this week! I picked challenges that would be relatively easy to incorporate into my daily lifestyle which included using a reusable mug and watching the sunrise or sunset everyday. My one time challenge I will be completing tonight which is to host a watch party for an environmental documentary. I am very excited! I love documentaries and I love watching movies with friends so this challenge will be very easy for me to complete. As for using a reusable mug, this was relatively easy to accommodate. I often use reusable mugs when I make my own coffee, but sometimes I am too tired in the morning and just grab a cappuccino at 7th Street. However, I recently learned that you can bring in your own container and they will not only put your coffee in it but you will receive a sticker and get 25 cents off if you use the reusable container again! This was very exciting to find out and will definitely make my life easier and more sustainable in the future. The most challenging action for me this week has been watching the sunrise or sunset. Thes sunrise is simply too early for me to get out of bed for, so I opt for viewing the sunset at around 5:30 pm. Unfortunately, the past few days this week have been pretty cloudy, so I don’t get as much of a beautiful sunset and rather a slowly darkening gray sky. However, it has allowed me to appreciate nature more in realizing that the weather patterns are not created to fit my eco challenge schedule.
There are just a few barriers in making these changes to my lifestyle permanent ones. I do not think it is realistic for me at this time in my life to watch the sunrise and/or sunset everyday, since I am a college student who values her sleep. The sunset is also at a difficult time because I am often studying or eating, and then see what time it is, drop what I’m doing, and sprint outside to the quad for the best view. However, with better planning I can see this evolving into a permanent change in my life, as I love the time to take a short walk, take a break, be with nature, and reflect on my day.
I am willing to make these changes permanent. If I hold myself to these actions and hold myself accountable, I strongly believe that I could make these into habits. Especially hosting an environmental documentary watch party because I am super into hosting events. The resource for this one time challenge talked about hosting an eco-party, which is not necessarily what I am hosting tonight, but seems like something I would be very interested in hosting in the future. The Center for Earth Leadership states that to host an eco-party, all you have to do is invite people over, provide refreshments, and discuss your sustainable home lifestyles. This seems like a great way to teach others about my habits and learn new ones to pick up as well.