AIS Individual Portfolio Assignment
Laura Cortez AIS-1203-002
For my Individual Portfolio I focused on Social Responsibility. Within this theme I wanted to focus on environment sustainability because I have always been super interested in the environment. With rising climate change issues, I feel now it is more important to be informed on what we can do better. Also a main point I really wanted to focus on is what college students can do to help the environment.
When an individual thinks of going green these ideas are what they think of.
However, in college being environmentally conscious can be hard. The first step to making a change is doing research to learn more.
RESEARCH
I researched articles about environmental sustainability. From this research I learned why certain people engage in climate change issues more while others stray away from the topic. I also studied the factors that affect what makes the message more or less engaging among different audiences. Factors include gender, political affiliation, race etc. I also researched the history of higher education(aka colleges) and its role in aiding environmental sustainability. Lastly, my research gave me a better insight on how to connect college students to this topic more and it leads into the activities I chose to participate in.
Sources - Annotated Bibliography
- Scholarly Journal called the Environmental Research and Public Health
- Scholarly Book called Education and Climate Change.
- Scholarly Journal of Cleaner Production
I also had an interest to learn more about the fashion industry and its affect on the environment.
Article Title - Waste Is Out of Fashion
Fun fact - About 85 % of clothes end up in landfills or burned.
- Many of our clothes are made with plastic so the textiles aren't recyclable in the first place.
- In the fashion industry there are no laws that regulate them from not using plastic fibers in their clothes.
- A lot of clothing waste actually comes from manufactures due to overproduction of goods the waste end up in landfills.
- In order to stop the excessive amounts of waste we need to make laws to regulate the overproduction of goods in order to make a change
Source - “The Fashion Industry Waste Is Drastically Contributing to Climate Change.” CALPIRG, 14 Sept. 2022, https://pirg.org/california/articles/the-fashion-industry-waste-is-drastically-contributing-to-climate-change/.
WHAT I DID
Involvement Within Clubs on Campus
I joined the TexasRising Club at UTSA. They're a nonprofit organization whose main goal is to provide college students the opportunity to advocate for a better future. Regarding reproductive rights, voting rights, and environmental rights.
Another club I joined was The Green Society at UTSA. They're also a nonprofit organization whose main goal is to promote environmental sustainability.
The picture in the middle is from the first meeting we attended. Texas Rising talked about what their group was and their main goals for the school year while also providing a fun decorating activity.
Advocated Environmental Sustainability Around Campus
I made flyers and put them up around campus. The poster gives tips on how to be more sustainable on campus. For example the bullet points states -
Wash, dry, and recycle food containers and bring reusable bags to local grocery stores instead of using an excessive amount of plastic bags.
Trash Pick-Up
As a group, we volunteered to pick up trash on local trails in San Antonio through the organization Trail Steward with Cibolo Center for Conservation. We spent a couple hours in the afternoon walking through nature and picking up trash. Surprisingly it was pretty clean on the trails however campus is a different story.
The trash-pick-up is an easy activity that any college student can do. You don't even have to drive anywhere. An easy idea could be to go around campus and pick up trash. People love to litter!
Community Volunteer Opportunity
We also volunteered at the Stephen's Care Center food distribution center and helped by organizing different foods such as yams, onions, carrots, and packaged foods.
The center gives people who need extra help an opportunity to go grocery shopping in the community all for free.
While both of these activities I did within my bold engagement group. They both attained to my theme in social responsibility because becoming socially responsible and helping out the environment was seen with our trash-pick up. While my theme is also evident when it comes to St. Stephen's Care. They gave us a chance to learn about waste and recycling in the community.
Daily Things I Changed and You can too!
- Switched to a reusable water bottle instead of buying a big pack of plastic water bottles at the store
- Instead of buying brand new clothes from the mall, I go thrifting instead. SO many clothes end up in landfills from fast fashion, we can help reduce that number by shopping second hand.
- Purchased reusable bags instead of using plastic bags at the grocery store
- RECYCLE!
- stop using single-use plastic
Reflection
Tools that would have made me even more successful
- More time, even though I know this class is only a semester if I continued this project throughout the whole school year the amount of environmental activities I could have contributed to would have been so much more.
-Time management is also another tool, having a semester long project requires self-paced work and individual accountability. This assignment also requires us to balance not only this portfolio, but all our other classes, work and social life.
How I will continue to help the environment
I will continue to stay informed by doing research on the environment and staying aware of what's happening around us. Also I will continue to attend club meetings and practice environmental sustainability throughout my everyday life.
