When I was in elementary school, I remember planting summer squash in a raised garden bed. The garden was situated in a quad in the middle of my school. I remember thinking how cool it felt to touch the soil and put something inside the soil that, with tender love and care, would eventually grow into something useful. Though that was many years ago, I never realized until recently how important that moment was for me, and how important it should be for other young students, too.
In middle school and high school, I was involved in a number of clubs, some of them involving sustainability, like BEAR Club, which stands for Bettering Ecosystems Around Rome (I used to live in Rome, Georgia). However, when I came to UGA, I still wasn’t fully aware of the importance of sustainability or even what it meant, let alone how it was related so closely to food systems, community wellbeing and climate change. My initial major was journalism, but as I was sitting in an ECOL 1000 class (which was an elective for my major) my freshman year, I learned almost everything at once- that climate change is real, that a variety of species are becoming extinct, that a lot of these problems are due to anthropogenic causes, etc. It was when my teacher started crying about the possibility that her young son would grow up without knowing what manatees are that I decided I wanted to be in a different major.
I still had a passion for writing, a dedication to creativity and a keen eye for all things art, but I suddenly had a new interest in the environment and how our interactions with it affect not only us, but species and ecosystem interactions, as well. I did some research, and after a few stressful months of Google searches and advising appointments, I switched my journalism major to something that would allow me to still do all the things a journalist does, but with a focus on the environment, the complex science that goes on within the environment, and how humans fit into the environment. The major I decided on is agricultural communications.
From my second semester of freshman year to the last day of my time at the University of Georgia, I devoted all my effort to bettering my understanding of communication and the infinite importance of raising awareness about various topics. During this time, I learned chemistry, biology, horticulture, plant biology and pathology, entomology, etc. I also learned about social structures, ethnography, community-centered communication, target audiences, social justice issues, food security, etc. The list could go on for quite a while, in fact. And that’s the beauty of my major- it covers so many science-based studies while also covering so many social-based studies, which in turn illuminates the concept of sustainability. This term that I was only mildly familiar with upon entering UGA became the most salient term in my studies and extracurricular activities.
I now understand that sustainability is more than just recycling or volunteering at a trash pickup every once in a while. Rather, sustainability is meeting our current needs without jeopardizing the needs of future generations and doing so through a lens of consideration- consideration for the social, economic and environmental aspects of any institution, project or entity. In the future, I hope to use my degree to communicate the simplicities and intricacies of sustainability to various target audiences. This portfolio and my capstone project are prime examples of what I mean by educating people about sustainability through creativity. Overall, I want my work to allow people to have that very important and necessary feeling of connection with Earth and all it has to offer, just like I did for the first time when I planted summer squash in elementary school. That feeling is what makes people care, and when people care, action takes place. The world becomes better.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy my work!