I will visit seafoodwatch.org or download the app and commit to making better seafood choices for a healthier ocean.
COMPLETED 3
DAILY ACTIONS
Health
Joyful Movement
I will spend 20 minutes doing an activity where I'm both moving my body and enjoying myself.
COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION
Energy
Upgrade My Windows
I will upgrade the windows or weatherstripping in my home or office to reduce air leaks and save on energy costs.
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Transportation
Use Public Transit
I will use public transit 5 mile(s) each day and avoid sending up to (___) lbs of CO2 into Earth's atmosphere.
COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS
Waste
Use a Reusable Water Bottle
I will keep 1 disposable plastic bottle(s) from entering the waste stream by using a reusable water bottle.
COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS
Food
Whole Food Lifestyle
I will enjoy 2 meal(s) each day free of processed foods.
COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS
Food
Zero-Waste Cooking
I will cook 3 meal(s) with zero-waste each day
COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS
Food
Plant an Herb Garden
I will plant an herb garden in my home, workplace, or dorm room.
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Health
Take Control
Both systemic and personal sustainability are important! I will develop a plan with my medical professionals to achieve my best health and live my life to the fullest.
COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Health
Exercise Daily
Exercise is a great stress blaster! I will exercise for 60 minute(s) each day.
COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION
Transportation
Stay on the Ground
Instead of traveling by plane, I will find an alternative way to accomplish the goals of an upcoming trip (i.e. telepresence, vacation locally).
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Transportation
Support Public Transportation
Access to public transportation enables more opportunity and a better quality of life. I will make 2 phone call(s) and/or send 4 emails per day to public officials to advocate for a more comprehensive public transportation system in my region.
COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS
Energy
Online Energy Audit
I will complete an online energy audit of my home, office, or dorm room and identify my next steps for saving energy.
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Health
Healthy Sleep
Effectively working for sustainability requires self care! I will commit to getting 30 more minute(s) of sleep each night to achieve at least 7 hours per night.
COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS
Transportation
Improve a Bus Stop
I will improve a bus stop in my neighborhood by posting the stop schedule, adding seating or shelter, adding art or flowers, picking up litter, or some other small improvement.
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Energy
Learn About Renewable Energy
I will spend 15 minutes learning more about renewable energy alternatives (i.e. solar, wind, biomass) in my region.
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Water
5-Minute Showers
I will save up to 20 gallons (75 L) of water each day by taking 5-minute showers.
COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS
Participant Feed
Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.
To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?
I have up till now bought a planner every year. This year I decided to make my own. It was a long process; so much so that people are continually going ‘oh my gosh’ when I open the thing. Needless to say, there’s definitely a Portland street-cred for DIY projects. I was so motivated that I got some paper from the Cramer re-use room and made a wall calendar for my partner and I to put our appointments on.
This term I’ve learned a lot about waste, capitalism, and consumerism. Making something yourself out of something you already have or that already is nearby is much better for society than purchasing something new (especially something made elsewhere by people who have fewer protections against industrial forces!). And then one last note, unfortunately my family (not in the know on the buying no-no) gifted me a planner which I then, don’t worry, re-gifted it to a friend.
My current reality is, unfortunately, driving to school in bad weather. (I like to bicycle but winter commuting is a whole ‘nother ballgame). The climate impact of single-person cars downtown is huge. Beyond the obvious carbon impacts, cars have land-use impacts, pollution, and externalized human costs (Congolese cobalt deaths). My plan is to utilize a multi-method transportation that keeps me warm, dry, and sustainable. I have begun carpooling, using the streetcar, and using a connecting bus (which I normally hate doing). For the little walking there is left, I plan to streamline my winter clothing so I have less decisions to make when it’s rainy, and less to carry around at school (like a puffy jacket and lightweight shell)
Somehow I’d like to highlight the scrappy simplicity and low-key excitement of combining multiple forms of transportation.
Pierre i carry a lightweight rain jacket and rain pants all winter so i can wear whatever and just put those over my clothes. its definitely a puzzle putting together mass transit
What I Did: I decided to not print out my readings for this week. I wanted a way to seamlessly read on all my devices (phone, e-reader, computer) and fumbled my way into just using a Kindle. I can upload unlimited documents onto the Kindle and with the built-in bookmarking I pick up where I left off when I’m switching devices. I like that I don’t have file access to the cloud storage and can’t accidently delete it. Side note, I have a printer but it only prints one sided, unfortunate for sure.
Challenges: It was tough to use Amazon!!!. It’s always tough using a problematic product/company, but ultimately, I thought: what’s going to help climate change is me getting my degree, not opting out of every harmful individual level choice. It’s a mantra that helps me sleep better even if it’s not necessarily true.
Rewards: Reading was more challenging than on paper for sure. I couldn’t annotate the margins, but my electronic notes were easier to use in class.
that is awesome that your bookmark can show up on multiple devices! i need to figure that one out...and yes. we can't always make the most sustainable choice. ..
My community footprint is sorely lacking. I don’t volunteer, teach, help, or even interact with people outside of school right now. So anyhow for this community ecochallenge I had planned to go to a PSU event, the “Career Convos: Social Impact Mixer” on Wednesday the 12th from 4-6pm. Instead I left campus at 2pm because of and to prep for the incoming icestorm. While at the grocery store stocking up I found myself looking at the organizations that were listed at the career convos event and found ‘Write Around Portland’, a non-profit storytelling lab. I filled out an application to volunteer and am waiting to hear back.
During: I took a look at a water footprint calculator here: Dish Washing and Saving Water - Water Footprint Calculator. I started using the dishwasher more and cleaned the machine’s drain of yucked up food stuffs. And then for loading the dishwasher, I rinsed dishes less in running water and instead would plug the sink and let the dishes rinse more in standing water. Because soaking dishes can still use a lot of unnecessary water; I get my sink full of (grey) water from the leftover water after washing my hands/handwashing.
After: I honestly enjoy doing dishes by hand and the sound of running water so this challenge was more difficult than some of the others. Another difficulty with using less water more generally is that I don’t have any before/after data. I wish there was a way to keep track of water use. If not deep infrastructure (like a meter), then a sink or showerhead with a display that shows total gallons or averages. They could follow the example of cars with gamified fuel economy.
Filling your sink with grey water for soaking dishes as opposed to clean water is a good idea--I never would have thought of that! Even if this challenge was difficult for you, I think you have some great suggestions for improvement of water waste.
I also mixed up my food and energy challenges so I've reclassified my muscles pasta as energy and am doing another food post. I had some fruit that was getting old and thought 'why not turn that into a thing'. Someone in class mentioned how easy it is to make jam so here it goes, wham-bam-ka-jam.
Ingredients:
6 Anjou pears
4 Cara cara oranges
1 Lemon
I've never done this before so I just googled around for recipes and came across folks sanitizing the glass jars and adding a preservative or two. That lead me to boiling jars and lemoning the concoction. After about an hour and a half of simmering it was done! Delicious.
It's definitely more of a compote than jam but so far, I've added it to smoothies, yogurt, and bread; very versatile and all made with overly ripe fruit. In hindsight I wish I could have added some savory spices to make it a little less sweet. The compote has no added sugar (adding sugar would have been less than sustainable) but is sweeter than summer rain.
Even if I keep buying jam at the grocery store, it's nice knowing I have a fancy fruit reduction for picnics and birthdays and times of ripened abundance.
My ecochange challenge was cooking less beef. But then my ecochange, because I still needed to eat, was finding an alternative. After some research I decided on farmed muscles because they clean and filter the water around them. In contrast to muscles, farmed fish often has a negative ecologic impact on the nearby watersheds (the concentrated waste runoff). Anyhow I took the muscles and made a pasta (something I normally just add a pound of ground beef too). Here's how it went.
Pasta with mussels, shrimp, and pesto 4 tablespoons olive oil 1 red onion, finely chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 pounds mussels, scrubbed and debearded 2 cup dry white wine 1 yellow bell pepper, seeded, deribbed, and diced 1 red bell pepper, seeded, deribbed, and diced 8 mushrooms, sliced 5 ounces shrimp, peeled and deveined 1 pound tagliatelle 1 cup pesto Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Fresh basil sprigs, for garnish
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a stockpot. Sauté the onion and garlic until soft. Add the mussels. Add the white wine. Cover and cook over high heat until the mussels open. Discard any mussels that do not open. Let cool to the touch and remove the mussels from the shells, reserving the juice. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet. Sauté the bell peppers, mushrooms, and shrimp until golden brown. Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente. Drain. Toss the pasta with the pesto. Mix the pasta, vegetables, salt, and pepper together. Mix the mussels into the pasta, together with some of the mussel juice. Serve pasta on a platter, garnished with basil.
Very important note! It turns out the muscles have to be alive when you cook them. I threw out ~70 grams of dead, poisonous muscles. (I didn't realize they were alive till I got home with the bag and am still processing the whole mass murder of it all).
My current reality is, unfortunately, driving to school in bad weather. (I like to bicycle but winter commuting is a whole ‘nother ballgame). The climate impact of single-person cars downtown is huge. Beyond the obvious carbon impacts, cars have land-use impacts, pollution, and externalized human costs (Congolese cobalt deaths). My plan is to utilize a multi-method transportation that keeps me warm, dry, and sustainable. I have begun carpooling, using the streetcar, and using a connecting bus (which I normally hate doing). For the little walking there is left, I plan to streamline my winter clothing so I have less decisions to make when it’s rainy, and less to carry around at school (like a puffy jacket and lightweight shell)
Somehow I’d like to highlight the scrappy simplicity and low-key excitement of combining multiple forms of transportation.
Amy Minato 2/21/2025 1:36 PM
paige Herkemij 2/17/2025 9:21 PM
Kit Stauf 2/09/2025 10:51 PMFilling your sink with grey water for soaking dishes as opposed to clean water is a good idea--I never would have thought of that! Even if this challenge was difficult for you, I think you have some great suggestions for improvement of water waste.
