I really enjoy my ecochallenge. It is something I enjoy, which is trying new foods (especially because I am peskitarian) and it is also challenging enough for me. I have been trying to grocery shop at Aldi and look specifically for organic ingredients. Something I have learned (that a lot of people might already know) is that Aldi does themed weeks with their food. It adds variety to what I buy so I really enjoy it.

My challenge with avoiding plastic straws is going well. The main place that I have been avoiding them is at restaurants and fast food places. I just say that "a straw is not necessary", which is helping keep plastic out of the ocean.

My campus eco challenge is going okay, it's harder than I expected to try and find time to walk every day, or find the motivation to get up, especially if it's raining. But it's been easier the longer I'm doing, because I'm finding a schedule for my daily nature walk. It has been nice to spend more time outside on weekdays, and not just on the weekends when I have more free time to hike.

I have been naturally letting my house have a temperature with doing things like closing windows and turning off fans. My electricity provider gives monthly stats on usage rates and since I have done this more consistently I have seen less usage with the same effects just finding more creative ways to stay warm in my house consistently.This has been very useful and showed me how to use my electricity and other things more diligently to help the environment.

I took your suggestion and I used my moms recipe to make homemade granola from scratch. Because I chose to make homeade granola, I am reducing plastic use and putting healthier ingredients into my body.

For my challenge, I chose to take a 30 minute walk outside in nature everyday. So far it is going really well, I enjoy being able to get outdoors and be active. It is very relaxing for me and has become one of my favorite parts of the day. The only challenge is that it has been a bit cold some days, so I just need to bundle up on those days.

I chose four actions to take, "Turn it off" (energy), "Use a reusable water bottle" (waste), "Conserve toilet water" (water), and "5-minute showers" (water). My challenges has been doing good so far. I find the challenges related to energy, waste, and 'Conserve toilet water' are not as challenging as 5-minute showers. When I study, I go to the library most of the time, so I hardly use the light in my room. I use a water bottle and conserve water in the toilet. For '5-min showers', I succeed sometimes and sometimes I don’t, and I try not to stay long in the shower, so I set a timer.

The challenge I have chosen is reducing my use of plastic straws. I have been doing well. I never really thought about my use of plastic straws but I have found that it can be simple to avoid them. Sometimes it can be somewhat inconvenient but overall I think it's definitely worth the challenge. I think it's interesting how overlooked our use of plastic straws are, the fix is simple, stop using them. But I feel like it can be hard to make that switch if your not constantly thinking about it.

So far daily meals haven't been that hard to replace especially when I eat in my room or at Whitney. This becomes harder with snacks I eat or going out to eat, many restaurants automatically give you plastic for single use.

For my ecochallenge, I chose to do "Power Down the Computer," in the "Energy" category. For this challenge, I am supposed to power down my computer if I am not using it for more than 2 hours at a time. So far, I have learned that shutting down, restarting, and sleep mode are not the same thing. Shutting your computer down can save energy and help performance, update your computer, and help the battery health and overall health of the computer. Sleep mode suspends all activities on the computer, and in the long run can use up battery. Restarting can resolve software issues, and frees up more memory, making the computer run faster overall. This challenge is going okay so far, however, it is challenging to remember to shut my computer down if I'm not using it for 2+ hours consecutively at a time.