As the prompt has guessed, I am feeling a bit stuck in this process. Hopefully in this post I’ll be able work through the ideas I have one by one to determine whether I should rule them out or hold on to them for further investigation. From my interviews and the ideas I’ve had since starting the class, I’ve compiled a short list of issues I might want to explore more. 

When I first started this course, one of the biggest Vermont issues I knew and cared about was the declining water quality of Lake Champlain. I’d first heard about this in my AP Environmental Science class two years ago. We studied our own Lamoille River and found that the nitrate and phosphate levels were extremely high, most likely from the manure running into the river from the farm right next to the water. If that was an issue in our own small river running through Morrisville, imagine all of the other places in Vermont where manure and other contaminants are able to seep into waterways and how those rivers and brooks all lead to the large lakes in Vermont where this excess of nutrients is able to collect. When I interviewed Ms. Tymon, I realized there hadn’t really been any change in the right direction on this issue and that millions of dollars were going into fixing the lakes, which isn’t solving the real problem. Someone needs to rally to protect the smaller bodies of water that run into those large lakes. Why couldn’t that be a group of students? One issue is that we would never be able to become experts on this issue the same way people with degrees that deal with this for a living understand it. Although this is an issue I am passionate about it, adding to the conversation might be a challenge that is out of reach (but give me feedback if you disagree).

The other is about sustainable development. When it comes to how we build, or the way we construct roads, or the energy sources we invest in, there are ways to improve our state without degrading our natural resources. Although awareness is really the way to improve this issue, people often just tune out when it comes to sustainability, but maybe if a group of students whose futures will be affected by the decisions made today said something, people would listen. I could go on and on about the wide range of issues within this topic but when considering if any of those topics would be worth researching further it comes down to this: even if people would be willing to listen, would we have anything new to say? I’m still not sure what the answer to that question is.

I came into this class with the intention of focusing on an issue that had some relation to the environment since that is what I’m most passionate about, so this would be a perfect opportunity to have an even greater understanding of one single topic that I could get behind. But as Penny brought up (one of my interviewees last week), environmental issues are harder to tackle and by taking on one of these issues, I may end up “biting off more than I can chew”. 

I’ve also become really interested in exploring this idea of cross cultural communication between young students. This is the issue that I feel the strongest personal connection to and I think I could add my own perspective to the larger conversation around this topic. When I was fifteen, my best friend and I traveled by ourselves to France and stayed with a family I had only communicated with via letters in the past. Etell had been my “penpal” since I was twelve and getting those letters from her every month amazed me whenever I thought about how far they had traveled. When I finally got to go to France, I learned so much about their culture just by being in it everyday and I found myself comparing and contrasting the differences between our two ways of life without prompts or guidelines to go by. In my opinion, the best way to learn about another culture, is to meet and learn from the people that live in it everyday. Although most students don’t have the opportunity to travel to their childhood penpal’s house, there are other ways to have kids interact with other students from around the world. It is so important, especially today, to influence the future generation to accept and appreciate people who are different from them and want to learn about those differences instead of shying away from the unknown.

Image citation

“Living in Japan: Pros and Cons.” Nippaku, Wordpress, 21 Sept. 2015, nippaku.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/living- in-japan-pros-and-cons/.