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These chapters reminded me a lot of the virtual urban field of Babcock Ranch that I did. I related a lot of the information from the website and the project such as solar power to the text. In chapter 10, on pages 189-192 when it talks about solar heating, that is what reminded me of Babcock Ranch and how they have the many acres of solar panels to power their entire area. I also am back in Fort Myers, and I was very excited to see the exit for Babcock Ranch because I recognized it. Further down in Chapter 10, I did already have a little bit of knowledge about LEED. From being a Tour Guide, I already knew that Seidler Hall on campus is LEED Platinum certified, and 75% of the waste from building that hall was recycled. We always tell guests about the certification to support our school being a green campus. The questions that I have are mainly for Chapter 11 because a lot of the information that I learned I didn't really know before. I wonder if this would actually happen in real life and if the US would eventually have sustainable cities in every city. I am skeptical about if we as humans will have to pay more taxes for more environmentally sustainable cities and how expensive it would be.

The social media post that I found this week is once again from @bbcnews on Instagram. The post is entitled, "The Schools Built from Plastic Waste." It states, "A community in Ivory Coast, West Africa, has partnered up with UNICEF to transform landfill waste into bricks for schools. It means the classrooms cost almost half to build and can be built using just a hammer. Since 2018, 26 classrooms have been created from plastic waste" (BBC) I believe that this correlates to the text because in Chapter 10 on page 198, it talks about the construction of buildings. It says that the majority of city buildings are made from concrete, but the article talks about how schools are able to be built from landfill waste and they are able to convert that into bricks. The language that BBC is using seems to be just news related. There is no opinion tied to it so the perspective remains neutral for the most part. I think that this is an important article that needs to be read and shared because there are buildings that can be made from recycled material, as well as providing a place for 3rd-world countries to have education centers for children to learn. This was posted 19 weeks ago, pre-corona.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/B71GeH2JzKb/
PDF: file:///Users/Maria/Downloads/Chapter%2010.pdf
file:///Users/Maria/Downloads/Chapter%2011.pdf

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BBC News (@bbcnews)

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A lot of the information that i read in the chapters for this week is new stuff for me. I personally found it very interesting. Although reading it all the way through was very heavy and hard to do, I somehow managed and was able to comprehend most of the material.
I fortunately knew a lot about pesticides, soil from Ch. 12 (Pages 223-224) from having plants in my home that I take care of. I know a lot about the water cycle as well from previous biology courses that I took prior to this class.
From Chapter 14 (pages 274-284), I learned a little more about recycling than I already knew. I found it interesting how plastic bottles  could not be made into more plastic bottles. I always had the preconceived notion that you could create anything out of plastic, especially plastic itself.
The one thing that I am skeptical about is how much plastic we are wasting and putting out into the world. I'm afraid that our planet will just become plastic in the far future because it does not breakdown fast at all.

The social media post that I found from BBC on Instagram this week was about the amount of cardboard boxes being overused and wasted. The article talks about a new machine that is able to recycle the boxes and create new ones from the old ones. It says that it is able to make 10 new boxes out of one large box. This may help our recycling of cardboard in society because we often online shop and receive items in cardboard boxes because they are created very easily. This was posted back in December of 2019 prior the the Corona Virus starting. I believe that the production of cardboard boxes has most likely significantly increased due to the stay at home order and people shopping online more frequently now.
Compared to the news accounts I follow, my feed in general does not really touch on sustainability because the majority of the accounts I follow are my peers in college. Once I graduate and I am following less people and more companies and businesses, then I believe my feed will be more about the world and current events.

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5-Hl-KpaOS/
PDF Textbook:
file:///Users/Maria/Downloads/Chapter12Food.pdf
file:///Users/Maria/Downloads/Chapter14WasteAndRecycling.pdf

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One account that I follow that posts updates on Florida waters is our own FGCU Vester Marine Field Station located in Bonita Springs, Florida. This posting was a while ago, but in July of 2019 last year, students engaged in mangrove propagation.(@fgcu_vester) Their caption states: "FGCU volunteers getting their service learning hours completed through conservation! We ‘harvested’ mangrove propagules this morning so that they can be replanted and regrown manually." After doing more insight and research on our Florida Mangroves, I learned that mangroves are very beneficial towards water life. "Mangroves provide protected nursery areas for fish,crustaceans, and shellfish. Their roots provide attachment surfaces for various marine organisms which filter water through their bodies, and in turn, trap and cycle nutrients."(Florida Department of Environmental Protection)
Florida's mangroves have significantly decreased within the past couple of years due to human pollution and colonization. FGCU's students and the groundbreaking Water School will educate students to protect our mangroves and gulf-life in general. Mangroves can also act as green roofs as mentioned on page 107 of chapter 6. They protect the bottom of the gulf and allow fish and other living organisms to not be disturbed by rain water or storm run off.

The news source that I chose to follow at the beginning of the semester, BBC news, posted on May 1st the article, "What happens to Micro-plastics?" (@bbcnews) After watching the video, it is learned that "the plastic that we see on the surface of the water is only 1% of marine plastic."(@bbcnews)
Both of the people that were reporting in this articles were college professors across the seas in Europe. The first is Professor Elda Miramontes of University of Bremen, Germany, and the second is Dr. Ian Kane of the University of Manchester. Kane states, "There are fragile ecosystems on the seafloor which depend on the nutrients and oxygen which have been flushed by these ocean currents. These currents are transporting micro-plastics to the same place as the fragile ecosystems exists."(@bbcnews) Relating back to the text, Micro-plastics can also increase the number of 'Total Suspended Solids (TSS) which in turn, increases the turbidity and blocks the sun from reaching the ecosystems at the bottom of the sea.'(PDF Robertson, Chapter 8, page 140) On Page 145, the text talks about point sources and non-point sources. Micro-plastics can come from either or. For example, a point source could be someone directly throwing a plastic bottle or any plastic into the water, whereas a non-point source could be various landfills or the streets with collected trash and storm runoff which ultimately pollute the water, resulting in micro-plastics that cover the bottom.

The last news article I found is from the NY Times website. The headline is "The Michigan Dam Failures Are A Warning" referencing the most recent dam breaking in Michigan. The article states, "Flood waters spilled into a chemical plant and superfund site, in the state of emergency, 10,000 people were evacuated." (NY TIMES) Correlating back to the text, in Ch. 6 on page 94, it states, "Dams present a major threat to biodiversity, they alter the natural flows of rivers and interrupt natural processes and damaging ecosystems." This relates because although the dam collapsing was very hindering towards our community as people, in reality, it probably will help the ecosystems that were around the dam that way fish do not have to be blocked when they try to swim upstream for migration.

Pollution get discussed in all 3 of these articles because they provide evidence on how micro-plastics, dams, and human colonization are affecting the natural habitats and ecosystems of the waters and are harming them. Compared to my normal feed on social media, I do not see many posts about the environment because I have never really been exposed to being eco-friendly before. As i mentioned in my previous posts, I am trying to be more eco friendly this year because I follow vegan minimalist people, but I have never really focused on actual environmental sustainability before in my life. I catch onto trends such as paper straws and metal straws and that the plastic ones kill sea turtles, but I have never done my own research like this before.

According to the website, Earth Law Center.org, it states that Hawaii will be putting a ban on sunscreen ingredients that harm the coral reefs, Oxybenzone and Octinoxate. It says that this act will be put into action in 2021, next year. These 2 ingredients would be considered Organic pollutants because they contain the elements carbon and hydrogen. Oxybenzone is C14H12O3 and Octinoxate or Octyl methoxycinnamate is C18H26O3. On page 142 of Chapter 8, it talks all about organic pollutants. These manmade chemical can cause damage to coral reefs and also bleach them as well. (EarthLawCenter)

References:
How Plants Cope in the Mangroves: Vivipary. mangrove.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/text/1044.htm.

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

“Reproductive Strategies of Mangroves.” Mangrove Reproduction, www.nhmi.org/mangroves/rep.htm.

“Florida's Mangroves.” Florida Department of Environmental Protection, floridadep.gov/rcp/rcp/content/floridas-mangroves.

Lall, Upmanu, and Paulina Concha Larrauri. “The Michigan Dam Failures Are a Warning.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 May 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/opinion/michigan-edenville-dam.html.

Lee, Darlene. “Protect the Environment/Right of Nature.” Earth Law Center | The Solution to Toughest Environmental Challenges, Earth Law Center | The Solution to Toughest Environmental Challenges, 14 Aug. 2019, www.earthlawcenter.org/blog-entries/2019/8/local-communities-take-the-lead-on-addressing-environmental-issues?gclid=Cj0KCQjwn7j2BRDrARIsAHJkxmyiFkBsf5jINRbTpAB2G5IUVIUrlgPM9yv_x8zUIp4fse3M9oZ5QCIaAsefEALw_wcB.

Belluz, Julia. “Hawaii Is Banning Sunscreens That Kill Coral Reefs.” Vox, Vox, 2 July 2018, www.vox.com/2018/7/2/17525496/hawaii-banning-sunscreen.

Instagram:
BBCnews
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_pPiXJJ4WV/

FGCU Vester
https://www.instagram.com/p/BzbDgShgaYp/

NY TIMES website
Lall, Upmanu, and Paulina Concha Larrauri. “The Michigan Dam Failures Are a Warning.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 May 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/opinion/michigan-edenville-dam.html.

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In the past 30 days, a couple of the accounts that I have recently followed have posted articles/discussions/facts on subjects that were founded in the chapter pdfs. The news Instagram account I follow, BBC news, posted today (8 hours ago) the Top 10 ways to reduce your carbon footprint. As stated in the Chapter 1 pdf, the ecological footprint is the mark that we leave on the environment that creates a more sustainable atmosphere in which we live. The carbon foot print is the opposite. For example, if we use our cars to drive to the grocery store verses biking there, we are increasing our carbon footprint. In the post, it talks about reducing the amount of car rides you take daily, taking public transportation, and going vegan increases your ecological footprint by a landslide once added altogether.
For a post that is older than 30 days, my favorite vlogger, Pick Up Limes posted last April on Earth Day a whole post that was about being vegan and how it helps the environment. In the Ch. 2 pdf, it briefly talks about the Animal Rights Laws that were enacted to protect animals from cruelty of any kind. The majority of Vegans chose to become plant based because of this law, and that it increases their health as well. In her post she states, "We each have our own way to minimize our impact, or even to give back: following a plant based diet, skipping the straw, recycling, minimizing waste.. etc." Pick Up limes uses a tone of comfort and encouragement to want to inspire her viewers and followers to live the same lifestyle because it will help the planet. I find that whenever someone uses a more calming approach towards a belief or lifestyle, I am more drawn to it than if someone is forcing the lifestyle on me in a harsh way. Sadia (pul) is a very peaceful human being who genuinely cares and loves the earth. Her actions and positive attitude towards life makes me want to be like her and to want to love the Earth just as much as she does.

References:
Pick Up Limes post
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwku5Jwlx1r/
BBC post
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAa6iGdpe6M/
PDFs
file:///Users/Maria/Downloads/Chapter%202.pdf
file:///Users/Maria/Downloads/Chapter%201.pdf

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Although I use a couple different social media platforms, I mainly use Instagram when it comes to following different influencers or activists. I already followed a couple accounts that revolved around sustainability. I already followed Sadia Badiei or Pick Up Limes, who is a Vegan and minimal activist who centers her life on wholesome living while nourishing the inner soul. She has a YouTube account which I am subscribed to and posts biweekly about either minimal lifestyles, vegan recipes, or mindful living.
I recently followed 'Girlfriend Collective' which is an athletic clothing line that creates active wear out of old  recycled water bottles.
I also followed an account on Instagram titled "The Minimalist Vegan". This page is a couple that is centered around living sustainable and creating new vegan recipes. Both Pick Up Limes and The Minimalist Vegan have websites that have more resources about their lives that act as a blog.

I also followed BBC as my Neutral Biased news source. I followed their main account on Instagram as well as their BBC News account as well.