Writing cleanse

For the past few months I've been working towards submitting a research paper for publication, my first for this area of research, and it's come to the fore in the past two weeks... ie. It's almost due and I've got to get the darn thing finished! lol. I'm enjoying the process though. Writing is a great way of synthesising those thoughts that have been floating around in the spaces of my mind. I find writing cleansing. It's like that day you've been meaning to tidy up your office, bedroom or the shed, to finally put things in their right place and make homes for the newly collected tid-bits. It's also the day you've procrastinated about the most... :)

The running title of my paper is Tapestry of Relationships: The Millennium Kids Approach to Sustainability Facilitation. I guess you'll be able to read it once it's done (wink wink), but basically I'm looking at the dynamics of accompanying a school to achieve it's goals in education for sustainability. It's important here to note that education for sustainability as described by UNESCO in outlining the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) and as agreed by other researchers in the field, should encompasses a range of environmental, economic and socio-cultural perspectives. These three areas need to go hand in hand to engender true sustainability.

It makes sense really. For example if a school decides to start a veggie garden, well that's great! They can integrate it into their teaching and learning across various curriculum areas. The kids can count seedlings that germinate or bugs that co-habit, write about different aspects, create artwork to decorate the garden, cook the food they produce, one year group can even learn about composting and then build a compost for the garden! Woohoo! :) But how much more significant would it be to the students', teachers' and perhaps indirectly the parents' holistic understanding and potential for personal behaviour change, if they were to incorporate indigenous ideas of food gardens? ...or perhaps they have a large greek or chinese community at the school? Why not invite those parents in so the kids can learn about different types of foods that are found in various cultures. Or perhaps the children could compare the price of different foods at their local store with the time and money it's taken them to grow their own foods. They could explore to some extent what factors a farmer needs to consider when deciding if it's cost effective for them to grow a certain food. But that's not all! The school could develop links with a rural or international school. They could learn about each other's cultures and even help the poorer school to develop a food garden of their own, by helping to fund-raise, etc. Or the school could link with a local community garden and thereby encourage children and parents to form their own personal links with the garden after school hours... There's really so much a school can do. But! Like the garden, it has to be organic... Students and teachers together should drive the project ideas because it needs to be relevant to their interests and concerns. The Principal can provide infrastructure, encouragement or connections to support the process. Parents can get involved where they feel comfortable. What a lovely whole-school vision, eh?

I guess this all sounds like quite a lot of work, but in reality it's fairly simple as long as the process is organic and allowed to grow in it's own time and direction. The key is helping to add the right amount of encouragement, guidance, professional support, curriculum links, self-assessment tools, clear links to different educational providers and resources along the way. That's where an unbiased external facilitator can work really well. They can help the school keep pushing the envelope, not to become satisfied with ticking boxes (eg. veggie garden = done.). They can provide perspective and simply be there with the tools or resources or unbiased listening ear as needed.

In fact, it's very much about capacity building. Sound familiar to some of you? Well yes, it's very similar to the approach underpinning the world-wide Baha'i community's efforts towards community building in every neighbourhood and locality. It's about tapping into and building every individual's capacity for contributing to the betterment of society, including caring for our environment, valuing the culture and beliefs of all people, and working to minimise extremes of wealth and poverty. This whole sustainability thing has a lot to offer, don't you think?

Hmmm... okay that's enough of my reflections for the day. Now I want to share a silly article I happened across this morning that made me laugh. It's about one clear day when a cuttlefish mistook a seahorse for a blade of grass and promptly began to lay it's eggs on the seahorse! Awkward... ;)
http://wildoceanblue.co.uk/2010/03/31/seahorse-versus_cuttlefish/

It's not easy being green...

Like many people, I have a list of 'green' behaviours that I'm working on, one of which has been to start composting veggie waste. So, about a month ago I started my first ever attempt at composting at home. Hooray!

However, it wasn't as easy as I'd hoped... From the beginning I started doing a few important things wrong. I went to a course on composting last year, how could this happen?! Well, I guess having never made the common mistakes myself those important lessons went right over my head.

Firstly, for about two weeks I made sure I was watering the compost every few days. For some reason I honestly thought compost had to be really wet! That is, until it became too sludgy to mix. I was a little confused for a while but after a few moments reflection on my second year microbiology unit the principles of aerobic and anaerobic microbial decomposition started coming back to me... hmmm... no, compost doesn't need to be soaking wet all the time, if it's too wet the whole thing will turn anoxic, whoops! lol. Okay, now I remember, compost actually needs to be dry enough and turned regularly to provide enough oxygen for the microorganisms to do their jobs properly, whilst also being damp enough for the water to be released as steam once the microorganisms start generating heat through all their hard work. I was on track now, or so I thought.

Pretty soon the veggie waste was getting near to the top of my little bin and too difficult to turn with the stick I'd been using so I decided to buy a special compost turning tool from Bunnings. It's a tool that literally winds down into the compost (just like a corkscrew only larger) and with one pull brings all that is down at the bottom up to the top. Vwallah! What a brilliant invention! In only one go I found that some of the waste from our last batch of carrot juice (made four weeks ago) was still in large clumps down at the bottom of the pile, still bright orange and not at all composted. Using a stick to mix it definitely hadn't been good enough. I was in business now! For sure my compost was going to get cranking from here!

And so i continued to be optimistic about my little compost bin until yesterday morning, when I opened the bathroom window for fresh air but all I got was fresh stench! Piieeew! What was wrong now? Compost isn't meant to smell bad... Uh oh... This time I went outside to find a few flies buzzing around the little bin and more bad smells. I was stumped. I'd been doing everything right; mixing thoroughly, not over watering, putting dirt and dried leaves (carbon) in between each layer of veggie waste (nitrogen). I'd even dug the bin 5cm into the ground like the guy at the course suggested in order to avoid bugs or vermin getting into it. Why was it smelly and what could I do to de-smell it? Hmmm... After a quick call to Dad, who's been composting for years, we figured it out. There still wasn't enough oxygen exchange. You see, in my stinginess I didn't buy a proper compost bin, with only two of us in the house and so little veggie waste we didn't need a large expensive compost bin. So instead I bought a tall 20L bucket with a secure lid and simply cut the bottom off.  $8.50 versus $100 plus, brilliant! Well, it could have been more brilliant if I'd thought to drill holes in the sides of the bin before I got started... Instead I've learnt the hard way and currently have rotting veggies instead of compost. lol.

But it's not over yet, I'm determined to succeed. The thought of reducing our household's contribution to methane, created from anaerobic decomposition of organic matter in rubbish dumps, and the added bonus of revitalising our sandy nutrient poor soil for zero dollars is more than enough incentive to keep at this composting thing. Then there's also that little matter of social norms, I can't just say I believe in living sustainably... 

So just like Kermit very poignantly said, "it's not easy being green", but I reckon it sure is worth it :)