This was one of the first classes I took here at Longwood and I didn’t know what to expect from it because Citizenship is not a normal class topic in my brain. Also, I knew that there were a few different topics for the Honors versions of the classes, so I was curious which one I would get. When I saw that it was the one about sustainability, I was intrigued because I wasn’t sure what to expect. Like would it be more powerpoint based, talking based, or something else? The class turned out to be mainly focused on speaking to people around campus about sustainability on campus. A part of it was even how us as students could help make the campus more sustainable. To talk to these people, we first had to research the topics that we would talk to them about on our own and then be ready with questions about these topics during the next class period. We would then narrow down the questions and make them better in class. After that, we actually did the interviews with these people who are experts on the topic here at Longwood, and we wrote notes so we could remember what was said. Then, we would talk to each other as a group about the topic the next class and then move on to some other topic. This helped me to make good questions that are college-level and require detail when answered. I had never really done that with questions before, so it was new to me.
Another thing about this class was that we were the first iteration that the professor, Dr. Ellis, had taught at Longwood. So, he was still trying to figure a few things out about the class and how to involve Farmville in it. He did manage to give us what felt like quite a bit of work, but now I realize that it wasn’t really that much work, it just required skills that I hadn’t really developed much yet, so it was harder at first and then it got easier.
My artifact is the final project we did for the class instead of a final exam. Since we had talked to so many people about different topics in sustainability, we had to focus in on one of those topics or something close to what we had talked about and make a poster as to how we can add more of that element of sustainability on campus. My group did solar energy on campus. The person we talked to and developed questions for which he answered was Kevin Miller. He gave us lots of good information and he even gave us pictures of an idea he has to use solar panels in storage as lighting and charging for a sitting area in Brock Commons. We used this information to help educate people on solar energy on campus while also talking about the solar umbrellas we have and what other universities have done.
This class really helped me to develop good questions when talking to faculty and staff about a certain topic. It also helped me to see how our campus is pretty sustainable and can always be more sustainable if we really wanted it to be.
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab