Lifestyle Project, The

Journal of Geoscience Education, Nov 2003 by Kirk, Karin B, Thomas, John J

ABSTRACT

The Lifestyle Project is a way for students to learn about environmental alternatives by modifying their own lifestyles. It is a three-week exercise for students to reduce their impact on the environment by changing the way in which they live from day to day. The project has fairly rigid parameters, allowing students to achieve a gradual but definitive change in their everyday habits. Students choose three categories from a list of six: heat, garbage, electricity and water, driving, eating, and activism. They write about their experiences in journals, which are incredibly insightful, illustrating just how profoundly the project affects them. At the end of the project, students have had an experience that may be life altering, affecting not only the students themselves, but also their friends and families. We felt that we unexpectedly stumbled across a real solution to an environmental problem.

Keywords: energy conservation, water conservation, waste reduction, environmental education.

INTRODUCTION

The Lifestyle Project was created in 1993, borne out of a physical geology class discussion about Earth's resources that left students and teachers alike wondering about a creative approach to environmental awareness. The project was conceptualized rather hastily and was presented to the students during the following class. The vast majority of the students loved the idea and opted to take on the challenge. What followed was quite an amazing experience in education, wherein we all came face to face with our personal environmental decisions and experienced both triumphs and frustrations. When we read the students' journals that recorded their actions, thoughts and feelings throughout the Lifestyle Project, we were incredibly moved. Over the years the Lifestyle Project has been modified, offered in an additional course, and taught by several instructors. It has become a fixture in both our physical geology and environmental science courses.

OUTLINE OF THE PROJECT

The Lifestyle Project asks each student to choose three different ways in which they are interested in changing their habits. The possible categories are: use of electricity and water, heat, automobile usage, food consumption, waste production and environmental education or activism. For each category the rules are clearly defined, such as turning down the heat three degrees or eliminating the use of the car. Each week the project becomes more rigorous, as the students have to meet the requirements more frequently. For example, during the first week of the project students who have chosen the automobile usage category must spend two days without driving their car. Instead they must seek alternatives such as the campus bus, walking or bicycling. During the second week they must forego the comforts of their cars for three days. For the third and final week, they must leave their cars parked for four days. The idea is a gradual but definite change that follows a structure, rather than simply telling the students to drive their cars less.

METHODS OF INCORPORATING THE LIFESTYLE PROJECT

For the project to be successful, some context should be provided within the course. This can be achieved several ways. Three options are presented here, which can be used alone or in combination. The critical point is that when the project begins the students need to be eager to take on the challenges. Otherwise they will not have enough incentive to really try out the alternatives that the project offers them.

Originally the project was introduced in a laboratory discussion about energy resources. We set up a mock town meeting to discuss a fictional campus-wide energy shortage and how to overcome it. Faced with the idea of adding a coal burning or nuclear power plant, or the complications of carpeting the campus with solar cells, the students realize that no form of energy is without significant environmental impacts. The notion of conservation arises during the discussion, and the students are challenged to see for themselves if conservation can really work.

Alternatively, the project can be introduced with a baseline assessment. The students are asked to rate their environmental impacts, and then to take an Eco-rating Quiz. The quiz is a multiple-choice questionnaire relating to the categories included in the lifestyle project. At the end of the quiz the students score themselves so that the feedback is immediate and often shocking. Very few of the students have a low score indicating a low environmental impact.

Another way to introduce the project is quantitatively. The students are provided with worksheets to record their consumption of energy, water and food, and production of waste for two days. After the students have recorded their activities, they are given spreadsheets so their records can be converted into BTUs of energy, gallons of water and pounds of garbage. We provide them with all the formulae and conversions they need to complete the calculations (available at http://www.skidmore.edu/~jthomas/lifestyleproject), but they collect the data, do the calculations, and analyze the results. The figures are eye-opening and students begin thinking about their impacts on the environment.