History /

Write For The Planet 2007

On July 30, 31 and August 1, Susan Andersen led a writing workshop for Big Green Summer students. Susan will be adding more about the workshop here.

Susan Andersen's resume

Write for the Planet Reader

Workshop Schedule and Agenda

Writing and Thinking Exercises

Here is Kyle Sieck's final eco-identity statement:

Before coming down to Fairfield for the Big Green Summer Program I had not a clue as to what I was going to do after college. For three years now I have been studying environmental related issues, volunteering, gaining experience in community activism, and teaching people about their responsibility to the environment. Not wanting a career in politics, or a life dependent upon transportation and corporate America, but still wanting to pursue my passion with helping the environment and making social change, I decided that I needed to empower myself with the knowledge of permaculture and the vast realm of topics that it encompasses. Looking to BGS for help, everything that I could have ever imagined, and much, much more has been provided to me. Some people are lucky to have one life changing experience by my age, but this summer, I’ve had countless experiences that have opened my eyes and expanded my mind.

Who would have thought that all the things that one needs to life a happy, healthy life can be obtained by simply harnessing the abundance of the Earth? Who would have thought that it’s possible to live a meaningful life on the land in Iowa when the landscape is dominated and raped by conventional monoculture? By learning how to make shelter out of local, natural materials, growing my own fresh, organic food in my backyard, catching the abundant rainfall off my roof, and by harnessing the sun and wind for all my electrical needs, and by experiencing and being exposed to all the artesian craft and food markets that exist in Iowa, I know have the foundation and inspiration to escape the cyclic materialistic culture of today, and to design and create a life that blows sustainability out of the water. This summer I’ve been surrounded by amazing people that have grown to become my close friends as well as mentors that have become akin to family.

So what’s next for me? After I finish my last year at the University of Iowa I plan not to go into graduate school as I once thought, but rather begin a new life that full of trades and vocations. Starting with either Oregon or Colorado, I plan to study natural building so that I can help people in Iowa build affordable homes under $10,000. When winter rolls around, I will link up with my teachers in either Mexico, Costa Rica, or Nicaragua to work on evolving permaculture projects. Then as the years pass, I will continue to work and live in Iowa with like minded individuals in organic farming, while still having time to travel in the cold season to help others around the world.

As you can see, I have been exposed to a vast world of possibilities, and the beautiful thing about it is that anyone can have the experience as I. The world is changing and the time to empower yourself is now, the education and experience you will gain with the folks as Big Green Summer is priceless. Take a summer off from work, put off your vacation, and get yourself down to Fairfield!

Hart's Reflection Attach:HartFordHodgesFinalReflection.doc

Trace Back to the Source

We learn habits, values, and expectations from the place where we live. Suburban sprawl and streets without sidewalks teach us that cars are essential. Light switches make light, sinks make water. Food comes in packages and tomatoes are all the same ketchup-red. A round dial on the wall determines temperature. Discarded pop cans disappear into landfills that do not touch our neighborhoods.

Our built environment works—it provides us with what we need to be comfortable—but it does not inspire us to ask the why and how questions about the sources of our water, food, and energy. Along with “spiritual dangers,” this disconnect also has pragmatic consequences. Our status quo systems are proving to be unsustainable as oil supplies threaten to dry up and agricultural chemicals from the Midwest hollow out a “dead-zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.

To change this trend, we are called to tackle a whole litany of changes: shrink the environmental impact of agriculture, create cities and communities for pedestrians and bikes instead of cars, improve the energy efficiency of our buildings, switch from fossil fuels to efficient renewable energies, develop closed cycle systems that reduce (and eventually eliminate) waste. In other words, we are called to re-think our water, food, and energy systems; how can we begin this task if we are disconnected from these systems in our daily lives?

This summer, I began to reconnect to these systems by learning to live differently at the Surya Nagar Farm. It was a place with straw-bale buildings, rainwater catchment, solar and wind power, composting toilets, vegetable oil-powered cars, muscle-powered bikes, and local food from my own garden and friends’ farms. I drove tractors, milked cows, double-dug a garden, strung up tomatoes, installed roof racks for solar panels, constructed a hot compost heap. Both the place where I lived and what I was doing inspired me to ask questions and cut back to the source. To trace the tap water back through the carbon filter, cistern, and gutter to the rain clouds. I learned to link sunlight with electricity, open windows with natural ventilation, kitchen scraps with fertile compost. At meals, I learned to taste terrior—the sense of place and farmer’s hard work deliciously expressed in food , to understand that my food is infused with choices about organic practices, fair wages for farmers, humane treatment for animals, and local economy .

Living at Surya Nagar taught me to see that each element and action in my life can be traced back to a network of consequences and implications. That lesson has made me socially and personally accountable. As I return to Grinnell, I am obligated to keep asking how and why and to live the best that I can. I have already talked to local farmers so that I will be able to eat vegetables from the Compass Plant CSA, eggs from the Catnip Farm, milk from Picket Fence Creamery, and flour from Paul’s Grains. When I spend money, I will try to buy already used, durable items. I will keep a bin in my kitchen for organic waste that can be composted instead of thrown away.

In the Grinnell College Community Garden, Sam Calisch, another Big Green Summer intern, and I aim to create an environment that teaches lessons about sustainability. Like Surya Nagar, the garden will transparent; it will be easy to trace each element back to the source. We will water the garden with rain collected by a catchment system that Sam has already installed in back of the Faculty House. The compost will be mix of organic matter from cafeteria, our own kitchens, and manure from Retta Kelley’s cattle. Retta’s straw will mulch the garden beds to conserve water and keep down weeds. More ambitiously, we hope that Brad Young, a local natural builder, will help a group of us to restore the straw-bale tool shed. We have also talked to Jon Adelson about creating a student-designed and student-constructed living space made from recycled or sustainably-harvested materials.

Realistically, my choices and our collective work in the community garden are small compared to the “litany of changes” we must take on to create a more beautiful, sustainable world. That does not bother me. Sustainability is a dynamic process. We take small steps, learn from our failures, and keep walking. Through out this journey, we not only build better insulated houses and plan better traffic patterns, but also deepen ourselves and our communities. By learning constantly, we stretch and grow, stay awake to new possibilities . By working with other people, we knit our neighborhoods together into cooperative communities. And we keep walking. We do the best we can in the place where we are ; that is enough.

Many thanks to all of my Fairfield mentors:

Lonnie, for his effervescent enthusiasm,
Valerie, for her incredible energy and wonderful smiles,
(and little Eliot, for being a little screaming bundle of joy),
Marie, for gentle, gracious lessons about the “little green friends,”
Grover, for putting up with me and for teaching me to be grateful,
Francis Thicke & Rodney, for letting me drive the tractor (without a permit!) and milk the Jersey cows,
Brian Robbins, for all the ideas and energy whirring in his head,
Diana Kryskofiak, for infectious joy and willingness to try something new;
Many thanks to Professor Jon Adelson for supporting local, organic foods and the Iowa prairie;
Many thanks to Chris Bair for supporting the Grinnell College Community Garden and daring to drive the pick-up over the curb so that Sam and I could haul soil and concrete out of it;
Many thanks to Community Garden team for letting me be a part of their beautiful, abundant garden;
And many thanks to Diane Hawkins, Retta Kelley, Amy Graves, and everyone else in the Career Development Office for making this internship opportunity possible.