Choosing to Participate:
A Social Justice Service Project on Sustainability

Yesterday was a fun and eventful day. My group had to build models of a room in the school and make it nore green. I was happy that people learned something and had a good time building their models. I alsorealized how hard teaching can be. I also learned how inportant it is to save the environment and how many places help the world in many ways, always having a big inpact. I was also amazed at what was said to us in our classrooms and how hard it is for the world and how we keep polluting it. I was amazed yesterday the entire day. I was also very happy when we got cake after. It made the whole project a little better.

Nicholas, Robbie, and I went to speak to Phil about getting more recycling bins in the school. The only one is in the cafeteria in the basement. No one is willing to go downstairs to throw a plastic bottle out. It is just easier to throw it in the classroom garbage bin. By doing this, we are adding to more landfill. We told Phil that if we put one on each floor for the eighth and seventh graders, it would help the environment in the long run. I also told him that, even though we may not be affected, our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren would be affected in the long run. If we don’t want to have our future generation suffer, we can start recycling now and make at least a little difference in the world.

I called my sister, who lives in Virginia, and interviewed her about any sustainability work she has done. She told me that she hadn’t done anything, but she wished she had. She had something in mind, but it never took off. She wishes she had done something to help people, because she had a really good idea. She did not know how to help though, and she never asked for help. I wish that she had done something, because people would have benefited from it.

I am working on getting more recycling bins in the school, because we only have one and it is in the lunchroom. People are not willing it walk all the way down there to throw a plastic bottle. It is much easier to just throw it in the garbage. Having the bins, however, will stop us from doing that and will save our environment in the long run. If one school makes a difference, then hopefully other schools will follow our example and we can make even the slightest dent in the garbage that is piling up on the earth. 

  My mother and I have been talking about becoming vegetarians for a few years, but we never had the drive to. We were always going vegetarian for about seven days, then we ate chicken. My mother does not eat beef or pork so, naturally, i did not eat pork. I did eat beef because my father eats both, along with veal. When i was younger, the idea of killing a lamb made me very upset, so I stopped eating veal. I always thought that killing a defenseless animal was wrong, but I never thought about it in depth. When I did start thinking about the way an animal is killed, I always thought that it was a painless procedure. Now, after watching Fast Food Nation I can see that the way I thought animals were killed is not the way it is in reality. The way animals are killed is by being shot in the back of the head with a nail, then being hung upside down. While upside down, the workers cut the main artery, killing them. After the cows are dead, the workers skin them and cut them up. The meat packing industry uses 99 percent of each cow that they kill. The only thing that they don’t use is the eyes and parts of the head. The factories that the meat is cut up in is very unsanitary and very dangerous. There tends to be rats in the factories and when meat falls on the floor, the workers just pick it up and continue with their jobs, as if nothing happened. People also fall into the machines. In Fast Food Nation, one of the machines ends up getting turned on and someone falls in. While, screaming for help, his leg ends up being ripped off and being shredded into the meat. Imagining that I am eating another human being or things being picked up off the floor disgusts me, and is one of the reasons I decided to become a vegetarian. When I told my mom, she was proud of me and asked me to help her become one. My grandmother was also proud and was glad that I was doing what I thought was right. My dad was slightly upset, but was okay with my decision. Everyone had supported me in a big way, and I’m proud to say that all I eat is chicken and fish.  Some people though that I couldn’t go without meat and told me that soon I would start eating it again. So far, I have not eaten beef or pork in over one month. I still have problems giving up chicken, but I am working on that and hoping to be a vegetarian. I have heard, like Ella has, that not eating meat is not going to change anything. The truth is, I do not care if they think that way, but I am doing this for me, and it’s my choice whether I want to eat meat or not. If I can’t change anything, then maybe me and others who team up can change something in the world. In Fast Food Nation, they did a close up of the cows face, and when they did, you could see the fear in they eyes. In her eyes you could see fear, and pleading, pleading to save her, pleading to get her out of there. That is when I realized that animals have feelings and families, just like humans. They feel pain and happiness, just like us. We are killing animals for out own needs. We are being greedy and always wanting something and when we don’t get it, we complain and protest until we do sometimes. If the government did not gives up beef, there would be a riot and many protests until we were able to have out meat again. We are ending lives for out own enjoyment and consumption.

Today I helped Sasha with her bake sale for Battle Against Malaria. We were infront of the music room and we sold almost all of the brownies and cake. We were wondering why not many people were buying the desserts when we realized that there were free cookies in the lower school art show. When they ran  out of cookies, we finally had more customers who were willing to buy something.Taylor