This week in class we were lucky enough to have two more guest speakers come in to talk about their organizations and how they are making an impact for the environment. The first speakers came from the organization called The Environmental Commission in South Orange. This organization promotes waste management. By this I mean they work to teach people about how to lessen the amount of food they waste. He mentioned how composting, though popularly thought of as the main way to use leftover food, but the speakers actually said that composting is the last resort when trying to use eliminate the waste. He said that there goal is to actually teach people how to prevent creating food waste from the start so they do not need to come up with methods to use it in an effective way.
The second speaker was from The Environmental Center. She discussed how she works with young people to teach them about the environment and how to protect it. They have camps where the children can go canoeing in the river, and play in nature. They learn to appreciate the earth around them, or at least that is the goal, so they can leave with a desire to help preserve it.
After the speakers, Professor Knapik gave my group several different books about bio-dynamics, as well as other related topics. We each picked a few to look over. My two were written by Rudolf Steiner, the man who is known for his idea of bio-dynamics, and research in how the cosmos plays a part in agriculture. They include excerpts of his lectures and writings, as well as charts and pictures of actual notes from Steiner and their translations. Though I have only had the opportunity to glance over these texts, I hope to be able to read them more in depth to better understand this concept of bio-dynamics from the mouth of the very man who discovered it.
Sabrina Sunflower