Rarely in college classes do students get to sit down for a few minutes and absorb the materials that they learn in lecture. We sit through an hour or two of lecture and immediately leave when the bell rings without thinking about the impacts that the learning materials have on us as individuals.<\/p>\n
In a class that explores the environmental, social and political effects of food production around the world, contemplative practices are an integral part for the students to retain the material. It is never easy for individuals to view themselves at fault for the negative environmental and social issues around the world because we often do not feel as if we are important actors in those situations and that our behavior does not directly impact the environment.\u00a0 However, the contemplative practices that are used in this class is an incredible tactic to get students to take a step back and see themselves from another perspective: a perspective in which we are crucial parts that make up a whole system. Contemplative practices serve as a great form of reflection in that we can we can visualize how our actions, small or large, are impacting something that is greater than us: the planet that we call home.<\/p>\n
The form of self-reflection not only allows us to engage in the materials with a more personal experience, but also allows us to think about the life-cycle analysis of the commodities that we consume. Before taking this course and partaking in the contemplative practice on virtual water, I never would have believed that 70% of water consumption in the world is from agriculture. The virtual water practice allowed me to focus on the foods I consume and think about the amount of water that goes into making a good even before I pick it up from the grocery store.<\/p>\n
These practices are effective in its ability to make students more aware of their own decisions on their consumption of food, but also makes it much easier to visualize a system as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rarely in college classes do students get to sit down for a few minutes and absorb the materials that they learn in lecture. We sit through an hour or two of lecture and immediately leave when the bell rings without thinking about the impacts that the learning materials have on us as individuals. In a class that explores the environmental,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemplative-practices","category-systems-theory","category-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1478,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions\/1478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385s18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}