Wealth, Health, and Learning: Deborah Okpo and Khan Tran

Please note: this blog post was written in the fall and thus pertains to lesson and events that were our focus at the time.

 “Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins"-- Jim Rohn

      

            

“A healthy mind, body, and spirit are all you need to survive.” Mr. Garcia, our health teacher, says these words more times that one can count. He taught us to keep our bodies healthy by taking the class on 4:00 AM hikes and pushing everyone to their limits all in one day at the retreat. Even though many people complained, Mr. Garcia had a positive attitude and sang I will “Survive” or “Eye of the Tiger” throughout the whole exhausting hike. When we reached the summit of the mountain, everyone was tired and quite grumpy that we had to get up, and emotions ran high when we got a measly half a small muffin. But, one memory we will all cherish was looking around and seeing the tops of trees eerily surrounded by mist as the sun rose a pinkish-orange hue, and thinking quietly as we gained a deeper understanding of ourselves as both individuals and as a group. Everyone helped each other going down the mountain with our slips and falls but we trudged on with our new friends, hoping for a better breakfast. We would not have had the wonderful experience if Mr. Garcia had not walked the trail before us, even though we got lost several times, but in life one has to get lost in order to be found. These lessons we learned on the hike relate to academic lessons we learn in our MSEL classes.

           

In Seminar, a project based learning class, the class is in groups for project week, which is quite literally a week of projects, and one group is finding out more on the Bay Water Quality. According to Savesfbay.org, people spill, dump or leak over three million gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay. And this in not just big companies an average person with a car leaks more oil into waterways than oil tankers do! This result shows that our bay is being polluted and affects the environment making the water unhealthy for the fish that live in it. We could help by driving less and instead walk, bike, or use public transportation. When you fix your car, don't forget to fix the leaky part so the oil won't spill. Tell everyone around you, so they can give a hand too!

           

The oil definitely  gets in to other ecosystems. In Biology we are learning about ecology or the study of how organisms, biotic and abiotic, interact with each other in an environment. What are those big scientific terms being thrown around? None of us, when we first came, knew the importance of or meaning of the words. It was only after many sleepless nights that it clicked: ecology just means how everyone and everything interacts! Healthy, what does that mean? It means everyone is doing his or her part in helping the environment and each other. All parts are necessary in the trophic levels, or position in an environment, and if one were to take away even one level it could disrupt everything and not allow the animals to have a healthy habitat. Everyone and everything in one circular planet, and it is our job to protect it.

Circles can show cycles and cycles are the way of life. A river is a good example of this because if river has good water quality it can properly function and allow fish and animals to survive off of it. In English, we just finished a novella called A River Runs Through It, and according to Norman Macclean, the author, (a round character who changes and keeps the plot moving) the river has to be healthy so the fish can survive, especially the Rainbow Trout!  Rainbow Trout show up a lot in the story and fishing for them is one way Norman comes to terms with the loss of his brother, Paul (a flat or static charter who doesn't change much. He was addicted to fish, girls, and gambling-- not exactly in that order). 

Addiction is one of those topics that makes everyone uncomfortable. When we hear the word people immediately we think of drug addicts, but what if we were addicts ourselves, not to drugs but to pollution?  Ms. Leonhart made us ask ourselves this question when we wrote our "Trash Talking" essays or what the trash we collected after twenty-four hours of living our regular lives says about us. Many people who thought they were environmentally friendly realized that the few things had certainly left a huge impact  on the world, whether it was plastic container that can't biodegrade or paper bag not properly recycled. One should look inside and ask themselves what they can do to change to become healthier. 

            

Winston Churchill once stated that healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have. In World Geography we learned about the five themes of geography:Place, where something is located; Human and Environment Interactions, or how we change the world and our surroundings; Movement, or how we go from location to location; and, Region-- the area around us. Everyone knows that countries will interact with each other, sometimes not always for the best. Debt (spending more money than a country has), is not a healthy way to run a government. There are many ways to stop this such as opening up trade in all countries which would in the long run set every nations debt clock back to zero. There are many solutions that have their downsides and there is not one simple answer. Another example of taking sides was when the class was given the assignment of writing a position paper everyone in the class was given either a one (industrialized nations should help developing countries economically and technologically) or a two (foreign aid supports weak governments and discourages economic growth). With both sides battling it out to be right new insights were gained on the world around us. There are many threats and decisions that can affect the environment either negatively or positively and it is up to Marin School of Environmental Leadership to make environmental decisions for ourselves and our community. The health of the world depends on it.