Sustainable Living
An Exploration
About Me:
As many of you know, I have been homeschooling since 2009. Like most students, I have applied myself to traditional subjects and curricula such as language arts, math, history and science. While much of my study is at home, I also have also taken classes with other homeschoolers in biology, writing,economics, graphic design, and computer programming. I enjoy pursuing unique learning opportunities and have taken classes on DNA and String Theory at MIT. Once, while studying at the Franklin Park Zoo I found myself standing on a 15foot high walkway feeding a giraffe with an 200 + lb head. Also over the past few years, I have studied wilderness living skills and can identify wild edibles, start a friction fire and have even slept overnight in a survival shelter I built myself. As part of my regular routines, I volunteer at a local CSA where I have learned how to plant and harvest large-scale crops and handle livestock including sheep, goats, donkeys and poultry.
Given my interests and my love of unique, hands-on learning opportunities this trip I found seems perfect for me. I'm confident this program I am interested will be my most powerful learning experience to date. In fact, it's huge! But I'm ready and willing - and just need to raise the money to go! In addition to fundraising through the internet, I also plan to raise money through babysitting and other odd jobs. Any financial support you can offer to help me make this dream a reality will be much appreciated! To donate please follow the link on the sidebar.
Thanks,
Sophie
Trip Details:
The Sustainable Living trip will explore and experience what it means to live a lifestyle that contributes positively to a sustainable world. Our strategies will include a wide variety of first hand experience, adventure and personal exploration.
Our primary strategy will be to meet and work beside a diverse assortment of inspiring folks who have devoted themselves to creating sustainable lifestyles. Some of these people might grow all their own food; others might have started a green business; and others might live virtually without money or work only for themselves. We might spend the day beside them making goat cheese and then the night making a dinner or playing music with the neighbors. It is one thing to analyze such lifestyles from a distance, looking at inputs and outputs, carbon footprints and so forth. It is another thing altogether to experience the tastes, smells, emotions and routines of such a lifestyle firsthand. We will do both and attempt to integrate the two.
We will also continually ask the question: "What does sustainability mean anyway, on the level of the individual and of the community?" On the level of the individual, we will look at the lifestyles of the people we visit and also at our own lifestyles while asking what works and what doesn't. On the level of the community, we will look at Paonia, a small town in western Colorado that supports itself on a combination of organic growing, coal mining, ranching and do-whatever-it-takes entrepreneurship. We will investigate water, food and economic systems and ask what contributes to sustainability and what doesn't.
Finally, we will experience the best of simple living first hand. We will eat simple and local food and play music with the neighbors. We will treat each other well and help out the neighbors. We will explore important questions in our own lives. We will learn and practice skills like preserving food, cooking with solar, using composting toilets, eating safe wild plants, building with straw and mud, and adventuring with a backpack into the local high country. It will feel like an exotic vacation, but throughout, we will be asking, could it be a way of life?
As many of you know, I have been homeschooling since 2009. Like most students, I have applied myself to traditional subjects and curricula such as language arts, math, history and science. While much of my study is at home, I also have also taken classes with other homeschoolers in biology, writing,economics, graphic design, and computer programming. I enjoy pursuing unique learning opportunities and have taken classes on DNA and String Theory at MIT. Once, while studying at the Franklin Park Zoo I found myself standing on a 15foot high walkway feeding a giraffe with an 200 + lb head. Also over the past few years, I have studied wilderness living skills and can identify wild edibles, start a friction fire and have even slept overnight in a survival shelter I built myself. As part of my regular routines, I volunteer at a local CSA where I have learned how to plant and harvest large-scale crops and handle livestock including sheep, goats, donkeys and poultry.
Given my interests and my love of unique, hands-on learning opportunities this trip I found seems perfect for me. I'm confident this program I am interested will be my most powerful learning experience to date. In fact, it's huge! But I'm ready and willing - and just need to raise the money to go! In addition to fundraising through the internet, I also plan to raise money through babysitting and other odd jobs. Any financial support you can offer to help me make this dream a reality will be much appreciated! To donate please follow the link on the sidebar.
Thanks,
Sophie
Trip Details:
The Sustainable Living trip will explore and experience what it means to live a lifestyle that contributes positively to a sustainable world. Our strategies will include a wide variety of first hand experience, adventure and personal exploration.
Our primary strategy will be to meet and work beside a diverse assortment of inspiring folks who have devoted themselves to creating sustainable lifestyles. Some of these people might grow all their own food; others might have started a green business; and others might live virtually without money or work only for themselves. We might spend the day beside them making goat cheese and then the night making a dinner or playing music with the neighbors. It is one thing to analyze such lifestyles from a distance, looking at inputs and outputs, carbon footprints and so forth. It is another thing altogether to experience the tastes, smells, emotions and routines of such a lifestyle firsthand. We will do both and attempt to integrate the two.
We will also continually ask the question: "What does sustainability mean anyway, on the level of the individual and of the community?" On the level of the individual, we will look at the lifestyles of the people we visit and also at our own lifestyles while asking what works and what doesn't. On the level of the community, we will look at Paonia, a small town in western Colorado that supports itself on a combination of organic growing, coal mining, ranching and do-whatever-it-takes entrepreneurship. We will investigate water, food and economic systems and ask what contributes to sustainability and what doesn't.
Finally, we will experience the best of simple living first hand. We will eat simple and local food and play music with the neighbors. We will treat each other well and help out the neighbors. We will explore important questions in our own lives. We will learn and practice skills like preserving food, cooking with solar, using composting toilets, eating safe wild plants, building with straw and mud, and adventuring with a backpack into the local high country. It will feel like an exotic vacation, but throughout, we will be asking, could it be a way of life?
