As for the success that I reached with my project, I do think that I reached many of the goals that I set out for myself at the beginning of the semester, with some key alterations. I never did get around to calculating a quantitative amount of greenhouse gases I was conserving, and most definitely did not finish creating compost that would be useful for gardening purposes(I learned quickly that the decomposition rate of my compost would take far longer than I had allowed for). Every day spent doing the project in class was not wasted, however, as I utilized all of that time to either research further on how to improve my methods or draft an upcoming post ahead of time.
I think the most important takeaway that I had with this project is that nothing really ever turns out the way you expect it to, and that what matters the most is how successful one is in persevering with one's goals or even changing it to further suit one's intentions. There were plenty of rough spots throughout the course of this project, from underestimating the amount of work it would be to choose a design with affordable materials to unexpected occurrences that would uproot the schedule that I had planned out for myself, yet I am proud of the way that I handled it in the end and was able to make adjustments accordingly. Not only did I learn how to reduce the environmental impact that throwing away food waste can cause, but I was also able to learn and improve upon tendencies that I found within myself. As shown from my third blog post, procrastination was something that I struggles with, and the following weeks revealed to me that it was not a dislike of my project topic that impacted me this way, but rather the laziness that I had in starting to do something. After motivating myself to go out and work on my compost area, I realized how pleasing it actually was to slowly accomplish another part of my goal, and that would motivate me to continue working and not give up.
Based on the amount of progress that I have made on my project this semester, I would give myself an B+, because I am proud of the way that I handled the problems that were thrown at me out of the blue and I did achieve most of the goals that were possible in the time allotted. Obviously, it would have been great for me to be able to finish my first batch of compost and have it ready to utilize by the end of this semester, but the complications I had with my schedule at the beginning of the semester unfortunately prevented me from doing so. One thing that I would have changed about my approach would be starting the project earlier and not being so hesitant to move on from theoretical research to actual composting, but many of the things that I accomplished during class and outside of school did meet my initial standards, such as having made a successful process for composting and even reaching out to an expert through email(with a rather helpful answer to one of my questions as well). I was able to sort through dilemmas in having the wrong materials thrown in as well as having a limited amount of space to end up with a finished product in the form of a compost pile in a selected area with an assisting bin to place feedstock beforehand(shown below).
As for what will happen next, my goal is to continue this project up until I am able to achieve my initial goal and make the original food scraps(turned into compost) go full cycle by using it to plant something new. After that, I should hope that my family and I habitualize the process of composting for our food scraps in the future, in hope that this practice will inspire others to lessen their impact on the environment as well. In the meantime, the entirety of my project can be viewed here.
TED Talk Outline:
- open with some joke about compost/how much harder it was in reality
- recall specific anecdotes and hardships faced and how I pushed through
- explain things that I learned(yes, about the environment, but also about motivation, procrastination, learning curve, perseverance, etc)
- maybe end with new idea about contributing to environment but more importantly, don't be afraid to try something new
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