april 22

for our MOM: Earth. Can you feel it?

JOURNAL TOPIC: [today's tunes: "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) by Marvin Gay; "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell/ bonus track: "Moondance" by Van Morrison]
Today is Earth Day. (Earth is the ultimate Commons. Everyone uses it and no one owns it.) According to the official website, "Every year on April 22, Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970." I have a personal connection to this - apart from living on Earth and wanting you, my daughter, and future generations to live here safely and securely, I was also born in 1970. You also have a personal connection to this - the movement to take better care of our planet was partly a reaction to a massive oil spill off Santa Barbara in 1969. Today, the question is the same as it's always been: How can all of us human beings do a better job of protecting the places and resources that provide everything we need to live?

- OR -

Choose your own topic.

AGENDA:
1. Our MOM
2. Journal
3. Giving feedback to others and assessing ourselves: final progress report notes

DELIVERABLE:
Please email Dr. Preston with your feedback and self-assessment (structure/details provided during today's zoom. UPDATE: see below). Subject Header: FINAL SPRING PROGRESS REPORT NOTES

PROGRESS REPORT QUESTIONS:

• Before answering the questions and sending your email, please read your colleagues' blogs and make at least three comments on their posts.
  

1. What do you do best in this OSLA? Where are you strongest, most confident? What can you say you have actually accomplished or learned so far this semester? 
2. Where do you need improvement? Support? What can you or the teacher do to help you? 
3. On a scale from 1-10, how much effort are you putting into the OSLA? (*You can separate this out into categories; for example, if you put in a huge effort on your blog, but not so much on the reading or the journals or commenting on the course blog, please explain) 
4. What letter grade do you believe you have earned at this point in the course?