Blog
Learning for a Greener Future 2019: Week 4
The Learning for a Greener Future internship is a six-week program offered by Phipps to Pittsburgh-area high school students. Cheyenne Griffin and Cody Jones completed the internship last summer and have returned this year as Intern Leaders. In this blog they will document the interns’ weekly experiences and share their insights and ideas!
On Monday we began the day with our group shadows with horticulture, continuing to interact and develop bonding with them as well as each other until lunch. After lunch we met in Botany Hall with other professionals in the CSL to participate in the Climate Change Simulation hosted by Sarah States, director of research and science education. During this simulation, we each divided into groups and represented different countries and groups of countries along with climate change issues that they were facing. It was a great way of seeing a different perspective and to see what other countries may be going through. Lastly, we ended the day with our daily journal prompt.
On Tuesday, we started the day with light discussion as we got ready to head out to our third field trip to the Homewood Library to meet members of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council and similar youth programs. Once all the groups made it and settled in, we began the morning with a small presentation from the Food Policy Council and then we all broke down into groups to discuss positive and negative things about the food system and our solutions to those problems. We will be meeting with these groups again for the Youth Garden Summit at the end of the summer, so it was a great way for us to mingle and get to know each other beforehand. Finishing up, a guest speaker representing Ed Gainey’s office talked to us about making change and being the change that we want to see as well as using the knowledge that we have instilled in us to help make the world better. We then all headed to lunch in the park where we continued to mingle and enjoy our time together. Toward the end of the day we then headed to several of the tiny farm projects around Homewood such as Farm Shiloh and Oasis shortly before heading back home.
Continuing into Wednesday, we began the day working with horticulture for the most of the morning up until lunch. For lunch, we all got the chance to sit in Phipps’ Special Events Hall with horticulture staff and college interns to network and get a chance to know more about each other. It was a very heartwarming experience to hear and see everyone talking and getting advice about life and ways about going after what you want. Once we all parted, we headed down to the nature lab where we discussed what sustainable means to us and began to brainstorm things that are connected with sustainability. After that we watched a video called “The Story of Stuff” that described steps of how we contribute to climate change and also the psychology behind why we buy things we don’t necessarily need which contribute to the cycle. We then ended the day with light discussion and our daily prompt.
On Thursday, we began the day with our weekly cooking sessions with members of Slow Food Pittsburgh and guests Jamie, director of sourcing and sustainability at Eat’n Park Hospitality Group and colleague Earl, rising senior at Duquesne University. During the session we made pizza from scratch, fruit tarts (vegan and traditional) and chickpea salad mix, and since Jamie’s background is in food we got the opportunity to gain insight on other ways of cooking and substitutes to use when cooking. Towards the end of the session, slow food member Alyce presented us with farewell gifts much to our appreciation as well as her well wishes. After enjoying our meal with one another, we headed back to the Nature Lab to create and design our own cookbooks before we shortly met with Sarah States and did our weekly ozone samplings. We then finished our day by sharing what we enjoyed and what we are looking forward to.
