cassandra-mckenzie: Another term has come to an end.......

Christmas is fast approaching and final exams are looming. Here we are again at the end of another semester of our university careers. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was sitting in my first ALES 204 class wondering what we were going to learn. It turns out we learned a great deal and had fun doing it.

When I first found out that the lab portion of ALES offered a community service learning (CSL) portion I jumped at the chance. This was an opportunity to learn about communication while helping my community. I worked with Sustain SU along with two great classmates, Kalin and Jamie. We learned how to use Facebook and Twitter to promote sustainable events on campus. My favourite event was the lecture by Annie Leonard, an environmentalist and author of "The Story of Stuff". http://www.storyofstuff.org. Her message was clear; the only way to induce change is to communicate with your community. Thanks to Dr. Jess Laccetti's class I now have the tools to communicate in a variety of ways. Dr.Wendy Doughty taught us the do's and don'ts of public speaking which was extremely entertaining and had us all on our feet practicing. MC taught us how to be professional with stories of her family in Quebec, and Dr. Laccetti taught us multiple ways of communicating online. I can now say that I am ready to put these tools to use and hopefully induce environmental change.

I am excited to begin next term volunteering with Sustain SU again so I can keep their Facebook and Twitter account up to date. I know my group projects are going to be much easier now that I know how to use google docs, and writing lab reports will be a cinch using RefWorks. It is obvious that everything I learned in ALES will benefit me in the future and for that I'm thankful.

I enjoyed reading everyone's blogs this term. Kalin taught me about nutrition and I got some yummy new recipes, http://nutrjunkie.blogspot.com/2011/12/nutrition.html#comment-form.
Jamie got me thinking about the benefits of naturopathy,
http://ales-jamie.blogspot.com/2011/09/recipe-for-ales-204-1-tsp-me-4-tbs.html#comment-form.
Kelsey taught me about the wonderful world of wiki editing,
http://dontbelast-kelsey.blogspot.com/2011/11/wonderful-world-of-wiki.html#comment-form.
Sarah taught me that even museums are utilizing social media,
http://spodorkski.blogspot.com/2011/09/hello-my-name-is-sarah-spotowski-and-i.html#comment-form.
Finally Greg reminded me of many of the great things we learned this year,
http://iamgreggins.blogspot.com/2011/12/communication-theory-in-reflection.html#comment-form.

I have attached the following Pecha Kucha presentation that Jamie, Kalin and I made for Sustain SU. We will be presenting it on the last day of class. I hope you all enjoy it.

Sustain-SU on Prezi

Thank you for watching. From Cassandra, Jamie, and Kalin.