Isabella Romo

Field Journal 10
Part 1:
For my lifestyle project, one category that I focused on was conversing water. So
for this field journal I decided to contact an agency that focuses on conserving water,
specifically the California Urban Water Conservation Council. This organization was
created to increase efficient water use statewide through partnerships among urban
water agencies, public interest organizations, and private entities. I was able to ask
them questions about their organization and they were able to answer many of them.
The first question that was asked was about the valued knowledge in their community.
Overall, what they want most is for people to be informed about how much water they
are using and how well the program is actually working. When asked what members of
this community usually do, they replied with saying that conservationists are acutely
aware of how much water they are using and investing in ways to reduce water
consumption. I was also able to ask about the sort of competences that are needed to
be an active member. They replied by saying that an active member is always aware of
how much water they are consuming and they need to actually be committed to
consciously reducing their water consumption. The last question that I asked them was
able to ask was; how do you belong to this community? They replied by saying that this
organization serves as a catalyst and helps other environmental advocacy groups by
providing them with different resources.

Part 2:
Our lifestyles, not just including mine, all have some type of effect on or
ecosystems. In previous chapters when we have learned that most of the products that
we use on a daily basis is made up of some resource found in our ecosystems. Some of
these resources include oil and corn. In addition to this, the more products we use, the
more waste we are creating. What we fail to realize is that our actions affect someone
or something else somewhere in the world. The more we ask for, the more we are
hurting these ecosystems. We are destroying there landscapes to extract oil from the
ground or to make room for agriculture.
Our ecosystems function the same exact way we do, it all a cycle. In every
ecosystem there are biotic and abiotic factors that determine how well the ecosystem
will function. When we take away some of those factors we are potentially altering the
entire ecosystem. In order to minimize the effects on ecosystems we would need to
make significant changes in our lifestyles which may include using fewer products. By
using less products we will be tapping less into our ecosystems. We would instead need
to rely more on other resources that we can get without damaging any ecosystem. By
reducing our waster we can use less landfills which means we will not have to use up to
much space on them.