Bass

Abigail Bass
Elizabeth Caruso
UWRT 1103-029
11 April 2016
Inquiry Product Paper
The topic from my inquiry path project dealt with the environment and its place in
politics. Throughout my research, I learned more about why the environment is such an
important topic and why people should be concerned with protecting it. However, one topic that
kept reappearing was that people redirecting the environmental problems to just larger issues
instead of smaller issues that could be tacked day to day. Also, many people were putting all the
blame for the environmental problems on large businesses. Those people were right for blaming
large companies for some of the environmental issues and trying to find a way to stop them from
harming the environment, but they were forgetting that they also have a role in protecting the
environment. I wanted to help people to focus in on the smaller scale impact that they have on
the environment because it isnt worth trying to stop larger scale pollution when there is even
more pollution happening on a smaller scale that no one is talking about.
As my inquiry product, I decided to make a childrens book about how people can change
small things in their everyday lives to help protect the environment. Children are the main
audience with this product because it is important for them to learn from a young age how they
can protect the environment. One of the main excuses for people who do not have an
environmentally friendly lifestyle is that they did not grow up with one and that makes it hard to
adjust to living that way. Since they are not informed on the issue, most people do not realize the
impact that they have on the environment so they have no idea that the way they are living is

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hurting the environment. What is worse is that some people do know about the impact they have
and continue to live that way because they think they, as individuals, do not impact the
environment too much or that other people are more worried about it so they do not have to be.
This is a very dangerous phenomenon called tragedy of the commons (Vugt, 169). If people do
not realize or refuse to acknowledge the impact that they have on the environment, the
environment will be destroyed. I also think that it is important for children to understand the
impact an unhealthy environment could have on their lives. Children most of the time do not
understand that their actions can affect those around them, which makes teaching them about the
impact they have on the environment very difficult. However, they should still be taught how
much the environment impacts their lives, such as when one fish in the ocean gets a disease from
some pollution that was leaked there and that disease somehow travels all the way up to the
human that eats it (ODonnell). Some children could see how seemingly unrelated these two
things are and realize how dependent we are on the environment and know that it needs to be
protected and that they have a role in protecting it.
Since the product was a childrens book, the sources that could be used were very limited.
There were some very interesting articles that I read, however, they were too intellectual for a
child to understand so it had to be left out. One of these articles was by Dan Johnson and it
discussed the idea of sick building syndrome and how to counteract it (Johnson, 12). The
solution that is most prominent is called breathing walls. These walls are designed to take in any
contaminants from the air that would have not been filtered out in another air filtering system in
an older building (Johnson, 12). This new system of air filtration is very interesting, but it is not
something that a child could completely understand or help to construct. I felt that it was very
important to include things that children could participate in with this book. Many times children

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do not feel like they have a voice and cannot do anything that would be beneficial or make a
difference. I wanted this book to show them that they do have a voice and can find ways to help
make a difference, not only with protecting the environment, but with other things that they are
passionate about as well.
Christy Brownlee had the most child-friendly article about the ways you could help to
protect the environment. Some things she discussed included shortening showers, turning off
electronics and other things when you are done using them, being sure to recycle as much as
possible, etc. (Brownlee, 1). I included many of these examples in the childrens book and
elaborated on them because they were great examples and led to other examples of what they
could do. These were very simple things that every child could do and feel as if they were
actually making a difference.
Many people do not realize how much of an impact they have on the actions of others,
especially children. There was a study done to see how effective certain anti-littering ads had
been and what type of environments the ads should take place in to have the most positive
responses to them (Cialdini, 105-106). It was testing the likelihood of individuals to litter in an
already littered or non-littered environment when they saw another person walk through the trash
or add more litter to it. The study concluded that the individuals tested were the most likely to
litter when they saw another person litter in an already littered environment (Cialdini 106). This
study confirms how much of an impact one individuals actions can have on other people. I felt
that it was very important to focus on littering in the book so that the kids that read it can know
that they should not litter and that their bad actions can impact the actions of their peers.
Hopefully by reading it and actually going out and doing something about it, they could get even
more kids involved when the other kids see them picking up their trash.

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It was important to include all of this information in the book so that children can
understand their impact on the environment and what they can do to help. Of course as they get
older, they will find more things that interest them and an appreciation for the environment could
even be one of them. However, all of this starts with a basic understanding of why the
environment is important and finding small things that they can do to live a more
environmentally friendly lifestyle.

Works Cited
New
Brownlee, Christy. "How to Protect the Environment!" Scholastic Choices. 16.7 (2001). Print.
Cialdini, Robert B. "Crafting Normative Messages to Protect the Environment." Current
Directions in Psychological Science. 12.4 (2003): 105-109. Print.
Van, Vugt M. "Averting the Tragedy of the Commons: Using Social Psychological Science to
Protect the Environment." Current Directions in Psychological Science. 18.3 (2009): 169173. Print.
Johnson, Dan. "A Cure for Sick Buildings?" Futurist. 32.5 (1998). Print.
Original
ODonnell, Liz. "Why Is Our Environment Important?" LoveToKnow. LoveToKnow. Web. 24
Feb. 2016. http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Why_is_Our_Environment_Important