Participant
Feedback: Staff at the City of Charlottetown, February, 2009.
Average participant rating on the quality
of the course: 8.6 out of 10.
"An eye-opener! I personally intend to change a few of my ways."
"It was enjoyable and gave food for thought."
"Very informative - We just don't think enough about
our environment and the little ways we can help save it."
Participant Feedback: Local residents at the
Eastern Kings Community Centre, March 2009.
Average participant rating on the quality of the course: 9.2
out of 10.
"Very enjoyable and informative."
"This course could be advertised as a useful everyday course."
"Mostly
benefical because it was thought provoking."
EcoLiving 101 for Busy People is an abridged version of the full sixteen-hour EcoLiving 101 course. The eight
fifty-minute sessions make it ideal for delivery over lunchtime and focus primarily on actions that can be taken to reduce
environmental impact and save money. (Alternatively, it can be delivered evenings, two sessions at a time.) The course
uses PowerPoint slides to convey information and facilitate interaction among participants. Participants will receive a
handout containing web links and a summary of actions. (This information and savings spreadsheets in Excel are
also available online.)
Course Benefits
By the end of the course, you will have increased your awareness of the absolute
splendor and critical importance of our environment, identified new ways to reduce your impact on the environment,
and identified opportunities for saving money.
Course Outline
With the exception
of Session 1, all sessions focus on practical actions that participants can usually implement easily at little
or no cost.
Session 1: You and Me on Planet Earth
This introductory session will set
the stage for upcoming discussions and actions by helping participants adopt a global perspective. Topics include:
conditions on other planets, astronauts' comments, Biosphere 2, ecosystem services, and climate change.
Session 2:
Conserving Electricity
Because it is so clean and convenient at its point of use, we can easily be lulled into thinking electricity
is environmentally benign; however, it's not. With very little effort, it's easy to identify enough new actions to reduce your
electricical consumption by ten or twenty percent.
Session 3: Conserving Water
It can be difficult to develop
a conservation ethic when water is as abundant and as inexpensive as it is in Canada. However, water conservation is a
consistent part of the “conserver” attitude that many people adopt as they examine their lifestyles for ways to reduce their environmental
impact.
Session 4: Reducing Heating Requirements
With the price of crude oil hitting record highs and the potential
impacts of climate change looming over us, there has never been a better time to reduce the amount of energy we consume to heat
our homes and provide domestic hot water.
Session 5: Personal Transportation
Our
personal transportation habits have a tremendous impact on the environment and our wallets. Public transportation
provides a wonderful opportunity to dramatically reduce our fossil fuel consumption. However, even if public transportation
is not available, we can still do many things to operate our vehicles in a more efficient manner. And, there are some key
things to keep in mind before leasing or purchasing a vehicle.
Session 6: Food Choices
When you are surrounded by an
incredible diversity of food from around the world, it is not always easy to reposition yourself a little lower on the food chain. However, it can be done, and it can lead not only to health benefits, but also to an even greater appreciation for the variety of
local and organic food available to us.
Session 7: Material Consumption
Most of us are wallowing in more stuff than we
know what to do with. Although we have a provincial waste management system that is the envy of many jurisdictions, we have done
relatively little to reduce the sheer volume of material that enters the waste stream in the first place.
Session 8: Outside
Practices
The extent of our practices around our homes can vary greatly depending on our personal circumstances. We
may have relatively little impact or we may be chugging along with an arsenal of lawn and garden equipment that would be the
envy of a small municipality. This final session will help us reduce our lawns to a more manageable size and select
environmentally-friendly equipment.
Registration Fee
The group registration fee of $800 covers
up to 20 people attending each of the sessions.