This term went by really fast. Especially this course went by in what felt like just a couple of weeks. In preparation for this wrap-up journal, I had a look back at my very first journal from the first week of classes. In that journal, I talked about my insecurity about how my knowledge of various aspects of sustainability and current climate change issues is not expansive or sufficient enough. I've truly felt imposter syndrome for my whole undergraduate experience as an Environmental Science major. However, thanks to Professor Kai Chan and this course, I definitely feel a lot more confident to speak on various issues such as overconsumption, the water crisis, plastic pollution, etc. For my whole undergrad experience, I felt as though none of the courses I was taking really taught me real-world issues and were always more "sciencey" courses such as chemistry, ecology, and statistics. This course however equipped me with the ability to think critically, have hard conversations, and provided more knowledge on a variety of important current issues. I will thoroughly miss being in this environment weekly when next semester rolls around.

As a co-op student who worked for Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, I was out in the field in the research center located in Saskatoon surrounded by fields and upon fields of canola planted and harvested for the purpose of research and furthering science. I saw tons and tons of water being used for irrigation as well as the clearing of other fauna unrelated to the species of plants being researched. I found it also very surprising how much waste was produced in terms of how after data and sample collection, the fields of canola were no longer useful and would all be discarded to then repeat the following year. Today’s class really allowed me to reflect back on this system where monocultures of canola are planted and then later discarded repeatedly for research. This showed how deeply rooted this problem of unsustainable farming is where even research performed at a federal government level follows the same "problematic" systematic approach of farming in monocultures etc. I hope for a future where agricultural food production coexists with the pre-existing natural flora and wildlife. Rather than uprooting and clearing large acres of land to grow and farm food, I think the natural integrity of our wildlife that Canada has to offer can exist alongside the managed crops used for food production. I hope for this way of farming to further extend into the agricultural research field where scientists adopt this way of farming even when performing their research.