Final Reflection

Tanner Purser
December 23, 2020

Before this course started, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and I honestly was a little
hesitant. I personally haven’t had any prior knowledge to a lot of sustainability efforts or even
the problems that we face. I imagined the topics that we were to discuss were going to be far-
fetched because that is what the media has portrayed since I can remember. What also worried
me was the course delivery and how that would impact my learning experience. I was interested
to see what role religion has to play in our environment and the issue of climate change. I myself
have done research in the past on other religions and how they all intertwine with each other, so I
was intrigued to learn how they relate on this topic.
During the course, I found the readings and videos in conjunction with the weekly
discussions extremely efficient in my learning experience. It required interaction with articles
and with our classmates as much as we could considering it was an entirely online delivery. I had
another class that was an asynchronous online delivery method, and that class was remarkably
less efficient in the course content and my retainment of information. This further showed how
well this course was put together and made it much more enjoyable. Because of this, I was able
to approach the content with an open mind which allowed me to learn so much more about
something that should be talked about a lot more. I appreciated learning something new every
week that helped tie-in the focus of this course and I ended up discussing it with someone else
almost every week. My girlfriend actually took this exact course last year and so it was easy to
discuss these topics because she remembered them and had some opinions of her own. When I
am able to discuss and think through some opinions that I have, it is very helpful for me to
process what I am learning which in turn helps me retain the content in this course. Throughout
this course, it has been eye-opening to see how much these topics of sustainability and religion
are in our daily lives. This has made me much more aware of the issues we face and the
multitude of solutions that are available to us.
At the conclusion of this course, I have learned about respect and connection in a way
that I never have before. I learned that we should respect the world we live in because without
the respect that the earth deserves, it will likely be wiped away. I have learned about all the ways
that we take advantage of our home and that in itself has changed my perspective of my every
day activities such as water and electricity use, trash consumption, good food choices, and plenty
more. I think the most important thing that we have learned and discussed heavily in this course
is our connection with our environment and with each other. In order to take steps towards a
cleaner environment, we as humans have to be able to unite for one thing that we can all relate
to. We have to drop all misconstrued assumptions and overcome any differences over certain
topics because it is vital in combatting the degradation of our planet.