Kristina Silvia

English 102-037

Prof. Santos

16 February 2018

Blog Post 4

            This week in class we finished Braiding Sweetgrass and began reading Eating the Landscape. On Monday, we watched a documentary about water. In this documentary, I learned about the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea is a dried up river that took only decades to dry up when it should have taken way longer. I learned about the Colorado River. At the time of this document the Colorado no longer could reach the ocean. Due to the damns in the United States, the river had become very shallow and eventually stopped a hundred miles before the ocean. The United States has begun putting more water back into the Colorado and today it finally reaches the ocean again. This was very interesting and made me realize how much our actions can affect the Earth. The Aral Sea dried up due to our want for cotton and the Colorado due to our want for electricity and other powers we can get from water.

            On Wednesday, we had a guest come in and teach us all how to make corn husk dolls. This was a very fun and difficult activity. Although mine did not come as how I wanted it to, I am still very grateful for being able to make one. This activity helped me understand how something like corn can be used for more than just food. It really helped me understand that the Earth gives us many gifts we just must find them by listening to the Earth. On Friday, we discussed some of the readings from our new book, Eating the Landscape. We split into groups and each group had a task to do. My group had to research the Gardens of Ancients. This garden is in Texas. There, you can buy herbs that can be used as food and for medicinal properties. I thought it was cool to learn that some people still use plants and herbs for medicine. I previously assumed that everyone just went to the doctors and got regular medicine, like pills.