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Introduction to Environmental Anthropology
Creating my own major and having a capstone project to finish my time at Plymouth State has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had. The name of my major is Environmental Anthropology and with that I assessed how lighting on campus affects student safety and the environment, specifically in the North Lot Parking Lot on campus.
Environmental Anthropology Overview
Often, people ask me what Environmental Anthropology is. My typical response is this: it is the study behind science and society. However, during the duration of my time at Plymouth, I have developed a more complex explanation. Environmental Anthropology is learning the science behind society and how the environment affects the way a culture goes about life and how humans adapt through nature, in both present day and the past to create a better understanding of why society functions the way it does within the environment. This complex explanation gives more insight to my major as a whole. It also shows what type of person I am and what I care about when it comes to the environment.
As I continue to take courses here at PSU, I have learned that everything is connected somehow. This has expanded my understanding of how the environment impacts humans and vice versa. As I finish my time here, I would like to continue my understanding of humans and the environment and inspire others to help save the Earth for future generations.
With this degree, I would love to stay in New Hampshire to work in the State Parks or any type of organization that works with the environment and teach people that the environment affects our everyday lives, whether we see it or not. If I am able to work in other states, that would be a phenomenal opportunity for me to expand my knowledge and horizons to new environments I have not encountered before. I hope to continue my education and use my knowledge to educate those who enjoy spending time in the environment.
Environmental Anthropology in Photos
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Environmental Anthropology Capstone Project
The driving question: How can I make campus safer for students while saving the environment?
For my capstone project, I really wanted to focus on something to do with the Plymouth State campus. I originally started with focusing on light pollution and how it affects the student body negatively. However, I found myself focusing more on one spot on campus and how students felt about that particular area.
I started to focus solely on campus safety in the farthest and darkest part of campus - the North Lot Parking Lot. The North Lot is a far away parking lot from the rest of campus and it is very poorly lit and taken care of. Most students do not feel safe when walking back to their dorms from that parking lot because there is minimal sufficient lighting on the path through the woods leading to campus. Experiencing this path myself in recent years, I knew exactly what I wanted to focus on. The ideas I had floating in my head were that we need optimal, environmentally friendly light posts throughout this poorly lit path. The lighting in this parking lot and path give off plenty of light pollution. Light pollution can disrupt patterns of wildlife, create CO2 emissions, while also disrupting human sleep patterns due to the amount of light given off at any given time, causing issues in the community and campus. There also isn’t an Emergency Blue Light post in the parking lot. The closest one is on campus on the Langdon Woods dorm building. That is a safety hazard for students who may not have a fully charged phone in case of emergencies and can’t make it back to the building in time. I wanted to add better lighting to the path and an Emergency Blue Light post to the parking lot to increase safety while still considering how the environment affects the student body. There were different steps that I had to accomplish in order to get this project started to hopefully make it a reality.
I met with Rachelle Lyons in the Environmental Science and Policy department to narrow down what I should be researching. She gave me several different research tools to gain the information I needed to work on this project. She helped me create a list of people that I should contact in order to start my journey. I contacted the Chief of PSU Police Department, Student Life Coordinators, and a few others to get the information I needed.
Questions to be answered:
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How many students have a North Lot parking pass?
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Have there been reports of incidents while walking up from the North Lot?
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Are there plans to add better lighting to the lot?
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Why is there no Emergency Blue Light in the parking lot?
With these questions rolling around my brain, I was able to get in touch with the correct people, but not receive the answers I wanted. Going forward, I felt defeated by the answers I received. It was difficult to know where to go from there. I decided that in order to get the answers I wanted, I had to go directly to the source. I had to get information from students, not faculty. I wanted to send out some type of survey where I could see where students felt the least safe on campus, hoping that it would lead me to students who didn’t feel safe coming from the North Lot. However, I ran into an issue with sending out this survey. I contacted countless staff and faculty asking if it was possible to send out a school-wide email of the survey I wanted to complete. I was told it was not possible for me to send it out because of ethical complications. I would have to have my survey and reasoning reviewed in order to complete this task. I didn’t have enough time to complete the survey task of my project, although it would have led me to a great breakthrough in this project. Since I could not complete all of the smaller tasks of my project, it became difficult to prove that bigger tasks such as implementing another Emergency Blue Light and environmentally safe light posts, are just as important.
Images from North Lot Parking Lot and Trail
*Evidence and Artifacts of Capstone Project
Evidence and Artifacts of Capstone Project
*This is an email I received regarding the questions I asked in the section above. These answers were less than ideal for me to continue my project.
*This is the map of North Lot I created using GIS Mapping tools. The closest Emergency Blue Light from the parking lot is about 0.6mi.
*The beginning of my notes of this project. Trying to gather all the information I could before completing tasks.
*General research on environmental benefits of new lighting for the trail.
Conclusion to Environmental Anthropology Capstone
When I first started to create my major, I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to connect Anthropology and Environmental Science (ESP). It wasn’t until I started to take more ESP classes that I started to understand why the environment is so important to humans and vice versa. Creating this capstone project has been a very rewarding experience. It has shown me how to conduct research properly, have a flexible timeline, keep me on task, and has given me new communication skills. I never thought I would be capable of creating and working on a project of this size. Although I was not able to accomplish all that I wanted to, it was still an experience that I can grow from and use in the workforce after I graduate from Plymouth State.
At first, I had no idea what type of project I was going to complete for the capstone. There were so many options for me to choose from; I could have gone the environmental science route or the anthropology route. The beauty of IDS is that I don’t have to choose just one thing to focus on. This project allowed me to express my knowledge of how the environment affects people and how we can make it safer one step at a time. Focusing on lighting and light pollution allowed me to attempt to make the environment safer for students to live in while also bringing back the natural beauty of the environment. I wanted to pursue this project because one night when I was driving back to campus, I noticed that all of the stadium lights were on at the field house with no one there. I noticed how much light those give off and could see the amount of light from Exit 26 on the highway. Before I narrowed down my research topic, I wanted to focus on light pollution on campus and how that affects the student population. As I began conducting my research, I was able to truly narrow it down to what my project has become.
I am very proud of this project and all the work that I have done in my time at Plymouth State. I have completed countless hours of homework, gone through 2 years of online learning due to a global pandemic, and was able to keep a social life on top of it all. My first year self would never have imagined becoming an IDS major and creating something to fit her learning needs. Over the course of the last few years, my knowledge has expanded greatly. Not only have I grown as a student, but also as a person. Who I am and who I have become has shaped the way I learn and the classes that I have added to Environmental Anthropology. My course catalog looks almost nothing like it did when I started creating the major. As I grow, so do the topics I want to learn about. This major is the best thing to have happened to me and truly demonstrated what I am capable of.
