The experience at the Botanical Garden was a really nice way of showing us how to go about research, and the ways that they have done it in the past. Going through all of the stations was very nice, having everybody’s opinon on all of the resarch methods. The research method that I feel would best fit my group is a “MyGuide to the Garden.” The reason I think this is because it is a portable way of learning about the history of enslavement at the botanical garden. People can choose to look at this if they want to, although we want everyone to look at it. Some other type of implementation will most likely be performed with my group, because I feel that just a guide will not be sufficient enough. I fell that a guidew would help our group a lot because of the portablilty and the accessability of the content. It will also be a hindeerance because not everyone has access to a phone or the internet.
Category: Hunter’s Posts
While my group was in the archive, everyone found everything very interesting. Seeing all of the bills of sales and other information about bills and payments made by Henry Shaw were very interesting. It was also very interesting how owned slaves were listed under utilities I believe and that they were not mentioned besides that. I also thought it kind of irritating that when we were looking deeper into a folder, when Cullen opened it, Andrew got a little irritated that we opened it. Granted, these are old and fragile documents, but just showing us one out of many is not giving us all of the information that we want to get.
The most interesting thing about the archives were the bills of sale. It was documented proof that Henry Shaw bought these slaves and how many he had. The accounts of Shaw also hiring bounty hunters to get escaped slaves back was also a very interesting point. Shaw would go that far to get a slave back and that is just disgusting to me. The records of Shaw’s purchases were also there, and even though it said he stopped owning slaves at a certain time, it is also believed that he kept owning some slaves.
Overall, the archives was a veery interesting place, getting to see all of the past information in one room was amazing. I hope that we are able to work with the archives as well as getting information out to the public in the near future.
The podcast that we listened to really made me realize things about plants and horticulture. One of the main things that stuck to me was that we do not always know the background of a plant, and what it was used for in the past.
Instead of just talking about horticulture and how plants are seen, they also try to go to other people to take up more time for the podcast. Sure, it is interesting to learn about how someone got an interest in horticulture, but the podcast should be about their garden.
Another thing is that gardening does not have to be a botanical garden that is huge. If you are gardening, it does not have to be a lifelong commitment, it can just be a hobby or a side project that you do in your spare time.
Overall, the podcast was informative and a good podcast, I just wish that the topic of gardening and horticulture was talked about more.
The man in the article was just trying to have his plants grow by themselves. He tookconstant care of them, and made sure that none of the plants he had were invasive. Despite all ofthis however, the city still gave him violations, even though it is stated that this kind of thing isencouraged. An important part of the article that I saw was that the officer that toured his homesaid that there was no planning involved in the growth of the plants. However, just a line or soabove, it said that Vest took him on a tour around his home, and told him his future plans for thegarden.
One point that I saw was that he has had his yard like this for years now. Only now arethey giving him citations. He is trying to contribute to something that Edwardsville became inJune, the Pollinator Pathway City. This basically states how they are open to the pollination ofnative plans via bees, butterflies, etc. Vest was trying to contribute to that cause, and instead of itbeing helpful to the city, they deemed it a violation. This, to me, seems a little counterintuitive.Edwardsville was the first city in Illinois to become a Pollinator Pathway City, but they are goingagainst it by getting rid of the yards and gardens that people have to contribute to this. He wasable to go along with this for a while, but recently the city noticed and eventually got rid of theyard in its entirety.
I feel that this is not fair to Vest, he was just trying to be a contributor and also trying tohelp the city of Edwardsville. In return, the city got rid of his yard and his native plants.
To determine system conditions, one must first look at the drivers. As the book states “they are analogous to the driver of a car” (Remington-Doucette 124). Meaning that they are just like the drivers of a car, whenever they drive, they drive forward or toward something. There are two main types of drivers like indirect and direct. Indirect means that it does not deal with the problem specifically, but still affects it somehow. Direct drivers are things that correlate directly to the problem itself and are driving it forward. There are the main types of changes in a problem and those are “critical transitions”. These are basically the “point of no return,” you cannot usually reverse these transitions, and they are very difficult to predict.
There is something called causal chain analysis which helps in finding solutions to problems. This just takes a larger look at the problem at hand, and finds the indirect and direct causes to a problem and the effect. There are also stakeholders in a problem as well. These are people who contribute to the problem, or the ones that are being affected by the problem. As the book states “identifying stakeholders is not a straightforward process.” There are many ways to know about stakeholders, but the main ones are interviews, or focus groups that think about the ways that a stakeholder operates. These include their values and beliefs, while also including their resources and technology.
There are many ways to approach a problem, and also many ways to solve a problem. But certain approaches have varying disadvantages and advantages. There are six general characteristics of wicked problems. These are problems that could be detrimental to humans if left unattended for a period of time. Problems can also be solved in a series of systems. There are both open and closed systems. Open systems, in general, take in the aspect of outside intervention and conditions while a closed system does the opposite. A closed system just relies on itself and does not take the outside world into effect. Some solutions can be sustained for longer periods of time while other solutions are only temporary. Overall, this chapter was very informative on how to solve problems from multiple angles and the different ways that a problem could be solved and the effects on other things by taking a certain approach.