First off, everyone’s poster was really well done. The students picked something that interested them and all showed a distinct line between humans and nature. One of the most eye-grabbing posters was the one done by Rachel Bird. “From Cave Paintings to Instagram, Art as a Mediator Between Humans and the Environment” was very well thought out. Her poster showed that throughout history, humans have used art to mediate and change nature. It was very colorful, with lots of examples, and artfully laid out, which is only fitting given the topic. All through history, pictures of nature have remained constant. Go to any period of time and pick out pieces of art, and you will find paintings or representations of art. However, the type of art and painting has not remained constant. Different kinds of changes have occurred as time goes on.

Another poster that really drew my interest and attention was the one done by Katie Chow. Her presentation was on diet, more specifically the Paleo diet. Titled “The Paleo Diet: Fad or Future?” Her poster presentation was on the concept of clean eating and what that really means. Diet has changed as humans have changed. What humans eat today is very different from what we ate one hundred years ago, or even two hundred, or more. Today’s culture is all about cutting things out of our food, such as fat. This is not exactly beneficial because then the missing fat is just replaced with sugar or another unhealthy substance. Katie’s poster really made me think about what really is in the food I consume, and it also makes me want to question what people today consider to be “healthy.” The Paleo diet has become a more recent development of diet. It is an attempt done by some people trying to go back to the way our ancestors ate. However, this is a very difficult thing to achieve since our food has become so genetically modified. Also the beneficial effects are still up for debate. For example, Katie debunked three myths that are commonly believed today. The first is that humans are biologically inclined to eat meat. Looking at our non-sharp incisors and our molars that are flat and good for grinding proves that we are actually biologically made to eat things like grain and vegetables. The second myth is that Neanderthals did not eat legumes or grains, and the third is that it is possible to eat like humans in the Paleolithic era. Nowadays, our food is too domesticated and changed by GMO’s to be exactly like the food from the Paleolithic era.

A lot of the other posters focused on the fact that humans believe that they are different and that that is a cause for a lot of our issues. They also focused on how much humans have developed and how much power we now have. Humans have a huge impact on our environment and while it could be either positive or negative, we have not been inclined to impact the environment positively. Humans have changed and become more powerful, but the cold hard reality is that we have only been on this earth for sliver of the time that the earth has existed, yet look at all the damage we have caused. As the poster done by Jessica Tregidgo says, “Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.”