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Ryan Welch's avatar

Ryan Welch

iTUNA Squad

"Junior at Skyview High School, President of SHS iTUNA. Together we can solve the climate crisis!"

POINTS TOTAL

  • 0 TODAY
  • 0 THIS WEEK
  • 1,478 TOTAL

participant impact

  • UP TO
    2.0
    advocacy actions
    completed
  • UP TO
    91
    meatless or vegan meals
    consumed
  • UP TO
    240
    minutes
    spent learning
  • UP TO
    1,695
    minutes
    not spent in front of a screen
  • UP TO
    45
    plastic containers
    not sent to the landfill
  • UP TO
    6.0
    public officials or leaders
    contacted
  • UP TO
    1.0
    waste audit
    conducted

Ryan's actions

Materials

Advocate for manufacturing transparency

All Industry & Materials Solutions

I will write or call 3 elected official(s) asking them to support transparency in manufacturing in terms of each product's material ingredients and environmental footprint.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Women and Girls

Equal Representation

Educating Girls

I will spend 30 minutes researching the gender gap in our leaders and elected officials and discuss with my family and friends.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Transport

Learn About Greener Public Transportation in My City

Mass Transit

I will spend at least 30 minute(s) researching what my city is doing to lower the carbon footprint of public transit.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Materials

Reduce Single-Use Disposables

Bioplastic

I will avoid buying and using 1 single-use plastics and instead replace them with durable options.

COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS

Buildings and Cities

Express My Support

Bike Infrastructure

I will find out who in my city makes decisions that impact bike routes and express my support for better biking infrastructure.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Land Use

Learn about Local Indigenous Practices

Indigenous Peoples' Land Management

I will spend at least 60 minutes learning how local indigenous tribes are caring for the land.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food

Learn Where Your Food Really Comes From

Multiple Food Solutions

I will spend at least 90 minute(s) researching different items purchased from the grocery store (including fresh produce and canned or bottled goods) to learn about where the ingredients or produce came from.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food

Keep Track of Wasted Food

Reduced Food Waste

I will keep a daily log of food I throw away during Youth Climate Ecochallenge, either because it went bad before I ate it, I put too much on my plate, or it was scraps from food preparation.

COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS

Food

Reduce Animal Products

Plant-Rich Diet

I will enjoy 3 meatless or vegan meal(s) each day of the challenge.

COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS

Food

Start or Tend a Garden

Plant-Rich Diet

I will start or tend a garden at my home, whether in my yard or in containers on a porch or windowsill.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food

Advocate for Composting

Composting

If one is not available, I will contact my local leaders to advocate for a commercial composting program for local food waste. If one is available, I will encourage my school or another local organization to participate.

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Materials

Household Waste Audit

Household Recycling

I will collect all of my household's unrecyclable, non-compostable trash to raise my awareness of how much we send to the landfill.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Action Track: Social Justice

Learn about How Micro Grids Provide Resilience in the Face of Hurricanes

Microgrids

I will spend at least 30 minute(s) learning about microgrids and how they could make the power grid in places such as Puerto Rico more resilient to hurricanes and other intense storms.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Action Track: Social Justice

Societal Impact of Climate Change

All Drawdown Solutions

I will spend 20 minutes learning how people are impacted by or adapting to climate change.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Action Track: Climate Activism

Communicate With My Elected Officials

Wind Turbines (Onshore), Solar Farms

I will write or call 2 elected official(s) telling them not to support fossil fuel subsidies and instead support wind and solar energy generation.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Electricity Generation

Less Screen Time

All Electricity Generation Solutions

I will spend 60 minutes outdoors or doing something active instead of spending time in front of a screen.

COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS

Climate Change

Youth Climate Organizations

All Drawdown Solutions

I will volunteer with or join a local youth-focused or youth-led climate activism organization.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Climate Change

Join a Green Team

All Drawdown Solutions

I will join or create a green team at my school, in my community, or with a local organization.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Materials

Practice the 5 R's

Household Recycling

I will Practice the "5 Rs" — refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, and recycle — to reduce my waste more than I can with just recycling alone.

COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION

Participant Feed

Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.

To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?

  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Transport Learn About Greener Public Transportation in My City
    In what ways can you get involved in increasing the sustainability of local transportation options?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 5/15/2020 2:54 PM
    My city has monthly Citizen's Forum meetings, where we can speak directly to the City Council about things we care about. Once they resume (following the COVID pandemic), I intend to speak to them about this issue.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Land Use Learn about Local Indigenous Practices
    What did you learn about indigenous peoples' land management that you can apply in your own life?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 5/14/2020 4:46 PM
    Small-scale farming is way more widely used in indigenous communities than in society at large, so community gardens could likely learn a thing or two from them.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Materials Advocate for manufacturing transparency
    Do you think it could be beneficial for manufacturers to start to analyze the environmental impacts of their products? What could they gain from completing a life cycle assessment of their product?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 5/13/2020 9:25 AM
    Yes! Life cycle assessments of products help businesses plan for reducing emissions in the future, and are the right thing to do from a moral standpoint. Frameworks already exist for tracking environmental impacts of products (thanks, International Business class...), so it's a no-brainer that companies should take into account how their products affect our world.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Women and Girls Equal Representation
    Would you consider running for office someday? Why or why not?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 5/13/2020 9:03 AM
    (I accidentally deleted this the first time - yes, I want to run for office.)
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Buildings and Cities Express My Support
    What do you like most about biking in your city? What would you like to improve?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 5/09/2020 10:25 PM
    We have a city council member who has prioritized bike lane development and public transit in the past, so Vancouver is doing better than many places when it comes to biking. That said, I'd love to see some form of subsidy that rewards and encourages biking over single-commuter vehicles.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Buildings and Cities Express My Support
    What do you like most about biking in your city? What would you like to improve?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 5/09/2020 10:25 PM
    We have a city council member who has prioritized bike lane development and public transit in the past, so Vancouver is doing better than many places when it comes to biking. That said, I'd love to see some form of subsidy that rewards and encourages biking over single-commuter vehicles.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Food Learn Where Your Food Really Comes From
    Often finding information about where your food comes from can be quite difficult. What was it like researching where your food came from? What did you learn, and how did this change how you look at your food?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 5/04/2020 3:23 PM
    I was really surprised by how much of the food we perceive as 'local' isn't. I think that globalization has numbed us to the fact that the oranges in our orange juice come from Brazil, and that the flour in our tortilla chips comes from New Mexico. This is good from an economic perspective (and from the perspective of having oranges, because you can't exactly grow them here...) - but it's still sobering to think about how that contributes to pollution.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Materials Reduce Single-Use Disposables
    What disposable plastic items (e.g. straws, coffee cups, vegetable bags, plastic bags) do you regularly use? What could be substituted instead?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 5/01/2020 12:22 PM
    I used to use disposable water bottles a fair amount, but now I've switched to a metal bottle that I can easily reuse.My family also got some reusable grocery bags which help us use fewer plastic bags.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Action Track: Social Justice Learn about How Micro Grids Provide Resilience in the Face of Hurricanes
    How could micro grids make places such as Puerto Rico more resilient in the face of hurricanes and other storms?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 4/30/2020 1:27 PM
    In the event of a storm that cuts out the main power grid, a micro grid can continue functioning and provide power to a community until the main grid can be brought back online.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Food Start or Tend a Garden
    How is working in a garden or on a farm good for your mental, physical, and spiritual health?

    Ryan Welch's avatar
    Ryan Welch 4/26/2020 11:37 AM
    Having just spent an hour weeding, I can say with certainty that working in a garden is both mentally cathartic and physically a good workout!