Interconnectedness
Interconnectedness describes different circles such as family, creation, land and community. Each of those four circles fits together but they are still equally independent. In First Nations culture, they are each very different things but they can all manage to find away to relate to each other. Family and community are different and similar at the same time, because sometimes it’s possible that you aren’t a part of family so your community is your family or vice versa. Interconnectedness also describes the phrase power with instead of power over. Power with is more powerful because you’re United rather then being better by yourself. Interconnectedness must be present or else nothing would be connected and every aspect would be isolated.
What we are learning in science right know about ecosystems also relates to interconnectedness. The water cycle relates to the carbon cycle because all living organisms need water to sustain us. All the animals and plants need water to live but when they die, they decompose and create cellular respiration which puts carbon in the atmosphere. Decomposing also puts phosphorus in the atmosphere. Those three cycles all fit together and need eachother to continue moving whatever element they represent. Without one of those cycles, the other two would fail to do their job and life would not be as sustainable as it is now or, life would not be able to function at all.
Sustainability
In First Nations culture, sustainability means how one decision will effect the community, agriculture, livestock, family, practises, land, creation, and overall well being of the aboriginal community. They take into consideration how killing an animal for food will effect the rest of the community. They look at the condition of the environment now and envision what the future of the environment will look like after they “take” something from the earth. It’s hard to describe sustainability as one when it is often described into three separate categories; honoring the earth, agriculture and biodiversity. Honoring the earth refers to making sure that our decisions will not effect future generations. As a whole, we do not practice this and we see it through global warming. Agriculture is more evident but it refers to the way we harvest or grow plants. We’re only supposed to take enough for ourselves and not more. We also don’t practice this because we throw away a big portion of the food when there’s not even enough for people in poorer countries. Biodiversity to me means that we shouldn’t kill all of one certain type of animal to run out. Like the buffalo that used to run will in north America.
In my opinion, we’re learning about sustainability through learning about the water, phosphorus, carbon and nitrogen cycles. All of those cycles need to happen or else life wouldn’t be sustainable or at least not the way that we know it. Water will evaporate and if there were no way for it to return to the earth, every organisme that relies on water wouldn’t be able to survive and its the same for nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon. All of those elements must return to earth to keep us alive.
