We (your friendly neighborhood pharmaceutical group) decided to each summarize our thoughts about the project and compile them, so that all seven of us can reflect together. Without further ado:
Austin:
First establishing a group early in the semester was awesome. I was less of an individual everyday which was awesome because education is intended to be shared, critiqued, and reformed. I am blessed to be part of such a well mixed group that contains science majors, business fanatics, and extraordinary writing professionals.
Our group quickly came to a unanimous agreement that informing the public about medicine disposal should be our pitch. None of new where to correctly deposit expired medicine and from personal experience I can confirm my parents have a whole bathroom cabinet full of unused pain meds and other prescriptions. We also had a good amount of published material to site. Aquatic life is having problems with reproduction and sex organs, and it was quite apparent that properly disposing of medicine is something we can improve right here in Wheaton.
We accomplished our goals by surveying citizens and students. After gathering some quick questions we handed each individual a brochure. The result is over 75 people were talked to on a personal level. I got to know and work with 6 awesome wheaton students, and now I feel like similar projects in the future can be accomplished.
Jenny:
For me the biggest part of this project was learning how to incorporate my personal convictions about the environment into my day to day interactions. It’s really hard to put yourself out there for something you believe in, especially if you’re new to talking about it! But caring for people authentically means listening to what they have to say, and responding respectfully, even if it’s hard. Maybe my biggest realization was what I shared in class on Friday — caring for the environment and caring for our neighbor are so intrinsically connected, and having one on one conversations really convicted me of that.
Joe:
I was quite encouraged that many people knew how to properly dispose of unused pharmaceuticals. I believe that we can truly make a difference if we can get other people to share there knowledge of how to properly dispose pharmaceuticals.
Kate:
This project has me thinking – not only about the proper disposal of pharmaceuticals, but about how to motivate and influence people to change their behaviors. It is fascinating to me to think about what incentivizes people – some individuals we talked to are all about environmentally-friendly practices, while others’ top priority was convenience, and others’ personal safety. Lesson learned: find out what makes someone tick and tailor your plan of attack accordingly: you’re much more likely to get results.
Lyndsey:
I remember when Dr. Page first explained that you were not supposed to just throw away prescription bottles. It had never even occurred to me that there was another way to dispose of pharmaceuticals. Over the course of this semester I have had the opportunity to learn about how the improper disposal of pharmaceuticals impacts the environment. I really appreciated how in the process of this project I have gone from being the person who never knew about pharmaceutical disposal to the person who informs family and friends about the importance of proper pharmaceutical disposal.
Sam:
At first, I was very afraid of actually doing something like going out and going for active change. Mostly that fear came from the unknown factor of doing something like it. But now that I look back at it, it was a very interesting experience and something that I was glad to have participated in. It really gave me more knowledge of the topic of pharmaceutical disposal, but also the satisfaction of actually making a change.
Yuxi:
This project taught me a lot about public advocacy and working in a group. During our time at the French Market, I was able to test out different ways to talk to people so that it let down their guard and/or were forced to interact with us. I found that mentioning we were Wheaton College students was helpful in getting people to trust us and asking them a question about whether they knew how to properly dispose of their meds caught people’s attention and brought them into conversation with us. I also felt that our group did a good job capitalizing on group members’ unique skills and strengths; we divided up the work fairly and logically according to what members were good at (e.g. a bio major synthesized the research, having written lit reviews; I helped make posters with my experience working with digital media, etc.).
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