In-class Exercise Oct 29

Questions and answers about articles

Questions about the article: India’s sex slaves face life-long time of abuse

1. From where do these young girls come from?
2. What can be done for these young girls, how can we, the society and the government help to prevent young girls from being sold, abused and discriminated?
3. Why do you think that young girls drop out of school and end their education before their brothers do?

Questions and Answers about the article: Top 25 worst passwords of 2012

Q: What is the main idea of the article?

A: The main idea of this article is about informing people of the top worst passwords under the year 2012.

They want to highlight which words that are the most common.

Q: Would this information be useful if you are in this situation?

A: Yes, If you are using these passwords you better change them due to the fact that they are most common and easily stolen.

Q: What would happen if your password would be stolen?

A: They will access my pages, my sites and have access to my personal information.

Article #6 due Oct 29

India's sex slaves face lifelong cycle of abuse

This article is about Indian girls that are forced to work in the sex industry. They are given opportunities in other cities such as regular jobs to earn money but instead they end up on the street, on brothels or sold to human traffickers. Some girls are being rescued from this horrible industry and is taken to transit homes for recovery. Though there is help to get some girls do not recover from what they been through, the process to get back to a normal life is long and these young girls are scarred for life.

Word 1
1. Word: Ordeal
2. Part of Speech: Noun
3. Definition/Synonym: Test, Trial

Word 2
1. Word: Turmoil
2. Part of Speech: Noun
3. Definition/Synonym: Chaos

Word 3
1. Word: Jostle
2. Part of Speech: Verb
3. Definition/Synonym: Push

Please see Vocabulary (red words highlighted), at the right in the page archive.

Questions about the article

1. From where do these young girls come from?
2. What can be done for these young girls, how can we, the society and the government help to prevent young girls from being sold, abused and discriminated?
3. Why do you think that young girls drop out of school and end their education before their brothers do?

Article Discussion Oct 22

Part II - Group analysis about article

• What is the article about and why did you choose it?

The article is about the banning of plastic bags from larger retails stores. Plastic bags are still allowed in restaurants and for fruits and vegetables in grocery stores but not at check out.

Why we chose this article is due to that it is local news and it is an important subject today. The environmental impact from us is huge and by banning plastic bags from one kind of market might set future motivation to get rid of all plastic bags in the future. It is a big step for Santa Barbara County in the run for making more conscious choices.

• What kind of news is the article?

The article is in the local news and goes under the subjects economy and politics because it is a matter of economic and political decisions.

• What is the news article about?

Big stores like Vons, Albertson's, Rite Aid, CVS etc. will no longer provide their costumers with plastic bags from August 22 this year. This is an action for making people stop using plastic bags and for saving unnecessary plastics. Restaurants are still allowed plastic bags but hopefully that will change after that these big stores have changed their plastic bag consume.

• Gather three word

Word 1: Implementation – noun – Execution/putting into effect

Word 2: Coalition – noun– noun –alliance

Word 3: Stringent – Adjective – compelling or urgent

Article #5 due Oct 22

Opening of Northern Ireland's first abortion clinic

In Northern Ireland abortion is not permitted and this article is about Northern Ireland's first private abortion clinic located in Belfast. This clinic will help women with information, advice, etc. and early medical abortion and vows to operate within the law.

Word 1

1. Word: Contraception

2. Part of Speech: Noun

3. Definition/Synonym: Birth-control

Word 2

1. Word: Grueling

2. Part of Speech: Adjective

3. Definition/Synonym: Exhausting

Word 3

1. Word: Precious Life Movement

2. Part of Speech: -

3. Definition/Synonym: Precious Life Movement is an organization that is working for keeping abortion out of      

Northern Ireland

Please see Vocabulary (red words highlighted), at the right in the page archive.

Essay Writing due Oct 17

The following documents are related to the essay we have been writing about of a topic from the book; The Secret Life of Bees.

1) First draft
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_T41YkENOrZZkFwRy1naFlWLXc/edit

2) My own checklist
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11matOLu--NA3b8a2SfzBhWF9x9_9FKCBomc1nibt7Oo/edit

3) My class mate checklist
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NQVfRUZtEE-9Ap7KLOHtitoQPosnmsun0cwkZ2UIE3c/edit

4) Final version
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_T41YkENOrZTlN3WGFGa1k3T3c/edit

Homelessness - Mind map

During today's in-class exercise we were suppose to do a mind map with the knowledge we'd gathered for today's homework.

Research about Homelessness Due Oct 15

Homelessness walks beside you on the streets

Example 1

Information

Example #1 is from Wikipedia’s source about homelessness.

The number of homeless people worldwide has grown steadily in recent years. In some Third World nations such as Nigeria, and South Africa, homelessness is rampant, with millions of children living and working on the streets. Homelessness has become a problem in the countries of China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines despite their growing prosperity, mainly due to migrant workers who have trouble finding permanent homes.

Source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness

Why is this important to you?

This piece shows that homelessness can be found in developing countries where the social system and the welfare is not working and collaborating. These countries are on the developing stage and do not have the methods to keep everyone over the surface, some is between the gaps. There also exist huge class differences in some of these countries that allow people to fall down low. A solution for taking homelessness of the street is to end this huge class differences, making people come together and to a similar level. That will not only be good for the low life people but also to the welfare due to the fact that more people will live better, probably work and get salary and then contribute to the country’s economy.

Example #2

Information

Example #2 is from the United Nation’s declaration of human rights.

Article 25:

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Source

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a25

Why is this important to you?

This piece is important because it shows that it is a human right to live an adequate life. It is a human right to have food and shelter over the head and the right to medical care. Unfortunately that is not what is practiced in reality, there are still a lot of people that do not only are homelessness but also do not have those possibilities and those rights. Countries are not focusing on this problem enough to so something about it, homeless people are the dark side of society that society do not want to take care about.

Example #3

Information

Example #3 is from an article from New York Times, Dec 12 2010.

“For national organizations trying to eradicate homelessness, Los Angeles — with its 48,000 people living on the streets, including 6,000 veterans, according to one count — stands as a stubborn anomaly, an outlier at a time when there has been progress, albeit modest and at times fitful, in so many cities.”

Source

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/us/13homeless.html?pagewanted=all

Why is this piece important to you?

This piece from the article shows that there is not only homelessness in developing countries but also inn leading economic states. This article shows how many people that are living on the streets of Los Angeles. Homelessness shows a lack in the social system and as I earlier said, lack in the welfare system. Meanwhile a country, here America, thrives and plays a great part in the current economic status it still has a less developed side.

Preparing for the Exam

Answers to questions about the article Franken Fish

How Genetically Engineered Salmon Could Hurt our Health and Environment

Knowledge

1. Genetic engineering is a method by that you manipulate the genes in an organism to get a specific trait. That trait could either be for growing faster, out stand diseases, etc. This is done for economic advantages and for trying to solve world problems.
2. According to Aqua Bounty, The GE salmon is a technological solution for reducing fishing pressure on wild salmon, creating jobs and reducing the carbon footprint of producing seafood.

Comprehension

1.  If 5% of the GE salmon is fertile, when escaping to the oceans, they can reproduce, even if little and slowly, and be of great danger to the native fishes.
2.  “These gaps in the safety assessment for GE salmon are crucially important because a single GE-salmon escape event — involving only a few fish — can decimate wild populations.” – Paragraph 20
3. The GE food products out competes the ordinarily food production. It, with its genetically modified genes, grows faster and have better, in a quantitative way, circulation than the ordinarily products.
4.  The article is about how genetic engineered salmon should or should not enter our world and what consequences it would have on other life elements.

Application

1. I think that the idea of GE salmon is good; we want to increase our food supply for more people to take a part of but at the same time, at what price? I do not want to eat genetically modified food even if it is safe at the moment. We do not know what will happen in a couple of years, what the consequences are and what consequences other living organisms on this planet will take.
2.  Question: How will the human body react on modified food in the future, is it safe for our health to eat modified food?Reason: I would ask this question due to the fact that we do not yet know what will happen, we can’t go forward in the future and see what is happening to later go back and change it. What if modified food is a danger to our health?

Analysis

1. The problems that might be by relaying on this study from Aqua Bounty are that it is not that qualitative with information. It gives you information but not all information that applies to you and the information that is important to you are scarce. For you to take a stand, you need all the information to choose between what you think and think not. This takes more information to think about.
2. The main reason why we shouldn't grow GE salmon is due to its “better” traits, it has bigger advantage over other fishes. If the GE salmon escapes, the consequences of this could be that it, due to its advantages, can out compete and drive other fishes to extinction. It due to its size and growth eats much more than other fishes and will with that eat other fishes food source. I also think that growing fish on a fish farm is on ethical. Fish do not primarily exist for our entertainment or as our food supply. They are a living organism too and not an object to our science department. We shouldn't experiment and release something that we do not know of.
3. The worst case scenario for the environment would be the best case scenario for Aqua Bounty due to the fact that if non-modified fish gets out compete and is on their way to extinction the pressure for GE salmon would increase. People want to eat salmon and if the regular choices of the fish vanish they will find another choice. And in this case, the GE salmon which is a salmon, though modified.
4. If Aqua Bounty does not get approved by the FDA, they will probably go bankrupt due to the fact that their business does not go well.
5. The implications for genetically engineered food is that we are creating a substitute to the ordinarily food and at the same time leaving a stable and knowing business for a new and uncertain one. We are at the same time testing the new technology and watching how Far we can go with it. We also jeopardize the environments resources and the ecology. What will happen when we are letting modified productions enter the world market and the world’s environment?

Synthesis

1. The action you would do to stop the GE salmon from entering the real world (oceans) is to have really good containers and to work with it extremely carefully. You would have to experiment with the safety and have several escaping levels so it could not, under any circumstances, be able to escape into the real world and do harm.
2. The best method for spreading information is to acknowledge it in papers and on the news. It is from the news where people get the most knowledge of what is happening in the world. Informing people that there are problems with genetically engineered products, not only salmon, allow them to take a stand and decide what choices and actions they will take, if they support genetic engineered products or if they are against products that are modified , primarily, for economic purposes.

Evaluation

1. We shouldn't give Aqua Bounty approval due to the fact that if the GE salmon would escape this may cause extinction to not only other native salmons (by competition over resources) but also other smaller native fishes because of the GE salmons eating habits.
2. The global fish market would also suffer when there would not be any wild fish left and if the GE salmon would escape this would also cause environmental instability. Over one billion people are depending on fish as a food supply, it would be devastating if the balance of fish would be disturbed.
3. One other consequence of letting the GE salmon into the wildlife is that it can spread diseases and once again the native fish stability would be jeopardized.

Book Report Due Oct 3

The Secret Life of Bees

By Sue Monk Kidd

Main Events

The first important event that happens in chapters 9-11 is when The Boatwright sisters, Rosaleen and Lily is having a really hot day and a water war is initiated. During this event Lily leaves all of her sense and hoses June with water. They end up wrestling in the water over which of them that will have the sprinkler and in the end June hugs Lily. This is important due to the fact that Junes sort of dislike towards Lily now releases and they start a new way of connection.

"... June stepped over them, too, ant hen, to my shock, she hugged me. June Boatwright hugged me while our clothes made sweet, squishy sounds up and down our bodies." – Page 170

Next important event is when Zach is thrown into jail, for doing nothing than keeping silence when a friend of his throws a coke bottle on a white man, and the family's situation gets out of balance.

"I saw Jackson bite down, causing a tiny ripple across his jaw. I saw him raises his R.C. Cola bottle over his head. And throw it." – Page 178

Here, the first step of difficulties begins that will give ammunition to the next main event that happens in the book; May kills herself.

This event turns the family’s life upside down and gives away for a change that will result in several actions. May, who takes on pain that is not hers, feels that life's all problems and difficulties are too much for her and decides to end the pain. She kills herself by putting a rock on her chest while lying with her back in the river. On her note that she leaves behind to her sisters she writes that this is not the end, the opposite, this is the time for them to live. She couldn't live in this world but her sisters can, and they will. 

Due to this the unintended consequence is that June says yes when Neil propose, something she earlier said no to.

"Dear August and June,

I'm sorry to leave you like this. I hate you being sad, but think how happy I'll be with April, Mama, Papa and Big Mama. Picture us up there together, and that will help some. I'm tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I'm just going to lay it down now. It's my time to die, and it's your time to live. Don't mess it up.

Love May." – Page 210

Questions about the book

1. Why did June dislike Lily when she got there?

2. What was the problem with Zach getting in jail without doing anything?

3.If May hadn't answers the telephone and found out that Zach was in jail and if the suicide didn't happen, what might the ending been?

Words
Please see page Vocabulary (red words highlighted), at the right in the page archive.

Article Reading Oct 1

In-class exercise

Questions to ponder…

1. Have you ever wondered why you explain things to the teachers that they already know when you take an exam?
2. Have teachers ever graded you down for not writing something on an exam or for not answering the question event though you studied and know the material?

Answers 1

You explain things to the teacher because that is a way for the teacher and for yourself to see what you have learnt; if you have been listening and if you know the material.

Answer 2

That could have happened. Most of the times when I do not know or when I’m not a hundred percent sure about the answer to a question, I just write something anyway because I do not want to leave it blank.

How to study your material

1)   Identify the main ideas, highlight and underline

2)   Summarize main ideas. Select the most important paragraphs in the text and use the main ideas you underlined to help you write your summary (3-5 sentences about the main ideas in the article using your own words)

3)   React personally to main ideas – as Questions (at least three)

4)   Analyze the purpose to the text or the author’s purpose (PIE: Persuade – inform – Entertain)

5)   Evaluate the success of the text or the writer’s success emission

Highlighted text

“Humans need certain resources to survive at subsistence level – most commonly air, food, water and usually some kind of shelter. A sustainable habitat is one in which supply of and demand for these resources are balanced”

“How many beings can the Earth support before resources run low and nature take over, culling the human herds in order to reestablish a sustainable balance?. People in different parts of the world are consuming different amounts of those resources”

“Instead of technology allowing us to live better on less, we’re living better on more”

"We appear to be using technology in a way that defeats its purpose"

Summary

The way people are living today is not sustainable. We will soon outgrow the Earth’s resources and its capacity of reproduction. For humans to live at a sustainable level, we need food, water, air and shelter. Without these important elements we cannot survive and we cannot expand.
Today we are living beyond what the Earth can supply us with; we are ending the Earth’s resources rapidly and not thinking about the consequences. Everybody on Earth is living different and consuming different amounts of resources. One key element is that technology push us forward and gives us the tools to manipulate the world we are living in, the amount of resources and the progress in which way we get those resources.

Questions

1. What will happen to the human species when Earth reaches its carrying capacity according to the article?   
2. According to the article, how can people improve the issues of the Earth reaching its carrying capacity?
3. According to the article, will technology help solve the problem of overpopulation on Earth?
4. What are other examples of restricting population mentioned in the article (e.g., famine)?
5. Do you think if the earth reaches its capacity the government will need to limit the amount of children families have?

Answers

1. According to the article, when we run out of oil, we would probably freeze to death in winter and run out of food. We will at the same time advance in technology which also leads to air and water pollution as a consequence. Over and all we will destroy our necessary resources to live a healthy life.
2. The things we can do to improve the global issue is to shift to renewable and sustainable resources, buy and eat more locally grown food, reducing our ecological footprint and shower shorter. Since globalization is getting wider and wider, we share knowledge around the world and spreading knowledge over boarders which allow more and more people to focus on education rather than the making of babies.
3. We can, according to the article, help solve the problem of overpopulation with technology if we use it in the right way. Today we are using it in the wrong way which results in huge consequences. Technology allows us to invent new ways to improve the situation we are in today but at the same time we are destroying the purpose of that way.
4.  Examples of how the earth would restrict the population is by reducing the food supply, the energy supply (oil, natural gas, etc.), pollution of water (makes fish toxic) and pollution of  air (more diseases and other health problems).
5. The answer to that question is yes, especially in countries where the birthrate is big. It is not sustainable to give birth to more people than the earth can carry. If we stop producing children then fewer people will have to compete over the earth’s resources which hopefully will keep the carrying capacity from overshooting.

Article #3 Due Oct 1

Has the earth reached its carrying capacity?

In this Article by Julia Clayton, the Earth's carrying capacity is brought forward as a global issue. Here, Julia writes about what is happening, how the population grows each day and what we must do about the growing problem.

How many people can Earth carry before the resources runs out and the situation goes out of control?

What will happen to the human species when the Earth reaches its carrying capacity?

Most likely what will happen when the Earth reaches its carrying capacity is that the resources, food supply etc. will run short and the competition over these scarce resources will drive people to do unmoral things.

We are already living in a "this is mine, that is yours"- kind of world and that kind of thinking will continue with us through time and will not make the fragile situation better.

Hopefully, a disaster from nature will destroy us before we reach the point when this kind of horrific competition begins. This has already happen before, if not a meteorite, an ice-time. Earth itself decides whenever it's time to eliminate a specie and with that leave space for a new - maybe smarter and friendlier - specie.

Words
Please see page Vocabulary (red words highlighted), at the right in the page archive.

Article
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/earth-carrying-capacity.htm