Michelle_Laura_Zeliph

=__**Journal Entries**__=

__**January 27th, 2014**__

Some quotes, thoughts, and questions I gathered from the SRI Consulting, 2006 "The American Environmental Values Survey: American Views on the Environment in an Era of Polarization and Conflicting Priorities" reading.

“While survey after survey reveals apparent broad support for environmental issues, these results do not correlate with the decline in environmental public support.” Could this be tied to the recently observed decline in number of people involved in civic activities in general?

“To build strong public support for environmental protection, advocates must realize they are speaking to multiple audiences, and that each of these audiences has different values and priorities.” Suggests that environmental/sustainability lessons may have to customized to address these different demographics. This leads me to the following inquiry: Would it be more valuable to teach children about environmental/sustainability issues that their parents/guardians do not believe to be issues that affect them, or more valuable to educate them about issues that these demographic surveys have identified as important to the adults in the area?

“AEVS data indicates that the YOYO [‘You’re On Your Own’] philosophy is much more appealing to Americans today.” We really need to adopt and promote the “We’re In This Together” (WITT) philosophy which focuses upon “connection, community, safety nets and support” in order to make progress and combat environmental and sustainability issues. Lessons need to emphasize BIG solutions, like stricter government regulations that force polluting companies to change to greener ways of doing business. Because recycling, buying organic, and replacing your incandescent bulbs with fluorescent bulbs isn’t going to be enough to save the planet.

“Issue complexity has paralyzed many Americans”- “[Environmental] awareness requires a high level of knowledge about environmental issues, a strong understanding of how the environment relates to the economy, and a long-range perspective.” If we can communicate these issues in such a way as to be understood by young children, can’t we communicate them in such a way as to be understood by the adult layperson? I know that it is easier to educate children about these issues as they do not have the same biases or suffer from legacy thinking to the same degree as adults do, but I do believe that similar lesson plans could be developed for adults. The AEVS suggests “programs that personalize environmentalism and demonstrate ‘costs’ to families, or how much can be achieved through simple, incremental changes in personal behavior.” (Emphasis added by me.) I’m not so sure how successful this would be. I’m not a huge proponent of individualism as a solution. And though I don’t fully support personalizing environmentalism, it may help to remove some of the stigma that people associate with the word today. Think of it as baby steps. First, address the issues most important to that demographic. Because people are most often concerned about their own health and well-being and the health and well-being of their loved ones, start educating them about these issues. Then once people have associated “environmentalism” with something that benefits them, start introducing problems that may not directly affect them or, more likely, things they don’t think affect them. For example, if an area suffers from high incidences of asthma, environmental educators may want to focus education on air pollution rather than global warming or the preservation of the rainforest. We may want to think about this approach when working with children. Take something they know and are familiar with and then build from there.

__**January 28th, 2014** __

As I was looking for resources for the Upper Elementary Research Program (as I am hoping to work with this age group), I noticed something rather peculiar. The New York State websites designed for kids really don’t contain much information. Nor do they look very fun. The NYS Assembly Kids’ Page ( []) is garish and only contains a short description of what the state assembly is, some coloring pages, a crossword puzzle, and seven facts about NYS. The Department of State’s Kids’ website ( []) is certainly better looking, but again doesn’t contain much information. A lot of the information found on this webpage can also be found on the Assembly page. I was at first hopeful about this webpage because it has an interactive map of all of the counties in NY. I thought that if you clicked on them, maybe they would bring up some basic facts about each county. I thought that would at least be a start. But no… when you click on the map it tells you the origins of the county’s name. Finally, I found NYS Senator Farley’s “Kids’ Corner” ( []). I put “Kids’ Corner” in quotes because it doesn’t really look like a website designed for children. I guess I have to give him credit for creating a kids’ page, but not much. The information isn’t really geared towards children (not young ones at least) and the “games” are again pretty boring. I’m actually really disappointed. I am a born and bred New Yorker and I love my state (most of the time) and my county. Though I developed most of this appreciation for my town, county, and state government while in high school when I served an internship with my town supervisor (who later became the chairman of the county board of supervisors), I believe that it is never too early to teach children about civic involvement. But if children (mistakenly) learn at an early age that government is boring, I’m afraid that they will be turned off from these civic duties and the current state that we are in (people in my age bracket who are civically inactive, don't vote, etc.) will continue to worsen.

It seems that I’m not the only one who has noticed the lack of fun in our (and other states’ websites). While looking for state websites I also came across this article- []. Two of the sites listed were sites I had already checked out and critiqued. The article noted similar problems. Two no longer existed. I thought that was strange, until I looked at the date the article was published. This article is from July, 25th 2001. It’s almost 13 years old! Older than several of the students we will be working with this semester. These websites have had the same basic information on them (though their “look” may have changed some as website development has become more advanced) since I was in 5th grade! I think it’s time for some of these webpages to have a makeover. We need websites that teach kids that government is cool and gets them excited about being civically active as they grow up!

__**February 1st, 2014**__

After reading this article ([]) about yet another chemical that is contributing to the destruction of the world’s coral reefs, I had several thoughts. My first thought was about where to focus lessons. With so many anthropogenic sources of pollution bleaching coral reefs and preventing the growth of new coral, what does one choose to teach kids about? The article only lists a few causes of destruction- benzophenone-2 (BP-2), pollution (in general), development, climate change, pesticides, petroleum, and agricultural nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen. Do we choose to focus our lessons on only one of the causes or do we attempt to include as many as possible? Is there a point where our lessons lose meaning because we are trying to stretch them too thin by including too many details?

Another thought after reading this article was that we really need to be thinking outside the box (using divergent thinking) when developing our lesson plans. The article also lists multiple negative consequences that result from the destruction of the coral reefs. Some are easy to think of, such as the loss of biodiversity. Others I didn’t even think of, but make tons of sense and should certainly be included in lessons plans. One of the consequences mentioned in the article was the economic loss that would result from the loss of the reef. “The roughly 1,200 square miles of coral reefs in the United States generate more than a billion dollars per year due to coastal protection, fisheries, tourism, recreation and biodiversity promotion, according to a 2003 study. The impact is even greater for regions with more reefs area, such as Southeast Asia, which benefits annually from corals to the tune of about $12.5 billion.” Because I am a biologist, I obviously think of the ecological impacts first, but I hope to try to expand my thinking as this course progresses in order to develop more thoughtful and comprehensive sustainability education lessons.

__**February 5th, 2014**__

As I continue to perfect my activity for Tamarac's 1st graders on Wednesday, I am met with an obstacle that I am sure most educators encounter at some point in their lives. The obstacle is not knowing how much the students I am going to be teaching already know about air pollution. The following questions are running through my head- What kinds of things do they already know? What don't they know about and how am I going teach them these things? How big is their vocabulary? What words do I need to explain? What limitations do they have? (For example, though they know how to write, their spelling may not be correct and their handwriting may be messy.) We are at a slight disadvantage considering we are not formal educators. We do not have the same experience working with students as a seasoned teacher might. I feel I have a slight advantage over my classmates as I have developed curricula before and I have delivered lessons before, but not to anyone this young. I think the youngest kids I've taught were in 2nd grade (maybe a few in 1st graders), but I have the most experience working with 3rd through 12th graders. I think it is the most fun to work with what my old job would refer to as "the littles," but I'll admit that I'm a little out of my comfort zone here. How do actual teachers overcome these obstacles? I know that they work with a wide variety of students during their student teaching period, but they are brand new teachers at some point. What are some of their strategies? I know one of the strategies we've discussed during class was informal assessments, both written and oral. Though we will be employing this technique to some extent during our first day at Tamarac, it may be a challenge to edit a lesson on the fly in order to ensure that it is accessible and understood by the students. Something we used to do at my old job during staff training was make a chart that included our four major age groups (some overlap)- 3rd through 5th, 5th through 7th, 7th through 9th, and 9th through 12th- and make a list of strengths and weaknesses of each age group. For example, a strength of the 3rd through 5th graders is that they are very imaginative, while weaknesses include homesickness and needing more time to get places on time. I think I may do a little research to see if anyone has remarked about the strengths and weaknesses of 1st graders in order to get a better idea of the students I will be working with. EDIT: Found this on pbs.org ( []). It talks about what students learn and how they learn it and covers each grade between preschool and 5th grade. I was also looking for picture books that the first grade Tamarac teachers could read to students while we were gone and found these- [] and []

__**February 6th, 2014**__

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While completing Tuesday’s curriculum review memo, I noticed something unique. The “Human Impacts on the World Ocean” curriculum published by National Geographic included a transcript of the podcast included in the lesson plan for those who have trouble with listening comprehension. I really liked this element because I don’t think enough lesson plans include options like this that take into account different learning styles or learning disabilities. In many school systems, like the one I grew up in, students with learning disabilities learn and work right alongside students without them. In my school, they often had aides to assist them and sometimes spent class in “The Resource Room” where they could take lessons slower, but other than that, we were usually taught the same things in the same environment. I’m not sure how affective this was, as I didn’t really think about it while I was in high school and, after a while, I was only in upper level classes that the students with learning disabilities didn’t take. I was curious how general educators (as opposed to educators specializing in educating those with learning disabilities) accommodate students with learning disabilities in a classroom setting where every student has a different level of intelligence, motivation, etc. I’m not sure how much training general educators get teaching students with learning disabilities. Not being a formal educator, I wanted to look into some resources to prepare for our visit to Tamarac on Wednesday. There are likely going to be at least a few differently abled students and I want to know how to best cater to their learning needs. I have worked with a wide variety of kids before, including those with ADD, ADHD, and children with autism (both mild and severe). Because we are doing this primarily for the kids, I want to ensure that each one of them gets something out of our time there, regardless of their different learning styles or disabilities. (A couple of the resources I read/watched- [], [], and [].)

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">__**February 8th, 2014**__

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Since I was young, like many children, I was taught not to waste water. I was taught to turn the water off while brushing my teeth and to take short showers. I knew that water was precious and that not everyone had access to clean water, but I never realized how dire the need for freshwater was. This article ([]), entitled “Why global water shortages pose threat of terror and war,” describes how serious the situation is. It describes the conflicts that are likely to arise within the next decade as nations (or parts of nations) deplete their store of groundwater. The article says that though wars between nations are not likely to arise, it is very likely that conflicts within nations will occur, “conflicts between farmers and cities, between ethnic groups, between pastoralists and farmers in Africa, between upstream users and downstream users on the same river.” Areas in North Africa, areas that already suffer from sub-national conflicts and genocide, are at high risk for drying up in the next ten years which will likely exacerbate current conflicts. But it is not only third world nations that are going to suffer. California risks water shortages as they continue to suffer from drought. China also risks water shortages due to its high population and the growing number of water-dependent coal-fired power stations being built there. The article is incredibly fatalistic, offering no way to ameliorate the situation. This article made me wonder, how can we teach children how important water is without scaring them? Can we talk to them about war and terrorism? A lot of teachers who teach younger students avoid these topics because they seem too complicated or scary for little kids. But I think they are important topics to teach. I’m just not sure what the appropriate age to start teaching them is. My first real exposure to the concepts of war and terrorism all occurred in the 5th grade. I was in 5th grade on September 11th, 2001. My teacher had to explain to us what happened. Several of my friends were pulled from school that day, their parents fearing the worst as we live so close to the city. I remember my mother checking in on family friends of ours living in Manhattan. I didn’t truly grasp what was going on until I started watching the news reports. That year I continued to learn about the tragedy of war as I read books like “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” which takes place during WWII and depicts the horrors the protagonist witnesses within a concentration camp. My teacher also read us “A Soldier’s Heart,” a fictional diary of a Confederate soldier (if I am remembering the book correctly; he may have been fighting for the Union Army). Both books contained vivid imagery; I still remember scenes from them today. So I guess where I’m going with this is, how do we teach kids about how precious water truly is and about the very real consequences of water shortages without scaring them? Fear is a tactic used to get people to take action, but I’m not sure that it is the strategy that should be used in this case. I’m afraid that by using fear, like this article, people will become fatalistic about the situation. Basically, the bottom line/question is- how do we teach kids about this very real, very dire situation in a way that makes the importance of water stick in their heads without burdening them with fears of war and conflict? I was going to say “unnecessary” fears, but these fears are somewhat necessary. I’m just afraid that this topic may give kids like me, kids with anxiety problems, just one more thing to worry about.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">February 12th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While watching the documentaries, I had a few thoughts, which were largely based upon my experiences growing up in a small K-12 school. I had to ask, what happened to progressive education? I really liked the quotes describing progressive education- “Progressive education, at its best, was designed to tap all the students as opposed to a narrow band,” and that the goal of progressive education was “to make every working man a scholar, and every scholar a working man.” I feel as if this idea has been lost in schools today, or at least in my school it has. I think it is important to keep the goal of progressive education in mind when thinking about sustainability education. Sustainability is relevant to everyone and should be taught to everyone, both “scholar” and “working man.” Because many sustainability issues will require a combination of people from different fields working together to solve problems, it is important that sustainability be included in all curricula.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">They talk also about “tracking” later in the documentary and though my high school did not do it as intensely as the documentary depicts, tracking certainly occurs to some extent at my alma mater. For example, if you are a below average to average student, you will likely be placed on the “vocational track.” On the vocational track, you only take a couple of classes at the school and spend half the time at the county BOCES learning a trade. This track is designed for students with no desire to go to college, who can’t afford it and may not qualify for scholarships/enough financial aid, or for those the guidance counselor thinks would not do well in an “academic” environment. Of course you can tell them you’d rather be on another track, but this rarely happens. Students typically listen to their guidance counselor’s advice; it is their job to guide us after all. For example, there was another vocational program, an honors level one, that I was really interested in called New Visions. I was specifically interested in their Scientific Research and World Health program. But my guidance counselor steered me away from it saying that if I joined the program, it may impact my acceptance into college as I may not have been able to take certain classes such as AP courses and Physics. I listened to her, but still wonder if I would have benefited more from that program than I did taking AP English Literature and AP Spanish, as there were no AP science classes offered at my high school at the time. I was also discouraged from taking an international foods course and encouraged to pick up another science elective, of which we had very few to choose from. I have a small hunch that the career path I chose may have been very different had I learned that I loved cooking and baking earlier in my life. I would say that I am as passionate about making food and desserts as I am about doing research and had I known that in high school, I may have gone to school for culinary instead. But I was trapped on my track, and the cooking classes were mostly designed for students on the vocational track. I am extremely against trapping students in this way. High school is a time to explore and students should be able to take whatever classes interest them, regardless of their track. Due to “tracking” it may be hard to educate everyone at the high school level about sustainability issues. There are very few classes that EVERY high schooler takes today. I took several classes with people on the vocational track earlier in high school, but that was mostly due to going to such a small school. We didn’t have honors level classes and only offered four AP courses the year I graduated. Sustainability lessons may have been able to be worked into a curriculum that would reach every student in my school, but maybe not in a school with several teachers per grade level, Regents, Honors, AP, and IB classes. Another obstacle for teaching everyone about sustainability is the rigidity of curriculum. Most of my teachers, especially early in high school before I started taking AP and college courses, only taught what was on the Regents exams. We were not taught to think or to really consider an event, piece of literature, etc. We were simply taught how to take and pass an exam. It will be very difficult to ensure that all students learn about important issues like sustainability when the curriculum is so inflexible.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">February 13th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Some lessons learned at Tamarac yesterday:

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Everything takes longer than you think! My lesson took up a majority of the class period. Sometimes it was hard to regain their attention between when they completed a direction and when I needed to give them the next direction. The teachers suggested varying the way you get their attention, but only gave us one example of how to do it. I used one of the “attention-getters” I learned while working at camp without really thinking of it. And it worked! It is definitely one I will use again. Another thing about first graders is that they ask A LOT of questions! You may not think this age group would be so curious, but it makes a lot of sense. Whereas preschool and kindergarten are mostly about learning to socialize with other people your age, first grade is truly a child’s first chance to explore a lot of new information and master skills like reading and writing. Though they’ve been exploring the world around them since they were born, this is really the first time they have had the chance to learn about the world, its people, its history, and its environment within the classroom. Another thing that I noticed is that if you explain something well and ask them a clear question, you can get some pretty awesome answers. When I asked, “Why do most people use cars instead of buses, bikes, or walking,” I was amazed that I got a lot of answers that I was looking for- “They’re faster”- and some I wasn’t looking for but that were very true- “People are lazy.” First graders are very, very smart and their intelligence shouldn’t be underestimated. It may take them a bit longer to grasp a concept, but if the topic is explained well, I really think you could teach them about almost anything, even if the concept is hard for even adults to understand. That being said, at this grade level, the information and skills they mastered is extremely variable. For example, one girl mentioned that she couldn’t read at all, though some students have basically mastered reading short picture books by this time of year. Another example of the diverse knowledge and skills set of each of the children in this age group became apparent when one student asked what the environment was and another student was able to answer his question very well. When teaching this age group, you also have to know how to explain just about anything in words that will understand and sometimes you don’t realize which things those will be until you are in the middle of your lesson and need to think fast.

__**February 15th, 2014**__

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Article read- “Putting the next generation of brains in danger” ([]) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.5;">According to this article, the number of chemicals known to be toxic to the developing brains of children has doubled over the last seven years and researchers are becoming increasingly concerned. Some researchers have even called for the reevaluation of regulatory processes worldwide in order to begin to address this dilemma.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Some countries have already tightened regulations. For example, in 2007, the EU adopted regulations known as REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals) in order to protect human health from risks posed by chemicals. Because of these regulations (and their absence in the US), “some of the multinational manufacturers are now marketing products in Europe and the U.S. with the same brand name and same label, but in Europe [they] are free of toxic chemicals and in the U.S. they contain toxic chemicals.” These chemicals are believed to lower IQ, shorten attention span, and lead to an increased risk of ADHD and other behavioral problems.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">American students are already falling behind in school. In 2012, the US placed 17th in the developed world for education, according to a report published by Pearson. If we continue to allow our country’s children to be exposed to these chemicals, I will not be surprised if our ranking drops even further. My primary thought- how are we supposed to educate our country’s children about issues of sustainability and issues that are detrimental to our health and the health of our planet when these same issues are making it more difficult for our children to learn?


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">February 19th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Some interesting observations I made during Lindsay’s Media Literacy and BP Oil Spill Workshop yesterday. First, a comparison between the 1st graders we worked with at Tamarac last week and the 7th and 8th graders that attended Lindsay’s workshop. The first graders were very eager to answer questions. Even if they didn’t fully understand a concept or question, they were eager to respond, even if their answer was wrong. The 7th and 8th graders were much quieter and hesitant. I wasn’t totally surprised by this as I’ve worked with both elementary and middle school students many times before, but it did make me wonder when this “switch” of eagerness to participate occurs during childhood and if it occurs at approximately the same time for all children. It was also interesting to see how much guidance the 7th and 8th graders needed when grasping a new subject. This was expected when teaching the 1st graders, but I didn’t expect it as much when working with the 7th and 8th graders. The three students I was helping to mentor needed a lot of guidance when using the search engine in order to figure out exactly where to look for the information they needed. (They needed help determining what words to type to get the results they needed.) They also needed a lot of prompting to understand what they were doing during the mash up activity and to come up with ideas of how to create the mash up ad. It may have helped to have actually walked them through an example of how to make a mash up ad before they attempted to do it on their own. We didn’t want to squelch their creativity, but they did need more guidance than I would have thought in order to fully grasp the activity at hand. Another thing to keep in mind when working with middle schoolers- they’re still silly and they’re still kids. Sitting through an hour long movie on a completely new topic is a bit tedious. I’m a huge proponent of using activities to teach students. Worksheets never kept my attention as a student, so I try to include as many hands on activities in my lessons as possible. Where I used to work, we treated all of our campers, whether they were in 3rd grade or had just graduated high school, like kids. We encourage a lot of play time and learning through play. I think that allowing students to play is a valuable teaching technique that is often underutilized by those teaching older students.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">February 20th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I had some very strong reactions to the article entitled “A Valuable Reputation: After Tyrone Hayes said that a chemical was harmful, its maker pursued him.” Before reading this article, I was vaguely familiar with Tyrone Hayes and his strained relationship with Syngenta. His story was first introduced to me during a film we watched during Environment and Society last spring. I was much more familiar with the EPA’s ongoing review of atrazine, the Syngenta funded research that continues to imply that atrazine is safe, and the building evidence from other laboratories that suggests that atrazine does indeed affect the reproductive systems of male frogs. The reason I had such a strong reaction to this article is because my research is focused on atrazine remediation. Though I am not attempting to prove or disprove the safety of atrazine, it kind of scares me that Syngenta is all over those researchers who are. If I publish the research I am working on now, which basically assumes that atrazine is harmful and a contaminant in our water and soil, will Syngenta be after me? I highly doubt it as my project is on a very small scale and certainly wouldn’t be seen as a threat to Syngenta, but it did cross my mind as something to worry about, especially because I am so early in my career. Though I may not have to worry about it now, it may be something I do need to worry about in the future. Maybe even something I have to worry about for the rest of my life as the environmental research I will be doing is bound to piss someone off. I research how to clean up environmental contaminants using biological processes. These contaminants are often released into the environment by industry, but industry is not always responsible for cleaning up their mess. It’s a messy (no pun intended) business I’m about to get myself into, but it is something that I am extremely passionate about. At the same time, I’ll need to be careful to make sure I do not find myself in Tyrone Hayes’s shoes. I do not want to potentially jeopardize my career or have industry breathing down my neck. I also do not want anyone to approach me and try to buy my scientific opinion. I think it is wrong to back a claim for money. I do what I do because I am passionate about it and it feels right. If I was doing research for the money, I’d be working in pharmaceuticals.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">February 22nd, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I read an article entitled “Can waste-made chic save the oceans” ([|http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/02/22/environment/can-waste-made-chic-save-the-oceans/#.Uwo5Cqgo6ax]) and some of the questions that the author posed at the end of the article were questions I also had on my mind while reading the article. The summary of the article is as follows- Plastic waste in the ocean is causing countless problems within marine ecosystems. According to Greenpeace, “it has been estimated that over a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles are killed each year by ingestion of plastics or entanglements.” Many people are unaware of these problems because it is a matter of “out of sight, out of mind.” But Pharrell Williams and Captain Paul Watson hope to bring this problem to the public’s attention while also attempting to “remediate” the loads of plastic waste in the ocean. Their project “will take plastic waste from oceans and shorelines, and recycle, enhance and reuse it for yarn, fabric, and other elements in consumer products.” Their first project is a collaboration between Dutch designer brand G-Star Raw and U.S. firm Bionic Yarn. At this point in the article, a couple of questions came to mind. First, will this actually make a difference? I feel like there are two major problems with this project- 1) Making fibers for this single line of jeans out of recycled ocean plastic isn’t going to significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste in the oceans and on the shorelines. 2) This particular project doesn’t really do much to address the source of the problem. The majority of people are going to remain uninformed as to where their plastic wastes often end up. Even if Williams’s and Watson’s project does aim to educate people, it will likely be marketed to only the very affluent, those who do not make up the majority of the population. Another problem I have with this project is that it encourages individualistic “solutions” to address sustainability problems that require a much larger, collective effort in order to be solved. I think that all these jeans will do is make wealthy people feel good about “doing something” beneficial for the environment. This article should serve as a reminder to us that when teaching about sustainability problems, we must focus on teaching about real solutions, no matter how difficult they may seem to achieve, rather than “fluffy,” feel good “solutions” that do very little to actually address and solve sustainability problems.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">February 23rd, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While reading over the article entitled “A Valuable Reputation: After Tyrone Hayes said that a chemical was harmful, its maker pursued him,” a second time, I realized that in my last entry on this topic I forgot to mention another important observation. In a single paragraph within the article, two topics that I am extremely interested in were addressed- environmental justice (or injustice) and open access to scientific literature. I think this quote is incredibly important to consider, not just in regards to atrazine but in regards to all sustainability problems- “At some of his lectures, Hayes warned that the consequences of atrazine use were disproportionately felt by people of color. ‘If you’re black or Hispanic, you’re more likely to live or work in areas where you’re exposed to crap,’ he said. He explained that ‘on the one side I’m trying to play by the ivory-tower rules, and on the other side people are playing by a different set of rules.’ Syngenta was speaking directly to the public, whereas scientists were publishing their research in ‘magazines that you can’t buy in Barnes and Noble.’ I feel that this quote is so important because it seems that so few people are aware of environmental justice problems, even though they occur quite literally everywhere. One of the reasons that people may be unaware of environmental justice problems, or more generally environmental problems that affect their own health and well-being, may be because they are being told one thing by industry (their products and the pollution they create are not harmful) and another by scientific research (the products and pollution are toxic). Industry has more money and resources to ensure that their “facts” are made available to the public, whereas a lot of scientific literature is not. Not only this, but the language within the scientific research articles is far more inaccessible to the general public than anything that a company may publish on their website or in a magazine. I think it should be the goal of scientists publishing papers on environmental and sustainability issues to write two different articles for each paper they publish; one which can be published in a scientific journal and one which can be understood by the general public and can be published in a magazine or newspaper. I know that many publishers may not want to take a risk publishing an “anti-industry” article, but I do believe something has to be done to make important science more accessible to the general public and that by doing so we may be able to reduce the severity of other problems like environmental injustice.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">February 28th, 2014 __ **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Teaching the 3rd – 6th graders in the upper elementary research group was a lot of fun! They are an incredibly smart group. It’s amazing to see the difference between the 1st graders we’ve worked with at Tamarac and even the youngest members of this age group. Concerns that we had with the 1st graders (not every student being able to read and write) are not really a concern with this group. We do have to be careful, however, to ensure that our language is still appropriate. I think that the biosketch could have been clearer/simpler. Though mentors interacting with students throughout the room helped to answer students’ questions, this biosketch should be reworked again for this age group. The biosketch also took a while to complete and some of the kids seemed bored. I think the “What is a Researcher?” presentation was a nice change of pace and I tried to include plenty of questions in my part of the presentation for two reasons- 1) to make it more interactive and engaging for the students and 2) to ensure that they understood the language I was using was appropriate (because some of the words I was using, like “radiation” and “elements,” may have been new, especially to the younger students). This part of the lesson made me realize two really awesome things- 1) these kids are super smart! (I didn’t think they’d know so many Nobel Laureates or the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. One of them was even able to accurately describe what radiation is! I was __so__ impressed.) 2) They are still eager to participate! There were plenty of raised hands when questions were asked. They’re also really good at connecting the dots. Though Karin never mentioned that Darwin developed the theory of evolution, one of the younger students took the information presented and accurately came to that conclusion himself. Superb! I think that Lindsay’s county activity was great! I want more activities like this one to be included in our lessons. It was a great opportunity to get the kids out of their seats after over an hour of sitting and was a good way for the kids to meet each other. I wish we had done more of an “icebreaker” activity like this one at the beginning of class. Overall, though, I thought that Thursday went very well and I’m really excited to be working with this age group.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 1st, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Continuing on a previous journal entry about water conservation (if you haven’t figured it out yet, freshwater and its availability is a major concern of mine), this week I read an article entitled “Drought Fuels Rising Tide of Texas Water Conservation,” ([]). Texas has been experiencing periods of extreme drought for three years now and city officials, especially in Austin and San Antonio, are developing strategies to save water. I think it is interesting that the article mentions that a movement to rethink water usage in San Antonio actually developed before the drought began as “a desire to save water for endangered species.” This “meant [that San Antonio] was further along in its efforts [to conserve water] when the drought began.” Since 1993, when a federal judge ruled in favor of conserving water to protect the habitat of the endangered Texas blind salamander, San Antonio has been urging its citizens to limit their water consumption. The article says that after the decision was made, “TV station weathercasters began reporting the level of the Edwards Aquifier [one of the primary habitats of the Texas blind salamander] along with the daily weather forecast, forcing residents there to pay closer attention to their water consumption.” I thought this was a pretty interesting idea. What if they did this in places like California, which is also currently facing serious problems due to drought? The article also talks about some of the larger scale methods that San Antonio has employed in order to save water, such as installing high-efficiency toilets throughout the city and retrofitting water fixtures in hotels and schools. San Antonio is also “looking to desalinating plentiful brackish ground water as another water source [and] is trying to spread more drought information to the public.” None of these methods is cheap, but I think that the decision makers in San Antonio are doing a great job of doing what is best for their city. Some officials would have simply left the conservation of water up to individuals rather than allocating money to invest in technologies at a higher level. Public officials in San Antonio also get my “seal of approval” because not only are they working to ensure that their citizens have enough water, they are concerned about whether or not other living organisms have enough water as well. I often talk about how I don’t like how individualistic “solutions” can be in environmental education lesson plans. Sentiments such as “turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth” or “only do laundry when you have a full load of clothing” only go so far to address the problem. I think a lesson plan for water conservation should be developed around the example of San Antonio, if one does not yet exist, because they are doing more than simply encouraging citizens to “save water.” Kids and adults alike need to learn that sometimes individual efforts aren’t enough to make a difference and that in order to make real changes they will likely need to get government officials to make changes that they can’t implement alone. I think that more people were civically active, a lot more could be accomplished in regards to solving environmental problems. So really, we’re not just talking about a water problem here. We’re talking about something much larger. Over the last several weeks I’ve learned a lot about teaching about the “big picture” and I think that it is absolutely necessary if we want anything to change.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 2nd, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">During the Sustainability Film Series presentation today about Engineers Without Borders, I had a few thoughts about one of the projects. The project in particular is that of the Pittsburgh Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders, University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon (if I remember correctly) in Tingo Pucara, Ecuador. In order to supply Tingo Pucara with safe drinking water, electricity must be used to pump it uphill from a natural spring. In my mind, this seems like kind of a tradeoff. Yes, the village will be supplied with clean freshwater, which is extremely important as the lack of freshwater has taken a toll on the health of the community. But could this effort to bring water to a community actually perpetuate global warming and increase the intensity of the dry season typically experienced in Central and South America? Obviously this one project isn’t going to make a detrimental impact, but as more and more projects like this one are implemented around the world, it creates a situation quite comparable to a dog chasing its own tail- solving one problem only to make another which actually perpetuates the first problem. I wanted to look into the project to see if maybe, just maybe, the electricity used for this project was generated by solar, wind, or water power. But, after a little research, it appears that this is not the case. According to the blog set up by the Pittsburgh Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders, they were working with a local “electrical utility company to run electricity to the pump house.” My guess is that a rural utility company in Ecuador is not using sustainable energy. So, as much as I am all for clean freshwater being made accessible to more people, I have to wonder if there was a better way to do it.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 6th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Just wanted to record some of my observations from teaching at Tamarac on Wednesday and interacting with both research groups today. First, I’ll cover the 3rd grade class at Tamarac. As I did not go into the 3rd grade class last time, I do not know how the rotations worked previously. Were there five rotation groups last time? (I think there were fewer.) I liked that the students were able to stay at their desks and the adults (which there were fewer of) were the ones to rotate. I think this is a good strategy, especially when trying to do so many things in such a small space. My one critique of this Wednesday’s rotation method, however, is that there was no pattern of rotation. Mentors shuffled around at random and one group accidentally missed the rotation window and stayed with one group of students for two rotation periods, which caused one or more of the groups of students to miss a lesson taught that day. A fixed rotation pattern would have prevented this. Other than the wonky rotation pattern and the initial miscalculation of the amount of time designated for each rotation, the 3rd grade session seemed to go pretty well.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The 1st grade class was a whole other can of worms. Like always, I wish we had more time. I feel like the kids didn’t fully grasp the content presented within the mini lesson and wish we could have done these lessons as full rotations as originally planned. I think part of the problem was that the students were trying to fill out their step up to solutions model (as we asked them to) during the presentation. I think the problem was that these kids haven’t fully developed active listening skills yet. They aren’t yet able to listen to new material while writing down material that has just been presented to them. One difference between the 3rd and 1st graders- the 1st graders are __much more__ easily distracted than the 3rd graders. The 3rd graders weren’t really paying attention to me as I snapped photos during their rotations. During the 1st grade session, however, I felt that the camera became such a distraction (when we were already pressed for time) that I put it away before the 90 minute session was up. Things that didn’t work during the 1st grade session- as mentioned before, trying to have the students fill out the step up to solutions sheet while the presentation was going on; trying to write words for the story mapping sheet, as they needed a lot of help spelling words, which took up a lot of time; this was also true for when they were trying to fill out their own storyboards. Things that did work- using pictures to fill out the story mapping and story boarding sheets. One additional observation- one of the girls who was giving Alexandra a hard time said that she “hated school,” but she had beautiful handwriting and a solid command of the written English language- her spelling was remarkably accurate compared to her peers. It made me wonder… how can a 1st grader already hate school? Is it because she doesn’t feel challenged? Or is there something else going on in this little girl’s life?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Finally, just a couple of observations from the secondary research group and the upper elementary research group. I spent (about) the first thirty minutes of today’s session with the 7th – 11th graders. The first difference I noticed between the 7th – 11th graders and the 3rd – 6th graders is their (seeming) aversion to participation. They don’t really raise their hands or offer any kind of response when a question is asked of them. Karin and I were unsure at points if they were truly unfamiliar with the people we were talking about or if they were just “too cool” to answer our questions. I’m leaning toward they’re just “too cool,” as when I asked them to name a Nobel Prize winner, they hesitantly offered “Mandela,” whereas the upper elementary students named at least four Nobel Prize winners when asked the same question and even knew who the first woman to win a Nobel Prize was. This question “stumped” the older students. After finishing up with the 7th – 11th graders, it was like a breath of fresh air returning to the 3rd – 6th grade group. They’re all so excited and willing to share, even if they don’t quite know the right answer. They are brave and willing to share to the best of their ability. I’ve asked this before, but observing this “phenomena” first hand has made me curious once again… what happens between elementary and middle/high school that makes kids so unwilling to share/participate?


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 8th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Yesterday, while developing the lesson plan for next Thursday’s Upper Elementary Research Program, Lindsay and I learned an important lesson in learning to “recognize and productively deal with diverse perspectives” and “recognize the multitude of factors influencing what [we] are told about environmental problems” and other problems that afflict our society. While researching industries, we found countless resources about industries in NYS, several of which had conflicting data. Some of the data was different due to one source publishing out of date numbers while another published the up to date version. Some of the data was different due to the way they categorized the data. For example, some resources combined education and health care into the same category while others left them separate. The conflicting sources began to “paralyze” us, until we came to the conclusion that we would just use the resource we thought was “best” but would also tell the students about our findings- how sometimes different sources say different things. This lesson came in handy today while I looked through the “Distorting Science” section on Environmental Health News’s website. I found the following articles particularly interesting- “Climate Denier Steve Milloy Now Director at Coal Giant Murray Energy, On CPAC Global Warming Panel Today” ([]) and “Ad campaign: ‘Big Green’ groups are just big businesses” ([]). Reading these articles made me realize, once again that, despite being surrounded by likeminded people in EcoEd, there are countless people who hold perspectives on environmental issues that are different from the perspective held by myself and my peers. I feel like recently, because I’ve been surrounded by so many likeminded people, my concerns about “vested interests, disciplinary bias and blindness, and the sheer limits of knowledge,” have taken a backseat. Working on Thursday’s lesson plan and reading these articles, however, has helped me to remember to include these very important literacy goals when writing curricula and teaching.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Spring Break (No journal entries for March 9th– **<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **March 15th)**


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 18th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">A couple of months ago, the camp that I used to work for posted this infographic about the importance of camp on its facebook page- []. Since then, the discussions we’ve had in class have led me to refer to this infographic again and again. Part of today’s discussion was no exception. Because this is the third or fourth time information of this infographic has been relevant to what we’ve been discussing in class, I decided to post it here and share a few of the statistics cited on the graphic. I think that these statistics are really helpful in understanding where our students are coming from, what they think is important, and what they may be lacking in their lives. “The average American youth spends: <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">- 82 minutes on the phone per day <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">- 80 minutes playing games per day <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">- 27 minutes on the computer per day <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">- 6 minutes reading per day for 15-19 year olds <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">- and only 4 minutes playing outside per day” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Some other statistics listed on this infographic: “~11% of adolescents have a depressive disorder by age 18;” “the average U.S. child spends less than 40 minutes of meaningful conversation with their parents each week;” “5.4 million youth ages 14-17 are diagnosed with ADHD;” “kids 8-18 spend 7.5 hours a day on electronics;” “kids watch 270 minutes of TV a day.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I think that these statistics tell us some very important things. First of all, maybe we need to communicate with kids in a different manner than we did in the past. Because their lives are dominated by electronics and their communication has become primarily digital, maybe that’s the best way to communicate with them; maybe that’s the way they feel most comfortable opening up. A UNH professor who I will be interviewing with on Friday feels this way. While doing research about him in preparation for my interview, I discovered that he offers online office hours. His blog says that he offers online office hours (he also offers traditional office hours) for two main reasons- 1) because it is easy and can be done from anywhere; no time is wasted sitting around waiting for students who never show and 2) “this [technique] is motivated by trying to meet students where they are most comfortable as a way to INCREASE communication.” He goes on to say the following, “Like it or not, many (maybe even most) young people use social media/text messaging as their primary means of communication. Spend an afternoon on any North American R1 campus and this will be demonstrated. Try to communicate with a young person- more times than not, some form of electronic communication is involved. I think we should think about how young people interact when trying to communicate!! How about a facebook page for class- I know people are doing this- twitter: just see Josh Drew about that! OOH is just attempt at opening up lines of communication Fail… maybe it will. But if it reaches only one student that might be hesitant to come to IRL office hours, then this is a win.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I think that the following statistic is also important to consider when interacting with students- “the average U.S. child spends less than 40 minutes of meaningful conversation with their parents each week.” This may mean that some (maybe many) of the students we are teaching lack a nurturing, parental figure. They may act out in class in order to elicit some sort of response, even a negative one, from adults. Though it may be frustrating to work with children like this, we must try our best to be good role models for them. An important thing to remember, which we were always encouraged to do at my camp job, was to teach by example. We hoped that if the children saw us treating each other well and helping each other, that they would model our behavior. Myles Horton, the “radical hillbilly,” also believed that we should educate by example. He believed that you can’t teach anything if you don’t do it yourself. Just some things to keep in mind during the last half of the semester.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 19th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Working with the third and first graders today was great! Starting with the third graders- I am repeatedly impressed by their unadulterated creativity. At this point in their education, they are not entirely familiar with all of the constraints that exist in the world in which they live. For example, one student thought that a good way to transport goods (food and other materials) without creating pollution was to return to using big sailing vessels like the clipper ships of the 17th century. I didn’t want to hinder his creativity too much by telling him that these ships were likely too slow and that the food might go bad before it reached its destination, but did tell him that they could only be used where there were rivers and oceans to sail on. Another student thought that traveling by canoe was a good, pollution-free mode of transportation. I again brought up the need for a lot of water for this to work, but he was one step ahead of me. He asked his teacher what country in the world had the most rivers and concluded that using canoes as a mode of transportation in that country was entirely possible. Now for the first graders- We got off to a slow start. It was difficult at first to keep them focused and to get them all to contribute, either by drawing or helping us to come up with sentences. After a few failed attempts, Alex and I came up with a pretty good system. In order to come up with sentences, we asked them several questions. We used the questions to help to guide them through the story writing process, but tried our best to not hinder their creativity. We started out with questions like- “How should our story begin?,” “Who/what do we need to tell the reader about?,” etc. After we wrote a sentence or two, we would have them illustrate the pane and also work on eliciting more responses from them. Every few panes, we would have them read the story (up until that point) aloud and then ask, “What happens next?” They and our third grader, Garrett, had a lot of great ideas. Their original outline was almost exactly like Michael Bird Boy, but the story they finished during the session had a lot of unique elements. For example, Elizabeth (the main character in their story) is a farmer who sells vegetables, milk, and eggs to the people living in the city. When pollution kills her plants and makes her animals sick, she has no food to sell and the city people go hungry. She and the city people go to find out where the pollution is coming from and find out that it is being generated by a place where they incinerate garbage. Elizabeth tells the garbage men that if they keep burning garbage, they will have no food to eat. She and the city people tell the garbage men that if they recycle instead of burning the garbage, the smoke will go away, the plants will grow again, and the animals won’t be sick anymore. The garbage men apologize and say that they didn’t realize they were having such a negative impact and that they will recycle instead. It was Garrett’s system thinking idea that inspired the “food crisis” in this story, which made me really happy because it confirmed that our lessons are making a difference in how students are thinking about problems. I was really proud of the students in my group because they got all the way through their story, despite distractions in the beginning. They came up with a really complex story with little influence from Alex and myself. We helped them to organize their thoughts, but the ideas were chiefly theirs. I am really excited to help them create the final product and see them present their story to the rest of their class.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 20th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">This week, major progress was made considering the climate change debate ([]). The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the world’s largest and most respected general scientific bodies, stated that “the science linking human activities to climate change is analogous to the science linking smoking to lung and cardiovascular diseases,” and that “this consensus among the health community has convinced most Americans that the health risks from smoking are real. A similar consensus now exists among climate scientists, a consensus that maintains climate change is happening, and human activity is the cause.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Though the information released in the AAAS’s report on Tuesday was not unique, it was significant. No organization as large or prestigious as the AAAS has taken such a stance on the threat of global warming. The report says that, “as scientists, it is not our role to tell people what they should do or must believe about the rising threat of climate change. But we consider it to be our responsibility as professionals to ensure, to the best of our ability, that people understand what we know: human-caused climate change is happening."

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The chief officer of the AAAS said that they took such a pronounced stance in order “to move the debate from whether human-induced climate change is reality… to: Exactly what should you do about it?” I think that the AAAS’s report may lend an important lesson when it comes to developing and delivering environmental and sustainability education curricula. Often, the lessons emphasize the problem at hand. But maybe instead of focusing on the problem, which can often be confusing and overwhelming (especially to young students), we should be focusing primarily on solutions. I think that the EcoEd curricula do this well and inspire students to think about solutions. Other environmental and sustainability curricula, however, often fall short.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 25th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Today in class we explored the Bateson reading and discussed how to think critically and how to teach our students to think critically. I feel that this is an extremely important topic, so I decided to include a few of the notes I took in this journal. Today during class, I said that we should “confuse” students in order to help them think more critically. I realize now that “confuse” was not quite the right word. What I was thinking is that we need to challenge them. Perhaps we need to challenge them to think about a topic from another perspective in order to think more critically about an issue. We must also encourage them to explore and research the answers to their questions and not just spoon feed them the answer. I think the phrase, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” is appropriate here. If we give students all the answers, they will only learn to regurgitate facts. They will not learn to come to their own conclusions or truly learn how to obtain, digest, and interpret the information they are presented with on a daily basis.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">We also discussed Bateson’s “double bind” and concluded that it was extremely valuable to teach people how to deal with difficult topics and concepts. We felt that students gain confidence when they learn to disassemble and interpret complex things and that this confidence is “transferable.” Once students feel confident disassembling and interpreting one complex topic, they can use the skills they gained and apply them to another complex topic. We saw this in action at Tamarac the previous week when students used the knowledge they had gained studying the systems model for electricity to a systems model about food, a model they were introduced to for the first time that day.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Finally, we talked a little bit about how our perceptions are always “mediated perceptions” and how this relates to biases. We discussed how every situation has stakeholders and how every stakeholder has (sometimes very different) interests. We decided that perhaps the best way to teach was, instead of looking for an unbiased source, to present students with multiple different sources and stakeholders and have them weight them against each other/consider all the viewpoints. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think we’ve been doing the best job of this, but I do think that we did a very good job of it during the stakeholders lesson that was taught during spring break.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 27th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While looking for an article this week, I stumbled upon this interesting piece ([]) entitled, “The great oil-sands cancer scare.” I decided to explore this piece because of the snippet included with the article title on Environmental Health News- “When facts battle emotion, emotion usually wins. So it’s been with the Fort Chipewyan cancer scare.” The article is about a “whistleblowing” Canadian doctor who once practiced medicine in an aboriginal community at Fort Chipewyan in Alberta Canada. About ten years ago, he went on a crusade to inform the public that the cancer rate observed within Fort Chipewyan was well above normal. He boasted that the cause of this increased cancer rate was due to exposure to environmental toxins that were a result of fracking. It has now come to light, however, that his “facts” were wrong. For years, several scientific organizations have insisted that Dr. O’Connor was wrong. It seems like the debate has come to an end, however, as “Alberta’s chief medical officer, Dr. James Talbot, released a long-awaited report concluding that cancer rates in Fort Chip are normal. The report counted the number of cancers found in Fort Chipewyan between 1992 and 2011.” Though I am glad to hear that the aboriginal people in Fort Chipewyan are not experiencing cancer at a rate above national averages, this report may have major repercussions. First of all, it gives pro-KXL pipeline advocates something to squawk about. Second, it’s going to make the jobs of reputable, honest scientists who do discover negative health effects associated with exposure to toxins from oil-sands much harder. Because of Dr. O’Connor, these scientists will have to be extra diligent in order to prove that their science is sound. I think that this article tells us an important story- it’s not always big business that is biased. Individual scientists, even if they mean well, can let their emotions and personal opinions cloud their judgment and influence their “research.” This story makes me want to look at the stakeholders in any situation a little more closely and with a little less of my own personal bias, as I tend to “side with” whatever results come out of an independent/non-industry. I now truly realize (between the Bateson reading from this week and this article) that “independent” scientists can lie too, as no person is truly independent from their own personal perceptions and beliefs.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">March 28th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The internet (especially my facebook) is abuzz with parents and teachers who are not looking forward to next week’s state tests. This article ([]), entitled “Standing Up to Testing,” was posted by one of my friends whose younger daughter has chosen to opt out of testing. According to the article, “270 children in the city’s public school system did not sit for the tests, their parents believing that the burdens imposed were hardly offset by the tests’ highly debatable value.” Parents and educators of all demographics are banding together in order to advocate for “more comprehensive forms of assessment and a depth of intellectual experience that test-driven pedagogy rarely allows.” Many schools in New York City feel that test-driven pedagogy threatens their ability to truly teach their students- to teach them necessary skills like critical thinking- and robs them of the opportunity to teach their students about a wide variety of subjects. These educators and parents want to return to more progressive education, education that excites students and keeps them engaged… and potentially in school longer. The article does not say outright that test-driven pedagogy may contribute to the high dropout rates in many city schools, but it can be inferred. The article talks about elementary school students who have already grown tired of school. One parent said that “her daughter was thrilled by school last year, when work around oceans sparked a love of science. This year, in third grade, as the focus has moved to test preparation (state tests are administered in third through eighth grade), her confidence and enthusiasm have lagged. ‘Just as she is getting interested in a subject and grasping it, they’re moving on to the next,’ Ms. Perez-Rivera said. ‘She is learning not to trust herself, and it is killing her creativity.’” As Common Core continues to be fully implemented throughout the state in the coming years, I am curious to see what happens to 1) dropout rates and 2) enrollment in private and charter schools. I have a feeling that both of these numbers will increase as parents and educators become more and more frustrated by the limitations that Common Core imposes upon education.


 * __<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 2nd, 2014 __**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">It was wonderful to see the students’ excitement about their books. I know we discussed early in the story writing process that it was hard for some of the students to grasp that they were writing a story and to get excited about that, but they certainly grasped it and were excited by the end. The group I was working with today (which was Michael’s group) took total ownership of their story. They were eager to show me and their parents which pages were “theirs.” It was great to see how far they’d come in just a few class periods. They were extremely proud of their work and I felt a sense of pride as well, considering all of the work our class put into this process. The other night, my director said that almost every opening night he is moved to tears by the end of Act II because of the realization of how far everyone has come since the beginning of the rehearsal process. That is very much how I felt by the end of the students’ presentations of their stories. During their presentations, it was also interesting to again witness the number of different levels that these students are at. Some could read the entire book without pause. Some could barely get through a sentence without the help of a parent, mentor, or teacher.


 * __<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 3rd, 2014 __**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Several months ago while writing my second annotation on “A Valuable Reputation,” I tried to research other scientists who had been harassed by industries due to their controversial research. I did not find what I was looking for. However, today while browsing through Environmental Health News, I stumbled upon this article entitled “Muzzled by Monsanto,” ( <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">[]). It is about several scientists <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> who have published or are pursuing research investigating whether or not small interfering ribonucleic acid molecules (siRNA) in genetically modified plants can pass into the mammalian bloodstream and tissue and regulate gene expression. One scientist who has felt targeted in particular is Dr. Vicki Vance. Monsanto invited her to speak at the International Symposium of Biosafety of GMO Plants, a biennial international meeting organized by the International Society for Biosafety Research and to give the same overview on RNAi in genetically modified plants as she had at a similar meeting, before any research showed that there was reason to believe they were harmful. They asked her if she would discuss the Zhang paper, a controversial RNAi paper that was about to be released. When she said, “Well yeah, that’s part of the story, it has to be discussed,” Monsanto got their lawyers involved and Vance was no longer invited to the conference. But the phone calls didn’t end there. Monsanto wanted to squelch Vance’s research. I think Vance describes the current dynamic that seems to exist between industry and “uncooperative” scientists well- “I was really surprised that Monsanto took the time and effort to try to squash my research because it’s such a contrast — I’m a little old lady running a little lab in South Carolina… Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I feel there’s an effort from a large company with a lot of money toward discrediting the work of this other group and keeping people from publishing their work.” I think this article has huge implications for the future of science and sustainability. If industry and those scientists working for industry are the only ones getting published because industry is using their power to gag everyone else, we’re going to have some major problems to deal with.


 * __<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 5th, 2014 __**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While browsing today, I came across an article whose title included two of my many interests- climate change and poetry. The article (the transcript of an interview of Gregory Johnson by Steve Curwood) goes into detail about how Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientist Gregory Johnson is hoping to transform the dense reports published by the UN’s Panel on Climate Change into haikus to make the reports more accessible. What started as something to pass the time on a day when he was sick and required to stay home turned into a little booklet, full of haikus breaking down each bullet point of the report. Each haiku is also accompanied by a small watercolor painting. The interview highlights several of the poems and the transcript of the interview includes many of the pages of the booklet. Unfortunately, this booklet is not available for mass consumption as Mr. Johnson cannot profit from the booklets as they’re related to his work and that’s one of the rules of his employer. The concept is very interesting though. What if more scientists worked on projects like this? What if they made their publications more accessible to the average person? Would more people understand and care about environmental issues if they were presented in a similar manner? The transcript and audio of this interview can be accessed here: [].


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 8th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Today during class while discussing the Spivak reading and the idea of the “subaltern,” we touched upon the idea of charity. We discussed several charitable “strategies” that different organizations utilize- providing items to a group of people without knowing their needs, providing items to a group of people knowing their needs, providing things to a group of people so that they can obtain what they need, etc. The discussion reminded me of an article I read about how donations of clothing from the first world are destroying economies in Africa and other impoverished nations ([]). According to the article, “textile industries are relatively easy to develop and… can provide the first step in the ladder towards economic growth. A booming clothing sector is labor intensive, generates national revenues through taxes and, ultimately, can help end dependency on aid.” By providing these countries with low-priced, good quality clothing, we believe that we are doing these people a service. However, we may very well be undermining their prosperity and ability to grow their economy. The textile industry in Africa has taken a huge hit in the last few decades- “textile and clothing employment in Ghana declined by 80% from 1975 to 2000; in Zambia it fell from 25,000 workers in the 1980s to below 10,000 in 2002; and in Nigeria the number of workers fell from 200,000 to being insignificant.” In an effort to protect their economies, however, many countries are fighting back. South Africa and Nigeria have banned the import of second-hand clothing into their countries and more countries are considering restrictions. I think that this article is very closely tied to the Spivak reading and that we really need to consider the “subaltern” when we make certain decisions. Is there a way to know when we are doing the right thing? In this instance, we thought we were responding to people’s needs when we provided them with affordable clothing, but we did not consider that in meeting those needs we were depriving them of a healthy economy. Spivak argues that we cannot truly know what the “subaltern” wants or needs, but I am not so sure that I believe this. I do believe, however, that we need to be more careful when considering what we can do to help others. If we do not look at situations from all angles and consider all of the effects our actions may have, we will likely continue to do more harm than good.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 9th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Today I came across this interesting article entitled “There Is No Global Energy Solution, Only Local Ones,” ([]). I thought the title was an interesting one, as most of the time people argue that large efforts have to be made to combat environmental and sustainability problems, not small, individualistic ones. Within the article, author and distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba Vaclav Smil, discusses the limits of wind and solar power, the wasteful energy use of China and the United States, and the “admirable energy efficiency of Japan.” There is a lot of valuable information within this article, but I think the most eye opening except is certainly the following- “China may try to copy America, but China will never go to the U.S. level. Very few people go to the U.S. level. You people consume about 320, 310, gigajoules of energy per capita per year. Japan and the rich countries in the EU are about 170. I ask people: Is life so unbearable in Florence, Lyon or Munich that you couldn't live there at 170? There is always the excuse of climate and these things. Except that excuse doesn't work. Sweden is not at 340 and they are about as cold as—well, not as cold as Winnipeg, but they are pretty cold there. And you have the excuse of distance. I'm not going to drive to the nearest city east of me, which happens to be 2,000 kilometers away. And so we have to fly more. There are always these excuses. But still there is no reason why nations couldn't live a very prosperous, satisfied life. This is the question I'm asking: Do Americans live twice as long because they consume twice as much energy as Europeans? Are you people twice as smart as the average Frenchman? Do you enjoy life twice as much as the average Danish guy? What have we gotten for consuming twice as much energy as Europe? What have we gotten in return?” He asks some very important questions that I think we must truly consider when thinking about our energy consumption. We do not live longer, we are not smarter, and we are not happier. Perhaps things in the United States are more convenient due to our profligate (I learned a new word from this article) energy consumption and maybe we have a higher GDP to boast to the world, but I don’t think that makes us better. Honestly, I think it makes us look arrogant and stupid.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 11th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">How do you sell the idea of climate change to the mass market? The creators of Showtime’s //Years of Living Dangerously// may have figured out the answer ([]). Lorena Galliot, one of the members of the production team, shared what was needed to make climate change and energy efficiency “sexy”- drama, celebrities, and emotion. In this article written for //The Daily// //Climate//, Galliot shared the nine “essentials” that made this documentary series a success. First, they made sure that their natural disasters were scientifically accurate. Though tornadoes are much “snazzier” than fields of dead corn, tornadoes aren’t really linked to climate change. So they had to make sure that the “boring” stories about dead corn and drought were sold by the people. The emotion of the people and the empathy that it drew out of audiences is really what made the shows a success. Galliot also mentions that having a few celebrity spotlights certainly didn’t hurt. The team knew that the celebrities could also help add to the “sexiness” factor. They also used some classic cinematographic techniques to boost the “sexiness,” because everyone loves an aerial view or interesting jib shot. The team also employed techniques like cliffhangers and hilarious one-liners to keep audiences coming back for more. While doing all of this, however, they had one primary goal- to ensure that the science wasn’t being sacrificed. Can these techniques really be used to educate the general public about climate change and other environmental problems? I have to say, they definitely made a good effort. These tactics seemed to have worked, but I see one major problem with their plan. This series is limited to a very specific group of individuals, to those able to afford Showtime. These individuals already have countless outlets to become educated about climate change. What I want to see is a media outlet that makes climate change more accessible to people that don’t fall into the “rich and white” category. What if rappers were to start rapping about these problems? What if graffiti artists depicted these changes on the sides of abandoned building in inner city communities? Making climate change “sexy” isn’t going to change a whole lot, but making it accessible definitely could.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 14th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The drought which has left much of the country dry the past several months has begun to affect food production ([]). Beef prices are the highest they’ve been in almost thirty years, reaching $5.28 a pound in February (numbers for March and April aren’t available yet). Between higher feed prices leading to a smaller number of cows raised and more demand from emerging economies like China, the supply has certainly dipped. And when supply dips and global demand remains high, prices increase. Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor for //Texas Monthly//, suggests cheaper cuts of beef for those on a tight budget. His solution to the beef shortage to the drought- buy beef chuck short ribs, beef back ribs, and shoulder clod, and cook them at a low temperature for a long period of time. My solution to the raising prices of beef? Combat global warming. Vaughn offers a quick and easy approach to the rise in beef prices. With droughts becoming longer and more frequent, however, I think we need to combat this problem at the source. It’s not going to be long before there are no more cows and Vaughn’s solution no longer works. I’m actually quite surprised that this NPR article didn’t even touch upon the cause for the drought and offered such a narrow solution to the current problem. There was no insight offered in the comments either. Topics such as obesity in America and the use of antibiotics in farm animals were brought up, but not a single commenter brought up that the actual cause of the rise in food prices is climate change. Maybe if people were more aware that food prices in general are going to go up as climate change worsens, they would care more about the topic.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 15th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Today I continued my browsing of NPR and came across this piece entitled “After Deaths, Renewed Focus on Leaky Gas Pipelines,” ([]). Again, I am disappointed by this article. It discusses the great cost that comes with replacing aged pipelines. For example, due to the cost ($77 million), Philadelphia Gas Works can only replace 25 miles of cast-iron pipe a year. That means the project will take 88 years to complete! And the cost is being reflected in customers’ utility bills. Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc., which investigates pipeline accidents, says that the key to owning a successful utilities business is “striking a good balance between safety and cost.” The article paints the picture that the utility companies are charging more in order to ensure that more money is spent replacing old pipelines. But the article never discusses the externalities associated with these pipelines. It mentions in one sentence that “fixing the leaks is important; on top of the safety concern, gas released into the air is bad for the environment.” It doesn’t go into detail the number of lives that have been lost due to pipeline leaks and explosions. There were nearly 57,000 leaks in just ten of the nation’s utilities companies’ pipelines in 2012. With that many leaks, I highly doubt that safety and the prevention of environmental degradation are truly concerns of these companies. I would say that profit is more of a concern, because if they were truly concerned with safety or environmental degradation, they wouldn’t be utilizing these pipelines at all.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 17th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I have been following the story of declining bee populations for about five years now. It seems, however, that scientists are still debating what the primary factor which is causing this decline and the colony collapse may be ([]). Some believe that the class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids are harmful to bees and want them banned. Even if a ban on these pesticides helps to recover bee populations, some fear that a ban may lead farmers to use alternative pesticides that are even more harmful to bees. Also, focusing on the pesticides draws attention away from the other possible causes of bee population decline. I think that this is something we should consider when thinking about environmental/sustainability problems in general. That sometimes by focusing on one solution, we forget to consider alternative solutions which may actually be more effective if we were to address them. There are several other factors that must be considered when considering the decline of bee populations. Development has caused a reduction in the number of clover and flower habitats available for natural bee colonies to nourish themselves and the life of a commercial bee is a stressful one. Commercial bees are often undernourished and overworked and can become dehydrated during their long trips from field to field. This stress can make the bees more susceptible to disease and death. There are countless diseases and parasites that threaten bee colonies. It is very difficult to treat these diseases and parasites without causing harm to the bees. The article does mention, however, that “Bayer has built bee health centers in Europe and the United States, and Monsanto's Beeologics subsidiary is developing technology to fight Varroa mites.” In the very next paragraph it also mentions that “Science, not politics or activist pressure, must prevail.” I just want to mention that I think this statement is a little ironic considering the journal entry I wrote a couple of weeks ago which discussed Monsanto’s clear obstruction of research done by scientists when it conflicts with their interests.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 22nd, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I just wanted to record some of my notes/thoughts from the lecture/discussion of “Intergenerational Ethics, Environment, and Public Education,” involving six of the students from the Upper Elementary Research Program. First, I just wanted to mention that some of the words in the scripts were too advanced for the students. I understand what kind of message Michael was trying to “drive home” by having the students deliver the lecture portion, but I think it would have been more effective if it wasn’t so obvious that an adult had written the scripts and they were just reading off of them. Overall, it was really interesting to hear what the students and the audience members had to say. For example, the kids said that school was “boring.” There was a discussion about introducing a class about current events into the curricula, kids educating adults, and the lack of communication between the people caring for the facilities at the school and those teaching the curricula. For example, Tamarac has a courtyard and a garden, but students don’t go out there and teachers don’t use the space either. I think one of the most interesting responses tonight came when the students were asked if they shared what they learned in school with their families. One student said, “No, not really, because I don’t have the time.” As a 3rd grader, this student already feels the pressure of a fast-paced world. The students said that the amount of free time people have is decreasing and that not enough time was spent doing “important” things. These students had some very profound and insightful things to say for only being eight, nine, ten, or eleven years old. To end this journal entry, I just want to highlight a quote from one of the scripts that really jumped out at me- “Literature and educational practice suggests that learning about ecology mutually reinforces a healthy ecology of learning. Nature as a classroom offers a direct way to diversify learning experiences, reaching different kinds of learners, while fostering environmental stewardship.” This led me to pose the question, “Could we build school curricula to model summer camp curricula?” Kids would be outside more and would have the choice to pick certain activities over others (while some activities remained mandatory). Learning would be more active and I think using this model would transform schools from “boring” into really great learning environments that would be fun for students and teachers alike.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 25th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I was really excited by the lecture Ben Greene gave about “Redefining the Grocery Store for Local Food.” I became even more excited when he said that a “Farmery” was going to be built in Rhinebeck. I assumed he meant Rhinebeck, NY, which is near my hometown, so I decided to do a little research to see if I could find out any more information. Unfortunately, I couldn’t. But by searching “Rhinebeck, NY Ben Greene” I was led to a website for the “Omega Institute.” Through the Omega Institute’s webpage, I found the “Omega Center for Sustainable Living.” I never knew such a thing existed in my own backyard. According to the webpage, the vision of OCSL is “a world where all people can awaken their full human potential while caring for each other and the Earth.” Their mission is to “teach what is possible through regenerative design… and [through their] innovative educational programs offer visitors and student a path toward a sustainable, just, resilient, and regenerative future.” The Center for Sustainable Living offers a variety of programs, such as teaching people simple yet effective ways to live off-the-grid, teaching ecological literacy, and how to “grow food everywhere.” Based upon the programs and services this organization offers, I would guess that this organization is involved in the building of “The Farmery” in Rhinebeck. For more information, visit: []. My one critique of the organization is that it seems to be catering to a very narrow audience. Rhinebeck is heavily populated by people who live in the city, but have a second home in the county. This organization definitely seems like a place for the elite, which is a shame, because sustainability is everyone’s problem. I would love to see them expand their programs and make their facilities accessible to the average citizen of Rhinebeck and the surrounding towns.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 26th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Today was the poster session for the Upper Elementary and Secondary Research Groups and I couldn’t be more proud of my mentees and the rest of the students in the program. It was definitely a race to the finish, as some students put their posters together this morning before the session. During the poster session, I made it my goal to go around to some of the students in the Secondary Research Program and ask them questions about their posters. It was interesting to witness the different levels of excitement exuded by the middle and high schoolers that I talked to. One student was super excited to share his research with me, explained different aspects of his research without much inquiry from me, and was excited to answer any questions I had. Talking to another student about her research was like pulling teeth. I asked her what the most interesting thing she learned during the project and she said that she really didn’t know and that she only did this project because she “had to.” The last student I spoke with seemed to lie in between the first two students in regards to level of excitement. He seemed to be very knowledgeable about his county and was willing to answer questions, but it seemed like he only knew the answer to surface level questions and didn’t really do any in depth research during the program. I’ve noted this variety of enthusiasm and participation multiple times before during the course of this program but am still curious to learn what contributes to this phenomenon.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 28th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While browsing Environmental Health News today, I came across this article entitled, “Scrubbing skin, polluting water: microbeads cause little stir here,” ([]). The article title stood out to me, as I first became interested in environmental research when researching the fate and toxicity of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in aquatic environments. It remains one of my favorite research topics. This article discusses the environmental impact of microbeads in face washes and other similar personal care products. At least six states (New York, Ohio, California, Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan) are considering banning the beads. They are so tiny that they cannot be filtered out by sewage treatment facilities and may be toxic to aquatic organisms if they are consumed. However, when the writer of this article contacted Pennsylvania State Representatives, this was the first time many of them heard about the issue. Most states are working to ban the manufacturing of products with these beads by 2017 and to phase them out of stores by 2018. Some hope to do this as early as 2016. Despite these goals, “some environmental groups say the timetable is too slow, while some industry representatives say it’s too fast.” One environmentalist has accused industry of “fighting… to be able to continue this business practice as long as possible,” because it’s cheaper to use plastic than natural exfoliants such as walnut husks, sea salt, apricot seeds, and cocoa beans. I think that this article aptly highlights the tensions that can occur between environmentalists and industries in a realm that often gets overlooked because our focus is often on agribusiness and utilities companies. I think it is important that we don’t overlook industries like this because they can cause just as much, if not more, damage to the environment, they just do it in a different way.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">April 30th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Today I did a “happy dance” while reading this article entitled, “Justices Back Rule Limiting Coal Pollution,” ([]). Yesterday, the Supreme Court, in a vote of 6-2, upheld the authority of the EPA to regulate the smog produced from coal plants. These new regulations would aim to reduce the amount of pollution created by coal-powered power plants, especially the amount of pollution that crosses state borders. The coal industry (and many Republicans) see this as a “war on coal” and are planning to wage a legal battle in order to overturn this decision. Legal experts, however, see the decision as legally sound and believe that it should be able to “withstand legal challenges.” Jody Freeman, the director of the environmental law program at Harvard says, “It’s a big win for the E.P.A., and not just because it has to do with this rule… It’s the fact that it’s setting the stage and creating momentum for what’s to come.” This year some major progress has been made in the United States in order to combat global warming. Between the AAAS’s decision to say, “Yes, global warming is happening, now what are we going to do about it?” and this decision, we are certainly heading in the right direction. I can only hope that we can keep the momentum going and accelerate the number of changes being made to protect the environment and human health.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">May 3rd, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Today, while working on my final exam and all of my other end of the year assignments, I had the movie “Accepted” playing in the background. “Accepted” is a comedy about a group of high school graduates who don’t get accepted to any of the colleges they applied to. In order to satisfy their disappointed parents, they create a fake college which they will attend in the fall. Due to a mishap in the creation of the fake college website, they end up accepting hundreds of students who didn’t get in anywhere else. When the main character, Bartleby, goes to break the news to them (that there college is fake), he can’t do it. He “realizes that these people have nowhere else to go, so he lets them believe that the school is real, a place where they will finally feel accepted, despite objections from his friends.” After visiting Harmon College, a prestigious school in the area, Bartleby learns what a school needs to run and also learns what may be hindering the traditional education process. He suggests that “students create their own curricula. Students write down what they want to learn on a giant whiteboard, ranging from the culinary arts, sculpting, meditations, to unusual courses such as psychokinesis.” In the end, the students are found out, but they are still given the chance to speak in front of the State of Ohio Accreditation Board to make their college legitimate. The Dean of Harmon College argues that South Harmon Institute of Technology (the name of the fake school) cannot be a real college because “students are not, and cannot, be teachers.” This class has certainly proved this statement wrong and I would argue the opposite. I think that being students, being someone who is constantly learning, makes you a better teacher. And Bartleby make a very similar argument in the movie. He discusses with the Board “the failures of conventional education and the importance of following one's own passions” and convinces the Board to give South Harmon a one-year probationary accreditation.


 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">May 6th, 2014 __**

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While reading more about the leaked Heartland Institute documents this weekend while completing the final exam, I was shocked to discover that Microsoft would be associated with funding such an organization. I decided to do a little bit of research and find out just how the Heartland Institute was being funded by Microsoft, as I have a huge respect for Bill Gates and his company’s philanthropy and was truly hoping my opinion of them was not going to change drastically. Further research ([]) revealed that my opinion does not need to change drastically, though I am a little leery. According to a Microsoft spokesperson, the Heartland Institute received a $59,908 tax-deductible contribution in 2011 from Microsoft, but that this contribution came entirely in the form of software licenses available to “any eligible non-profit organization.” However, the publisher of this article did find a major flaw in Microsoft’s statement. According to Microsoft’s software donation program, eligible non-profits must “have a mission to benefit the local community” including, but not limited to “advancing education” or “preserving or restoring the environment.” I am curious to know whether the Heartland Institute still receives free software from Microsoft, as they hadn’t pulled their “funding” according this graphic ([]), which appears to have been updated as recently as February 26th, 2013.