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__**The Story of Broke: Annie Leonard, Jonah Sachs, Louis Fox**__

The Story of Broke is an eye-opening documentary about the need for a shift in spending government-collected taxes away from large business and military powers to renewable energy resources and educational advances. Annie Leonard takes approximately 8 minutes to pick apart the government’s ways of spending tax revenue, and then denouncing their claim that the government has no funds for renewable energy or education projects.

- Annie states that the revenue of federal taxes amounts to approximately one trillion dollars, and approximately 72.6% or 726 billion dollars goes for military funding. One thing that I would do, if given the power, would be to reduce this amount. The military should be a focus for defense, and protection rather than attempting a one manned arm race. The funds should instead be focused on institutions that help veterans returning from war that may be dealing with PTSD or other service related deficits, or promote institutional development of an academic system that we can be proud of, rather than one we are currently ashamed of.

- Another problem with our current system is the political corruption that occurs within large businesses. The only way to improve on this is to change the government officials, effectively removing the corruptness. I would like to say that I can just wave a wand, and make the switch, but I know that that is far from realistic. This change starts with educating the public and informing them on the benefits of voting for governing officials that will represent the needs of the public rather than the needs of themselves or the individual financial gain.

- Another solution would be to stop the government’s financial support of crumbling infrastructure, and promote the building of newer eco-friendly companies that are looking to build more sustainable and innovative buildings. This would in turn produce more jobs and create a safer and healthier environment for generations to come.

- Current government tax revenue is delegated through multiple system subsidies, and businesses that not only protect individuals from normal forms of punishment, but also promotes their destructive and dangerous acts. It’s better to offer subsidiaries to companies that promise a better, cleaner future rather than ones that will decrease our overall prosperity. On another note, making the companies that are running the major projects that we are currently supporting take responsibility is a good start for repairing the system. Making the government take responsibility and pay for the clean-up is despicable.

__**SOLE Ted Talk by Sugata Mitra**__

Sugata Mitra proposes a new approach to learning which personally appeals to me. Mitra talks of the current system and how it works for a different time in history; it has become obsolete. The current system has been shown to produce students that are products of a machine line press. We emerge as clones to a system designed to feed an employment system that has long disappeared. In the Ted Talk he talks about a new system he’s creating that is more individualized and student run. It uses a system that promotes self-confidence and happiness rather than stress and fear from standardized testing.

Mitra is the founder accredited with the creation of the self organized learning environments ‘SOLEs’, “where children group around Internet-equipped computers to discuss big questions.” Teachers in this program merge into the background and observe as learning happens, they are only there to support and empower their students along the track of answering large an intriguing questions.

SOLE’s curriculum is based around asking larger questions, where examinations are based on children conversing, sharing and using the Internet, and new, peer assessment systems. The study researched children from a range of economic and geographic backgrounds and an army of visionary educators. Data from the study shows when children are less pressured by tests, and exams they perform more optimally and retain and learn more. Approaching the problem by supporting the student rather than chastising them offers a proven neurological benefit.

Mitra did a study that scientifically showed that when tested children are shutting down a certain portion of their brain that affects critical thinking. This causes unneeded stress in children which can not only affect children negatively academically, but mentally as well. SOLE’s curriculum is a new, and advanced learning environment that will change and adapt as new information is made available. This dynamic learning style is so important because our worldly needs are forever changing and adapting at an increasing rate.

EcoEdu’s learning goals I think can greatly benefit from looking at the SOLE curriculum. Mitra gives an example of asking students in a small town in Argentina something that you think would be a simple answered question. “Why do we have five fingers and toes on each limb?” Most, including myself would simply answer “evolution”, but the children not only accept that as an answer, they go multiple steps farther and explain the cause, or reason for this specific number: “The strongest web that can be stretched the widest must have five supports.” It is this understanding of cause, effect and reasoning that we strive for at EcoEd.

- Place-based education is a through alternative school process that is not an overnight change. In order to have effective place based learning you have to move through other styles of learning in order to ensure a well-developed program. The video instructs the need for a beginning level of integrated learning; mixing concepts in the classroom in order to show the importance of the individuals concepts coming together as a whole, as this is how you will encounter most challenges you face in life. Secondly, you have project based learning. A school whose goal is to adhere to a place-based learning style must have a grasp on how to delegate tasks, and projects to students in order to receive an educational gain from the experience. The culmination of both of these ideals is the learning style of place-based education. The students will be gaining knowledge as a collective as they work by projects within areas in their community.
 * __Principles of Place-Based Education: Michigan State__**

- Place-based learning is not an addition to the curriculum, but a complete ideological overhaul of the current system that moves classroom experience outside of the boxed environment. The video best describes this when talking about its usefulness in failing schools. The sell is hard, but the school should realize that a change is necessary, and the place-based approach can lead to more involved students that are interested in learning which in turn will lead to higher graduation rates and test scores.

- Place-based education realizes the involvement that parents have on their child’s education. Active parent education is an important aspect because parents are some of the most influential people in a child’s education. Well-educated parents act as useful resources in not only the child’s education, but the community’s as well. The community at large becomes very influential: “Using the river as a textbook and the community as the classroom.”

The video opens up describing the overall set up of the class, and its distinguishing features compared to other known curricula that currently exist. One curriculum that it refers to is one commonly known to individuals in the EcoEd program: Environmental Education. The difference they state is that place-based education does not hold to the stigma of being just another curriculum insert. It is a complete change in the way of teaching all material with an emphasis on the space in which you inhabit. This of course will include extensive curricula on why you should preserve and respect the space that you inhabit, but it will not be the sole focus.

Place-based learning is deigned to create active citizens while also increasing higher skilled academics. John Dewey displayed an opinion that “schools should be laboratories for democracy” in which place-based education takes the need for students to practice engagement in civil action, environmental conservation, and gardening skills, while learning the impacts of what you do on others in the community.

I would like to start out by saying that reading this article filled me with the utmost deplorable feelings possible, and I do not know how it is even possible that I can be proud to say that I am going into a field driven by corporate sponsorship and data manipulation. The troubles faced by Dr. Tyrone Hayes are sickening and overwhelming. I have to say that I go into this situation with little ignorance at how far money can go, but the actions of the environmental protection agency (EPA) leave me feeling dismayed. The fact that a government agency designed to protect the citizens is able to sway against data that is reproducible by everyone besides an institution funded or influenced by the chemicals originating company is gut wrenching.
 * __A Valuable Reputation: Rachel Aviv__**

Doctor Tyrone Hayes is in a position that I or any of my colleagues may one day find ourselves in. The only thing I can say to upcoming students is to hold true to your opinions if supported readily on fact. Hayne’s work on atrazine is the prime example of how scientific research and political corruption can play hand in hand. Working in a multi-billion dollar industry can be, at times, morally challenging. A way to improve students preparedness for such a system is teach a solid set of morals as children, emphasizing that easier isn’t always better. If Haynes had given up when he first faced rebuttal, who knows how many unknown affects atrazine would be having on our population.

One thing that I would do in order to improve on a student’s gain from this article is emphasizing that some of the professional conduct shown by Haynes may not be justified or required to prove that their opinion is correct. As said in the article, many people have come to wonder why he doesn’t focused more on attaining more concrete evidence rather than fighting back in such a juvenile manner, and this is a justified conundrum for most. Many reason that he has to respond in such a way or else the situation will consume not only his professional career, but his dignity too. Compare this to a playground bully, if you keep getting pushed down, over, and over, and over again, without standing up and throwing a few jabs, undoubtedly people will feel bad for you, but will they respect you? This idea is one that works in science as well, will people listen to you if your work is discredited without the slightest of a fight back.

The main goal that children or people of all ages should understand is that if you believe in something, you have keep fighting for it no matter how hard of a challenge that may be.

The math education applauded in this article is one that is the polar opposite of the one that I had received as second or third grade student. Math curricula, as described, should be approached as more of an all-inclusive approach. Rather than memorizing facts and numbers, one should be able to understand the concept behind the problem given. This will then in turn lead to a greater understanding of the mechanics of math that later is molded into an understanding of higher-level mathematical concepts later down the line in post-secondary education. The example given in the article is the simple expression 49 + (18–3). To most this would just be simple arithmetic that you’d know equates to 64, but in order to have a better conceptual understanding of the problem they suggest that you relate the problem to a real life example: apples and oranges. This allows the students to connect more with the problem giving a better connection to the real world.
 * __The Atlantic: The Math Revolution – Erin O’Brien__**

This article reminds me of the struggles I had, and still currently have when it comes to adjusting to RPI and its academics. I have difficulty in taking math problem, and not having a direct equation for me to use. Deriving equations is my equivalent to entering the depths of hell. One thing has always stuck with me that I believe to be a downfall of math mathematical understanding of trigonometry. In sixth grade my colleagues and I were taught the rule for sine, cosine, and tangent with a quick and easy phrase: SOH-CAH-TOA, sine is opposite over hypotenuse, cosine was the adjacent side over the opposite side, and tangent was the opposite over the adjacent. Never did they explain beyond those relations, the fact that it was all in reference to a “unit circle”, or that they have relationships with each other or that they pertain to other concepts of math, such as tangent line to a circle it the same angle, it was solely boiled down to a simplified concise memorable pattern.

Relating math at a younger age is not only beneficial to our youth’s educational experience, but is also beneficial to the betterment of society. If a child is able to sit down and think through a multiple causation or step problem, who’s to say that they wouldn’t be able to come together in order to solve societal problems like hunger or homelessness.