Reflections: Weeks 13 & 14 & overall course

Well it is already the end of the semester, the last two weeks have flown by. Now all there is left to do is study for finals and get ready for the holidays.

In week 13 of class there was a fieldtrip to the charitable organization GoodWill. They help provide the less fortunate with things needed in everyday life. There was a tour of the facility followed by a kind of scavenger hunt activity. The next week in class was a show and tell of our junk projects. It was really fun to see what everyone else had been working on. We sure did have some creative folks in class; there were a lot of crafty homemade items to display around the house. I had the idea to somehow fasten a horshoe kind of on its side onto a wall and use it as a coat-rack. I came up with this because I was trying to find something to use as a coat-rack because mine are always thrown onto the couch or onto backs of chairs. My favorite item was a fancy looking blue wine bottle and she drilled a hole in the back and inserted some christmas lights. It was a very neat looking lamp. Then we sat in a circle and discussed things we were taking away from this class.

Overall Course:
When I first signed up for this course I was not sure what to expect at all. And I have to be honest, at first I was kind of nervous about the whole blogging part of the class. I didn't think I would get the hang of it and thought I would get frustrated from it a lot. But after only a few short weeks, I was able to blog no problem. That is a valuable computer skill I'm sure I will use in the future. I really enjoyed the closeness feeling of our small class, and it helped add to that feeling that treats were brought to class every week. That was a very good idea, it was interesting to see what kind of healthy snacks people brought. I also learned an incredible amount about the environment. More importantly things every one can do on a daily basis to help reduce our carbon footprint.  My 2 favorite things about the class would be the eco-chic lifestyle change and the documentaries we watched. The lifestyle change helped me see how easy it is to make a positive change in your life, and the documentaries really opened up my eyes to issues going on around the world that I was unaware of. I liked how every week this class was different; it was never the same and I didn't know what to expect each week.

Thank you Dr. V for making this class very enjoyable and have a nice relaxing break!

Eye Opener: Online Learning Activities

I participated in three different online learning activities, on Keith, Kristin, and Amanda's pages.

Keith's Activity
Children as young as 8 years old are being diagnosed with diabetes? TRUE
Can some of these illnesses “actually” kill these children? TRUE
The doctors had to purchase 2 scales to weight children that were over 200 lbs? FALSE - 350 pounds
Daves dad died at age 52 from a stroke? TRUE
John Marx is in shape and healthy? FALSE
Parents are not to blame for childhood obesity? FALSE

Kristin's Activity
I actually scored 10 out of 10 on the Quit Smoking Quiz. A lot of the questions were pretty startling. Before I even took the quiz, she listed several statistics about child smoking that were very eye opening. Such as every day 3,000 new teens begin to smoke, and 1,000 of them will someday die due to smoke-related illness.

Amanda's Activity
I scored a 57 on the quiz, ranking me fitness savvy.

You're standing just outside the ranks of 'fitness buff', so don't stop now. Your score indicates that you've got a good general knowledge of fitness, but are a little hazy on the details. With the recent fitness craze, you should easily be able to find the information necessary to fine-tune your fitness knowledge. With the proper knowledge, you will not only be able to optimize your fitness routine, but you'll also be prepared to avoid injury.

Advocacy Project: Stopping Childhood Obesity in Schools

The project I chose for my advocacy project was aimed at controlling childhood obesity, more specifically the proposed bill STOP obesity in schools act of 2009. A figure such as 10% of children worldwide are either overweight or obese.

Childhood obesity is a condition where excess body fat negatively affects a child's health or wellbeing. Obesity can affect a number of systems in the child's body, including the endocrine, gastroentestinal, muscloskeletal, psychosocial systems. On a long term time line it can lead to such life threatening diseases as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, sleep problems, cancer, and many other disorders.  Some early detectable effects are in the psychosocial system and can be such things as poor self-esteem, anxiety, and depression.

There are many causes associated with childhood obesity. One main reason being the diet the child consumes. There have been reports of school lunch food not following the Mypyramid suggestions and serving food high in fats. Also, the current generation of children has consumed higher levels of soft drinks and fast food than ever seen before. Another cause for childhood obesity is living a sedentary lifestyle. Countless studies have found large numbers of children not participating in enough physical activity. Schools have started to adopt more in depth physical education programs in response. People have protested that it is video games and TV that is leading children to these sedentary lifestyles. These are the two largest factors leading towards development of childhood obesity.

Questions
1. What % of children worldwide are either obese or overweight?

2. True or False? Childhood obesity is a condition where excess body fat negatively affects a child's health or wellbeing.

3. What are some early effects in the psychosocial system of childhood obesity?

4. The current generation of children has consumed higher levels of ______ and _________ than ever before.

5. True or False? Diet and Genetics are the two largest factors leading towards childhood obesity.

Read 'n' Seed 6: Final Review of "Silent Snow"

This semester I read the book "Silent Snow" by Marla Cone. This book focused on the many different arctic nations across the globe and the toxic pollutants that the animals and people living there are exposed to. The author spent time traveling to these different countries, such as Greenland, Canada, Norway, Russia, Alaska, and many more. While she was there she spent time living with different Inuit tribes or families, living as they do with sparce resources.  Some of th emajor topics dicussed were the history of and detection of pollutants in the Arctic throughout the 1900's, the specific compounds found in certain countries, the effects on the animals, effects on humans consuming the animals, daily life of inuit tribes, legislations currently trying to control these compunds, the future and new compounds causing new threats, and many more.

three most significant things

I think one of the most significant topics throughout the book was the continued mindset of the Inuit people regarding the issue of the food they eat being contaminated with toxins. They believe that their people have been eating this food for thousands of years and nothing has happened, therefore it must be safe. It is true that their sea diet provides excellent amounts of nutrition. The beluga whale blubber contains highly nutritious dense fat, rather than the animal fat consumed in America. But the diet also contains small traces of harmful toxins, such as mercury. Another significant topic in the book were the actual effects recorded. In a study done on infants through adolescense in a small inuit town, they were checking the affects of mercury on these children from their mothers eating the mercury tainted food while pregnant. The findings were mostly cognitive, hardly any physical, and were relatively minor; such as slightly lower IQ's and reaction time. As far as animals go, they found a couple polar bears with both male and female reproductive organs. However, they were not able to definitively prove that was a cause of pollution. Finally, a significant topic was the last section about what is being done about stopping or slowing the pollution rate. This section focused on new flame retardants used on electronics and furniture that has been found in the Arctic and is highly dangerous. It also outlined manufacturing bans that many countries have signed in an effort to control this dilema.

Why is it important?

The findings discussed in this book are important for everyone. It discusses at length possible future outcomes and affected populations, if the pollution rate to the arctic does not slow down. More close to home, the book talks about the extremely high levels of contaminants in the Washington state area and especially the Great Lakes. Parts of the Great Lakes are more contaminated than Arctic areas.

Recommend?

Because of the reasons in the previous section I would recommend this book for anyone. It addresses key issues across the globe today, but also provides never-before-heard-of (at least by me) descriptions how arctic people go about their lives. To me that was always the most interesting material, what they have to do to hunt, how they prepare food, what kind of technology they have, and what they do for recreation; All good things.

Eco-chic Lifestyle Change Week 10: Overall Project Reflection

My SMART goal for the project was to walk to school and work 5 times a week. I had great success in achieving my goal over the weeks. However, I did not change my goal over the course of the project. 

There were many things I found to help me be successful.  I would listen to music on my walk to help pass the time.  By the third for fourth week, once I got into the routine of walking, it became much easier.  After that I looked forward to walking.  Also, sometimes I would walk with a roommate to have someone to talk to.  I came across only a few challenges along the way.  One is in the past couple weeks it began to get very cold.  I would put layers and layers of clothes on but would always end up freezing.  Also, I started to be late for early morning classes a lot. I would never take into consideration it took longer to walk rather than drive. 

I benefited from this project in a number of ways.  I learned that it is easy to make lifestyle changes; by just making easily attainable goals. About myself I learned that I seemed to have more energy throughout the day when I would walk to my morning class.  Also, I learned that the hardest part about a behavior change is the first 2 weeks, before it becomes routine. 

The environment may have benefited from me doing this project simply by me driving a lot less and putting less emissions into the air. I am not sure if I will continue this goal into the winter. However, once spring time comes I will look forward to walking to school once again. Any advice to others wanting to make lifestyle change goals would be once again make small attainable goals.

Blogged for the Eco-chic Lifestyle Change Week 10 host by http://ecochicwithamy.blogspot.com/

Advocacy Project: Letter To Public Official

December 7, 2009

Mrs. Amy Klobuchar
U.S. Senate
302 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Ms. Amy Klobychar,

The current trend in America over the last few decades has been for the public getting more and more obese. To make matters worse the youth of the nation is right in the middle of all the statistics.  Children and adolescents have been the fastest increasing risk group for obesity in the Country for some time now. Something must be done to help secure the future of our country.

The proposed bill H.R.2044, STOP obesity in schools act of 2009, would be a great first step to take in lowering the obesity rate of children.  This bill will help children make daily smart decisions in their schools.  It is a problem that has continued to spread over the years; this bill will help stop the problem form one of its sources.

I appreciate you taking the time to hear my concern, and hope you support the stop obesity in schools act of 2009. I hope you continue to spread the word of bill H.R.2044.

Sincerely,
Jake Eastwold

Reflection: Weeks 11 & 12

I am reflecting on the last 2 weeks of class, weeks 11 & 12 of the semester. This semester has really flown by and finals are just around the corner. I was ill and could not attend class for week 12, but our class on week 11 was very informative.

We watched a short video called Story of Stuff that was very interesting. The narrator did a very nice job of explaining how things work in a very easy to follow format. She was discussed some very troubling facts about our country. Such as we only account for 5% of the world's population but we are using almost a third of the world's resources.  Also a lot about how we are always sending away problems from the U.S. to more under-developed countries and taking all their resources and polluting their land. There was also a very interesting theory she brought up about how american consumers are brainwashed into spending money always consuming more and more.

We also did a pretty entertaining activity about junking. It was fun to hear all the groups ideas about what to use the items for. There were a lot of really creative ideas and some funny ones too, such as a pet coffin I remember or a very large shot glass. We also did a photo essay project, and I chose to do mine on enivironmentally friendly things going on at my work, St. Luke's Hospital. I enjoyed walking around and taking picutres of this but it also made me think there is more they could be doing around the hospital. Such as install hand blower machines in some of the bathrooms, every bathroom had paper towels.

That is what has been happening to past couple weeks. I look forward to the upcoming weeks, and our trip to the Goodwill!

Eco-chic Lifestyle Change Week 9: Weekly Update

My SMART goal has been to walk to school and work 5 times a week.  Unfortunately this is the first time I DID NOT complete my goal. 

This week I came across several challenges and few successes, completely backwards from my other weeks, here are soem of the challenges I faced this week. Well first of all I was home in the cities most of the week, because of the holday break. So that severly hurt my chances for completing my goal. But that wasn't the only thing that caused me to fail. I have also been pretty sick, came down with the seasonal flu. So I had to miss both school and work. Despite all of these challenges I did come across a minor success. I recently purchased a new pair of gloves and they kept my hands very warm the few times I did walk.

My feelings this week were somewhat disappointed in myself, that I didn't complete my goal. It has just been frusterating being sick, not being able to do anything as the semester winds down. But I am not getting too down, I know this is a new week and I am starting to feel better. Therefore, I am going to keep my SMART goal as it is and hope that I recover and am able to succeed next week!

blogged for the Eco-chic Lifestyle Change Week 9 hosted by http://ecochicwithamy.blogspot.com/