Eye Opener: Online Learning Activities

Tobacco Facts Puke Page - Sara

This website had many gruesome pictures of the long-term effect of cigarette smoking. I have always known smoking can harm our bodies, but these pictures really took it to the extreme and definitely reinforced me to never smoke! I think a smoking policy should be enforced in every school nationwide, and if possible, worldwide (since the effects of tobacco aren't prejudice towards different races)! This was a highly effective eye opener!

Water Calculator - Ingrid

This activity was a great way to see how many gallons of water I use each day, and how much money and water I could save if I changed a couple habits. After answering the questions I found that I use about 107 gallons of water every day! I know this is just a rough estimate and hopefully it's inaccurate in my favor. My favorite part of this activity is how it tells you what behaviors you can specifically change to save the most water. For me, if I lower my shower time by 2 minutes, I could save 36 gallons of water each day! I'm glad I got to do this activity, and now I just need to work on taking faster showers =)

Little D the Dragon Exercise - Katie

I thought this game was really fun, and the music was super catchy! The main point of this game was to feed the monster at least one item from each food group. Once you fed the monster some food, it would give you information about that type of food and the group it belongs to on the food pyramid. This was a great way to educate kids about healthy eating and it was also fun to play!

Foot-O-Meter - Abbey

This activity was very informational and great for kids to learn how to lower their eco-footprint! After answering the questions for Bobbie, I found out that his footprint would be 7.7 acres. If everyone lived like him, we would need 1.7 earths, which is a lot better than mine was for our eye opener we did in the past! I thought this activity was very informative and fun. Schools should definitely use this activity to help students become more aware about our environment.

Dining Decisions - Autumn

This activity was a great way to learn about the foods you like to eat, and how healthy they really are. To play this game all you had to do is click and drag food items onto your tray that you would like to eat. Once you ate, you would receive tray feedback which tells you some facts about the foods you chose. I honestly chose foods that I would eat in real life and according to the tray feedback I did alright =)

Well congratulations to group 3 for being the coolest group in the blog world! These activities were a great way to kill time and not study for my finals =) Hope everyone has a fantastic day!

Eye Opener: Photo Essay

Hey Everyone!

So, I'll admit, at first I was going to do this photo essay on littering and take pictures of all the crap people leave on the ground. Well unfortunately every time I planned on taking photos outside, it snowed! So I went with plan B and took photos of everyday items we can reuse in our household. Here is a list of 7 items that you can easily reuse

in other creative ways! Enjoy.

Item 1: Yogurt Containers

...Yogurt containers and other food containers are perfect for holding other items, such as....

...Your pens, pencils and highlighters!...

Item 2: Toilet Paper Rolls

...When you're done using a roll of toilet paper, why not use the cardboard roll to wrap other things?...

...Like your Christmas lights, and other electrical cords!...

Item 3: Brown Paper Bags

...No recycling bin? No problem...

...Brown paper bags work perfectly as recycling bins, and the best part is you can recycle the bin itself!...

Item 4: CD's

...Take your old CD's you don't listen to anymore and turn them into...

...Candle Plates! Set the mood without a CD player and double the ambiance as well...

Item 5: Cereal Boxes

...After finishing a box of your favorite cereal, why not make it into a...

...Magazine holder! Keep your favorite magazines organized and neat...

...It's perfect for any occasion...

Item 6: Plastic Bags

...Why not take all the plastic bags you use from your favorite stores and turn them into...

...Garbage liners/bags?...

Item 7: Empty Alcohol Containers

...Don't throw these beautiful items away. Use it to spice up...

...Your house! Empty alcohol cans and bottles are a perfect way to decorate the interior of any college house...

Well that's about it. Hope these pictures have opened your eyes to new and creative ways to reuse things in your homes! Have a good rest of the week, and stay warm!

EYE OPENER: Summary of Reading 34: Tricks of Free Trade

Summary

The article, "Tricks of Free Trade," is written by Mark Weisbrot. The main focus of this reading is the ongoing problem of free trade causing economic and environmental threats to mankind. The author defines free trade as "the absence of tariffs or other barriers that hinder the flow of goods and services across international boundaries." The problem is that international pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), and the Free Trade Area of the Americans (FTAA) are bending the rules of free trade and using it as a marketing tool to sell property rights for investors and corporations. Environmentalists started becoming aware of this unethical behavior when they realized these trade deals weren't about free trade at all. 

The article goes on talking about different cases and examples of how these international pacts are affecting our environment. For example, NAFTA's biggest environmental threat revolves around a specific agreement called "Chapter 11." Under this agreement, "foreign investors may sue governments directly for regulations that cause a loss of profits." To drive this idea home, the author gave an example of a case between Canada's Methanex Corporation and the state of California. Canada's Methanex Corporation filed a Chapter 11 complaint towards the state of California because it was trying to ban a gasoline additive called MTBE. MTBE is known to be an animal/human carcinogen, which is highly soluble in water, and very expensive and difficult to clean up. California already has more than 10,000 groundwater sites that have been contaminated with MTBE. However, because of the Chapter 11 agreement, if California bans this additive, it may have to pay Canada's Methanex Corporation billions of dollars to do so.

The article also talks about the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These two are easily considered the most powerful supranational bodies out of all the previous ones mentioned. The IMF is the head of a cartel (or a formal agreement among firms) of creditors. To get an idea of how powerful IMF is, the author gives the analogy: "what OPEC is to oil the IMF is to credit." According to the text,"a country that does not win the IMF's approval for its economic policy will be ineligible for most credit from the World Bank, other multilateral lenders, governments, and very often the private sector." The IMF and the World Bank are causing huge impacts on the environment because their advocacy of export-led growth is using up vast amounts of non-renewable resources in developing countries. 

Another important issue the author talks about is the population of people with HIV/AIDS. Right now in the U.S. there is medication available for patients with HIV/AIDS, called "triple therapy," that can keep people alive and relatively healthy for a long period of time. Though this medication is life-saving, it costs patients who use it $12,000 every year. Recently, however, an Indian generic-drug manufacturer named "Cipla" has come up with a generic version of "triple therapy" and has offered to sell it for as little as $350 a year. This low price could save millions of more people with HIV/AIDS who can't afford to pay $12,000 annually. Sadly, the U.S. fought with the World Trade Organization to make it illegal for generic drug manufacturers to distribute these inexpensive, life-saving drugs to other countries for the sake of all the pharmaceutical companies. This supports the notion that these powerful supranational bodies could care less about "free trade."

The author closes by stressing the importance of breaking these trade agreements that are becoming too politically powerful. On top of that, he also says the public must work together to reduce the power of IMF and the World Bank. By using the strategy of "harm reduction" we can create new policies that protect the environment and more importantly, the overall well-being of mankind.

Different View Points

"Free Trade and the Environment" - This article by Deborah James supports the article I reviewed by talking about how all the "free trade agreements" are threatening our environment. The author mentions NAFTA, WTO and other agreements that were written to prioritize rights for corporations over protections for our shared environment.

"Is Export-Led Growth Passe?" - This article is written by Dani Rodrik who talks about the export-led growth hypothesis and whether or not it should continue or not. The article I reviewed said that export-led growth is devastating the environment in developing countries by using up all the non-renewable resources available to them. In contrast, this article supports the idea of export-led growth. The main reason the author supports export-led growth is because economic growth is abundant when this method is used.

Discussion Question

The author of the article I reviewed claims that we as a people must work to make such powerful bodies, such as IMF and the World Bank, less powerful. What do you think are some ways that we can reduce the power and authority of these supranational groups?

EYE OPENER:CSPI

CSPI stands for the Center of Science in the Public Interest. This organization was founded by Michael Jacobson and its mission is to educate the public on nutrition, food safety, health, alcohol policy, and the environment. The CSPI website provides three different activities for the public to do to see how much their diet impacts the environment. I decided to do the Eating Green Calculator for this eye opener. Here are the results!

My Current Diet

After entering in all the information needed about my diet, the results showed a few different things that caught my eye. First of all, the biggest number by far was the pounds of manure created by the animals I eat (5,704 lbs.!) I didn't know that 3 servings of beef, and 1 serving of chicken and pork a week would amount to that much manure?!

 Otherwise, all the other numbers were relatively low so I was happy about that. Another thing that concerned me was my intake of cholesterol. The percentage of my daily values in cholesterol was 87%. That, I felt, was pretty high. I'm guessing it's probably because whenever I make eggs, I use pretty much the whole carton (since eggs are so small and not filling!). I think my diet is healthier than average but after using this calculator, I definitely see things I can improve on.

Should I Improve My Diet?

After calculating your diet, this activity gives you the chance to improve your diet by clicking on a button and re-typing/lowering the amount of servings you take in every week. So the question is, is my diet bad enough for me (and the environment) that I want to make changes? 

The answer is YES! My cholesterol was really high, so I especially want to lower that part. After re-entering some information about my diet (especially the amount of eggs I eat), the results showed much more comforting numbers. 

Just by decreasing a couple servings of meat, eggs, and milk, I reduced the amount of manure produced by the animals I eat by over 2,000 lbs.!! I also decreased the amount of eggs I eat a week, and believe it or not, my cholesterol dropped by 29%! 

Should I Pledge?

The last thing this activity asks from you is to "pledge to eat less meat and dairy." If you click this button (on the lower left corner), it has a written pledge for you to read. It's basically a promise to yourself to try harder to protect the environment and yourself by eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, while eating less meat, and dairy products. I decided to take the pledge because I believe helping the environment and my health at the same time is like killing two birds with one stone (not literally). I don't see why anyone wouldn't want to do this.

Well I hope all of you guys learned more about yourself and the amount of impact eating meat and dairy have on the environment! I sure did. See ya'll in class!

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

The Redefining Progress website is a place where people can go and find out roughly how much of the Earth's resources they are using. In other words, you can see how big your "ecological footprint" is on this earth. Just by answering a few questions about your lifestyle, home, car, and other various behavior, you can get an idea of how much your behavior really impacts the environment. I just took this quiz and the results were jaw-dropping!

According to this quiz, if everyone on this planet lived like me, we would need roughly 4.13 earths to supply my needs! This is horrible! During the quiz, I thought I was doing fairly well. I am pretty conservative with my water and energy use. I recycle frequently and drive a tiny Toyota Corolla. I was almost certain that my ecological footprint was more like a paw print, but in reality we would need 4.13 earths per person (according to my lifestyle), and that is NOT a good ratio. What is even more shocking is the fact that I was well below the national average in almost all the "footprint categories." Basically they break your footprint down to 4 different categories: Carbon Footprint, Food Footprint, Housing Footprint, and Goods and Services Footprint. I tied the national average for my food footprint size, but everything else was well below the average. This was shocking to me because I alone require 4.13 earths to meet my resource needs. If this doesn't already sound horrible, think about how many earths the average American needs to meet their resource needs? 

For me, taking this quiz kind of brought everything into perspective as to how heavily we use our resources, and how this issue is really turning into an exponential problem. Obviously we only have 1 earth so if everyone takes more than they give back, our resources will run out quicker than we know. I personally will need to work on not purchasing so many processed foods, along with foods that come from far away. This will help minimize the size of my Food Footprint, and ultimately make my ecological footprint much smaller.

Here are some links for more information and quizzes on your ecological footprint:

-Earth Day Network

-The Green Office

-Footprints for Kids