Eye Opener: Learning Activity Results

----Kathy----

For this activity we did an activity about lead based paint and the harm it can cause. Here are my results for Kathy's crossword puzzle!

DOWN
1) Fetal
3) Older
4) 1978
5) Myth

ACROSS
2) Gasoline
4) 1940
6) Paint
7) Sperm
8) 80%
9) Dust

Our landlords don't think lead poisoning would be an issue in my house. I know most landlords are suppose to forewarn their tenants if that could be an issue. My little sister was living in a house where there was extreme levels of lead and she couldn't have small pets living with her! Thankfully, she recently moved out of that apartment.
Thanks for the activity Kathy, it was fun!

----Heather----

For this activity we had to go to the Health Partners website and check out their Cost of Care. The categories you could look up were Annual Planner, Treatment Costs, and Procedure Costs. I choose to look up what it would cost for an annual eye exam since that was the last thing I went to the doctor for. Here was what I discovered:
Overall, kind of a scary activity, I can't image not having access to Health Insurance!

----Steve----

Steve's goal for his activity was to our group on the different types of phobias documented. Here are my results to his activity:

Section 1:

1. Pteromerhanophobia - The fear of flying
2. Tachophobia - The fear of speed
3. Wiccaphobia - The fear of witches/witchcraft
4. Autophobia - The fear of being alone
5. Bathmophobia - The fear of stairs/steep slopes
6. Glossophobia - The fear of speaking in public
7. Chronomentrophobia - The fear of clocks
8. Cacophobia - The fear of ugliness
9. Leukophobia - The fear of color white
10. Mysophobia - The fear of dirt and germs

Section 2:
1.Fear of Cooking-Mageirocophobia
2 Fear of Birds-Ornithophobia
3 Fear of houses-Domatophobia
4 Fear of needles and points- Aichmophobia
5 Fear of clowns-Coulrophobia
6 Fear of cats-Elurophobia
7 Fear of the sun-Heliophobia
8 Fear of gaining weight-Obesophobia
9 Fear of strangers/ foreigners-Xenophobia 10 Fear of large things-Megalophobia

I have never heard of half of these! Crazy that people are really scared to death of these everyday things! Fun activity Steve, now I will dominate when the Jeopardy category is PHOBIAS!! =)

----Christen----

For Christen's activity we had to watch 'The Health Insurance Game', and discuss whether we felt the video showed bias or whether it was an appropriate demonstration. I feel that Health Insurance is such a huge issue and that as students we may not be too worried about it right now but that will change in the future! But I do think that the video made an interesting point and that everyone deserves affordable health care!

----Kaileigh----

For Kaileigh's activity we had to go to the FCIC's page and learn about Long Term Health Care. Afterwords we had to comment on what we learned. Here's what I got from it:

First of all I really didn't know the difference between health insurance and long term health care. Which is crazy because I work in an assisted living facility where many of the residents probably have this type of coverage. But when you get older you can also use it to live in a nursing home. The coverage is also for people who need constant care or if they are in a serious accident.
The policy cost varies depending upon ones age, benefits, and deductible periods.
I never realized that Medicare did not cover long-term health care, this whole time I thought that was the coverage my residents had. I think that long term coverage and care needs to be a nationwide policy.

That's it, nice work everyone!

Eye Opener: Photo Essay

Hello Everyone!

For my Photo Essay I chose to show ways I think
Technology can help the Environment!

VS

My first set of photos shows that the phone book/yellow pages can also be found online with the help of the internet. I just feel that its such a waste of money to chop down thousands of trees and pay someone to deliver them. I think they should be printed only for the people who want them. Also, when learning about this topic I found out that since 1992, it has been illegal to dump telephone directories into the regular trash! According to the Star Tribune, "85 percent of the telephone directories are dumped into the trash. State pollution officials call it one of Minnesota's biggest solid-waste problems." Crazy to think those phone books are causing the biggest waste problem in our state and I never use mine!
Can you imagine if we didn't have to print all those phone books?

Newspapers VS Online Newspaper Viewing


Again, considering the paper and ink we go through everyday to print these newspapers when the information can be found with the click of a mouse. According to this article, most American's wouldn't care a lot if local newspapers folded.
"When it comes to local news, more people say they get that news from local television stations than any other source..."

VS

Paying your bills ...And paying your bills online!

According to the article Global Warming Survival Guide, "Eliminating your paper trail by banking and paying bills online does more than save trees. It also helps reduce fuel consumption by the trucks and planes that transport paper checks. If every U.S. home viewed and paid its bills online, the switch would cut solid waste by 1.6 billion tons a year and curb greenhouse-gas emissions by 2.1 million tons a year, according to Javelin Strategy & Research. Also, to avoid unnecessary carbon dioxide-emitting car trips to the bank on payday, ask your employer to directly deposit your paycheck. You'll get your money faster that way too!!!"

VS










Instead of meeting up with groups from your class you could virtually meet up over the internet and have a video conference!
This could save you gas, time and money. =)







VS

Sending letters through the mail service takes a lot longer than sending an email and can cost you postage, stationary and envelopes.
Plus when you use email, you'll

receive a message back if your email didn't go through. You are also able to save drafts and edit them later!







VS

Field Trip VS Virtual Field Trip

A virtual field trip is an online guided tour. It contains images, text and other media, that can relate the essence of a visit to a time or place. To learn more about them check out this website. I feel they are better for the environment because they completely eliminate the traveling aspect of the trip. And with the help of videos and images students can go through the trip right from their computer!!!

Last but not least...
Paper Assignments VS Blogging

Well, blogging saves paper but I didn't realize how much it actually helps reduce the amount of paper used for classes. The pictures of the piles of paper (on the left) are from not all but one of my classes this semester... And the semester isn't over yet! Just think, what if all your classes had blogging homework?
Yay, for 21st Century Learning!!!

I hope you enjoyed my photo essay on ways that technology helps the environment! I'm excited to hear what you think=) Have a good weekend!

Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group

For this weeks Eye Opener we had to choose a cosmetic that we use everyday and put it into Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database. From there you get to see how healthy and environmentally friendly your product is=) I chose to test out my Organic Wear Natural Origin Tinted Moisturizer Light to Normal. My results were pretty shocking! These are the results that I got from my face moisturizer.

Ingredients in this product are linked to:
	Cancer
	Developmental/reproductive toxicity
	Violations, restrictions & warnings
	Allergies/immunotoxicity
	Other concerns for ingredients used in this product: Neurotoxicity, Persistence and bioaccumulation, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), Multiple, additive exposure sources, Irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), Enhanced skin absorption, Contamination concerns, Occupational hazards, Biochemical or cellular level changes

SCORE= 3

moderate hazard (out of 10)

health hazard sun hazard

This manufacturer::
	Compact for Safe Cosmetics signer
	Conducts animal testing

My Thoughts:

Ok so considering this product is organic, I thought it'd do a little better than a three on the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database. I use the tinted face lotion in place of foundation and face lotion. (Which is a pretty good thing because foundation scores are way worse than a three.) Something else that shocked me was that Physican's Formula products have not signed the compact for safe cosmetics. The Compact for Safe Cosmetics basically states that they would try to use safe ingredients. Also, that they promise to use ingredients that were known not to cause health problems.
But I'm happy to see that they don't do animal testing with this tinted moisturizer... That's good at least. And although this isn't the best product, I still plan to use it everyday. It good to be aware of the possible risks of these products but we've all adopted them into our everyday lives so it's hard to think about not using them. I plan to be more aware of the products I use on my body. In the future would consider finding healthier products for both the environment and my body. Here's a link to the the companies who have already signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics. Check it out=)

Eye Opener: Summary of Reading #2: Perceiving the Population Bomb

Summary:
The reading Perceiving the Population Bomb goes back to 1968 when Paul Ehrlich warned the world of the effects of a population explosion or that a population problem was occurring through this book, “The Population Bomb.” Over the years demographers have come to understand that his warning was very real and that the effects are surfacing. In 1993 the biophysical scientist, Vaclav Smil wrote: “We have at least started to realize the enormity of environmental transformation which is imperiling the survival of modern civilization.” Smil identified a range of critical changes taking place in the Earth’s condition, and noted that “these changes can be ordered into three broad categories: declining availability of critical natural resources and services; changing composition of the atmosphere; and the loss of biodiversity.”

Some important facts that Smil identified are listed as follows:
According to the reading, “In 1990, the world was emitting, from the burning of fossil fuels and cement production, about 4.2 tons of carbon dioxide per person, indicating an energy use of about 64 GJ (gigajoules) per person per year.” Vaclac Smil states that this is a reasonable lower limit for the average energy use because infant mortality drops suddenly as per capita energy use rises to 50 GJ per year.

In order to stabilize the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel would have to be reduced by at least 60 percent from their 1990 level of 22.3 billion tons.

“The maximum population which the Earth can accommodate, while allowing the aforesaid carbon dioxide emission of 4.2 tons per person per year, is 8.9/4.2=2.1billion people.” The world population was 2.1 billion in 1940, so according to the reading that was when the population Bomb when off. Since then we have gradually been experiencing collateral damage in the form of atmospheric disturbance with its corollaries, such as melting glaciers, droughts, floods, and increasing occurrence of El Nino.

By the 1990s there was only about one-third of the continental surface left over for the use of other life forms.

Lastly, the fact that that world is currently using about four cubic kilometers of crude oil a year, and has used about half of its conventional oil and close to half of its natural gas demonstrates we are running low on availability of critical natural resources and services.

Overall, the article places a large concern on the problem of the population bomb. Listed below are two articles I found online. The first one stresses the problem of the Population Bomb and the second one denies it all together.

Overpopulation could be people, planet problem
Overpopulation: Not a Problem


Discussion Question:
What do you think? Is the population bomb a problem we should be worrying about? Or is it all just made up? If you think it’s a problem what steps could we take to improve it? Let me know what you think! =)

Eye Opener: CSPI

For this Eye Opener we were to go to the CSPI website and take a quiz of our choice. The CSPI stands for Center for Science in the Public Interest. And according to their website,"they have been a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science." Also, "they have created an award-winning newsletter, Nutrition Action Healthletter, with some 900,000 subscribers in the United States and Canada, is the largest-circulation health newsletter in North America." (I looked it up and it's only TEN DOLLARS for a year subscription!) Here's the cool part: "Talk show host Oprah Winfrey called Nutrition Action Healthletter “the master-mind critic that sounded the food alarms.” (Haha, I love Oprah! So that's cool for me=)

Soooooo, I ended up doing the Eating Green Calcuator for two reasons:
1) I knew this was something I needed to work on.
2) I wanted to I wanted to see if I changed my ways if I could really make a difference.

So here are my total results from the first time I did the quiz:
Eww, 4,492 lbs of manue created by the animals I eat and 22.4 lbs of fertilizer used to grow animal feed! After seeing my results the website then asked me to think about what I could change...Here are my results from the second time:
I did improve the second time around! I also took the pledge to eat less meat and dairy, which is very impressive if you know me. It's hard to think about not planning a meal around the meat portion when that's what I've done all my life. (Think about it, when someone asks you,"What's for dinner?" You reply with chicken or beef roast not mixed veggies and pasta...right?)
Growing up on a farm I've really learned to appreaciate meat and cheese and seriously they're my favorite food. But I will work towards my pledge and try my best to reduce my intake of them.

"I pledge to protect my health and the environment, I will eat a more plant-based diet—more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts and fewer fatty meat and dairy products. When I do eat animal products, I will emphasize ones that are lower in fat and raised in humane ways that minimize harm to the environment."

You've all heard of "Go Big or Go Home" well how about this ..."Go Green or Go Home!!!" Haha

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

According to Wikipedia, your ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle.

I did the ecological footprint quiz and discovered that if everyone on the planet lived my lifestyle we would need 4.87 earths! Now I’m not the most environmental friendly person but I definitely thought I would do much better than that! I feel that I’m very conservative when it comes to electricity, heat and recycling. =) My roommates and I wait till almost November to turn on our heat and throughout the winter we try to keep it around 66 degrees. We use power strips and turn off unnecessary lights whenever possible and this past summer we installed compact fluorescent bulbs throughout our entire house. All but one of my roommates take pretty short showers and this may be a little gross but if we all have to #1 at the same time we just let it mellow until the last person is through and then we flush. I know this sounds really gross but the plumber said the less we flush the more we will save on our water bill because our toilet has a big tank. (Sry if I grossed anyone out! =) So with all that said, I thought I was in pretty good shape compared to others.

One of the things I should consider to reduce my ecological footprint is traveling. I should do less driving to and from school and work. I really don’t live that far from both of them but I’m ALWAYS running late! (But in my defense, I do carpool to both destinations because we all go to school at the same time almost every morning and three of us work at the same place.) I definitely don’t drive home as often as I used to so that’s also a plus but when I do it’s a four hour trip there and back (3.5 if I drive fast, shhh don’t tell my grandma.) And according to the travel calculator my total annual pollution from road transport is better than average. (Booya!) But I in the end I really like the quote stated by the travel calculator, “Burn calories not fuel.” =)

Other things recommended from my quiz results would be to dry my clothes outside whenever possible (in the summer of course), defrost my refrigerator and freezer regularly, eat more local, organic, in-season foods, and by choosing foods with less packaging to reduce waste. =)

Welcome to Shar's Virtual Environment

Hi, my name is Shar and I created this blog to meet the requirements of my Environmental Health course during the Spring of 2009.

There are 5 possible types of posts on my blog. They include:

• Advocacy Project
  
• Eye Openers
  
• Reflections
• Reviews
  
• Share and Voice
  

If you notice at the bottom of this post, the categories will be listed as labels. This post is has been labeled with all five kinds of posts. You will also see the number of each kind of post in my Labels Gadget at the top of the page. All post titles from now on will begin with one of the categories above.

The members of my web group are:

1. Steve @ Steve Goes Green
   
2. Heather @ Heather's Healthy Environment
3. Christen @ Christen's Environmental Health
   
4. Kaileigh @ Kaileigh's Nature Log
   
5. Kathy @ Choh's Changing Environment
   

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