Participate!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." -Ghandi

For Design Problem #3, I am focusing on the importance of everybody helping each other and helping the Earth we live on. I want to encourage, motivate, and inspire people to "do good." In anyway, any place, for anyone. First, I have designed sort of "notes to strangers" that other people will write or draw on, describing their vision of what good they would like to be seen done, toward others, or for the environment. After I get a lot of people to fill out these sheets, I'm going to roll them up, using biodegradable wax paper (If You Care brand... yes, it's really biodegradable! Excited!?) almost like a message in a bottle, minus the bottle, and send them away tied on yellow, helium filled balloons (which also degrade). I'm using cotton string, just long enough to tie the note to the balloon as not to disturb the environment/wildlife. Hopefully, people will find these notes, open them, and do whatever "good" the other person wanted to see be done! The bottom of the note requests that if found, and if the person does what the note says, that they write back or visit the blog http://participate4good.blogspot.com to let me know what they did/suggestions for further/future "good-doing!" Game plan: I'm going to set up a table in the CFA (focusing first on a specific audience...being Towson students, faculty, staff) with yellow balloons around, wearing yellow shirts, etc to rally up participants for the first part of the project! Why yellow? It's bright, it's happy, and it will catch people's attention! The rest is up to whoever finds these notes. I'm hoping for at least a 50% rate of people finding the balloons, considering I won't know exactly where these notes could end up! I was inspired to do this project by one of my best friends who did something similar as an elementary school student in Belgium. His class wrote letters to strangers and sent them away on balloons in hopes of gaining a pen pal. They received some replies from Germany, and other surrounding countries and cities! Now THAT, I think, is pretty cool. I'm hoping people will be inspired to do good, whether it's something that takes two minutes, two hours, or something that is ongoing... smiling at a stranger, starting a compost, riding your bike instead of driving, eating local/organic food... so many things, most that don't require you to change your whole life around, but simply take a small break and do something GOOD, that's out of your ordinary schedule. Doesn't seem too hard or asking for too much! I'm pretty excited:)

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not." -Dr. Seuss

NY Times: Phys Ed: Do Energy Drinks Improve Athletic Performance?

Posted December 8, 2010

So this article may not seem like it's related to social issues, but I chose it because it relates to adolescents and young adults using different methods to heighten their energy, attention, etc. to obtain better results in sports and in class. Although different, it reminded me of the project that Rhen, Liz, and Josh are doing in class on prescription drugs, as well as how so many students use (many times unprescribed) aderol to "do better" in school.

Not only do energy drinks not necessarily improve athletic performance as it is NOT a sports drink, although it is often times mistaken for one. They contain as much as a quarter cup of sugar in many,caffeine and other ingredients, like the stimulatory herb guarana and the amino acid taurine. "Because it is a diuretic, caffeine can contribute to dehydration... and the large amounts of sugar in energy drinks have been known to cause diarrhea and other gastrointestinal upset... which is certainly not going to improve anyone’s performance.”

The fact that people so young are already relying on things to boost their energy and performance is obviously not a good sign. If they ate healthy, exercised, and got an efficient amount of rest each night, these things wouldn't be such an issue. Yes, we are busy with school, sports, jobs, etc, but if we took time away from watching television, browsing the web, etc, we would probably have more time for the things that make our lives more healthy, and that would allow people to steer away from energy drinks, aderol, etc.

For Artists’ Fund-Raising, a Social Network Site

Posted on: December 7, 2010

"United States Artists, a nonprofit group founded by foundations and wealthy art donors to broaden support for working artists, will unveil a new Web site on Tuesday that solicits small donations from regular people to help underwrite specific artworks... Part social network, part glossy brochure, part fund-raising mechanism, the site seeks to democratize arts patronage as government support for the arts continues to decline and private sources of financing also shrink."

I think this is a fabulous idea! Why shouldn't artists be able to at least try to fundraise money for their projects? Funding for art is low, yet artists do so much (practically everything) for the visual world we live in. So, if the government isn't funding money for these projects, maybe other people are willing, which, a little surprisingly yet thankfully, they are! A lot of artists who tried out this site said they were embarrassed at first to ask for money from others, yet in the end, the Web site attracted "roughly 36,000 unique visitors and raised a total of $210,000, with an average of $120 from each of 1,500 small donors." Some artists raised anywhere from $5,185 to $20,300! Now THAT is exciting!

Check it out! http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/business/07art.html?ref=technology

NY Times: On the Trail of Antarctica's Geological Secrets

Posted: December 7, 2010

The article discusses John Goodge's, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and Jeff Vervoort's, an isotope geochemist from Washington State University, research expedition in Antarctica. They are digging up and sending home samples of Antarctica crust, which is hidden below 8,000-12,000 ft of ice.

"Antarctica is bigger than the United States and Europe combined, but its geology is very poorly known. Why do we care about the geology of the Antarctic continent? Part of it is basic scientific curiosity, because we know from limited outcrop that parts of East Antarctica are as old as 3.8 billion years. It can tell us about the long evolution of continental crust formation as the earth had undergone chemical differentiation. Antarctica was a key piece in Pangea, Gondwana and Rodinia (huge supercontinents formed by the assembly of many of today’s familiar continents at roughly 250, 500 and 1,000 million years ago), and knowing more about its geologic architecture can help to refine the picture of global paleogeography as far back as 1 billion years ago. Lastly, because the polar ice cap and glaciers in Antarctica are critical to understanding past climate and ongoing processes of climate change, knowing more about the substrate for the earth’s largest ice cap and reservoir of fresh water will help to determine the stability and future fate of the ice sheet in the face of ongoing warming."

Obviously information like this is important if we are going to find solutions to the problems we are creating, or that may be naturally occuring on Earth today, such as global warming. Although there are some controversies facing global warming, researchers may be able to use these samples to determine more about the issue and how things may be in the future.

NY Times: Gay Teenagers Face Harsher Punishments

Posted: December 6, 2010

This article discusses how "gay, lesbian and bisexual teens in the United States are far more likely to be harshly punished by schools and courts than their straight peers, even though they are less likely to engage in serious misdeeds." There have been many studies to prove this. In addition, "lesbian, gay and bisexual teens overall were far more likely to be stopped by police, arrested or convicted of a crime than other adolescents...[Those] who said they had experienced feelings of same-sex attraction were more likely to have been expelled from school than other teens, and girls who labeled themselves as lesbian or bisexual appeared to be at highest risk for punishment, experiencing 50 percent more police stops and about twice the risk of arrest and conviction as heterosexual girls who reported similar levels of misconduct."

This is all absolutely outrageous. It disgusts me that people can treat others so differently and cruelly simply based on an attribute that they may not have or agree with. No matter where we go in life, no matter what we do or who we choose to be, we are going to be judged by at least some people in some way. Everybody is different and how boring would it be if we were all the same? Treating others disrespectfully and unfairly based on their sexual orientation is absolutely bogus to me... and the fact that our educators, protectors (police force, etc.) and courts can judge and punish people less or worse based on a personal characteristic that is part of what makes a person who they are, is really just embarrassing on their part and honestly they should be ashamed of themselves for being so close-minded and judgmental...I feel bad for them. But when and how is this all going to end? Just like racism and other stereotypes, I think it's just something that HOPEFULLY, as generations are born, they will gradually become more and more open-minded than the generation that came before them. As sad as it is, I don't think there is a way to completely alter everybody's thinking and personal "morals."

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/gay-teens-face-harsher-punishments/?ref=health

The Human Cloud Is A Greener Workforce

http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2010/11/12/12gigaom-the-human-cloud-is-a-greener-workforce-6156.html?ref=technology

NY Times: For Frequent Fliers, a Radiation Risk in the Skies

"Despite recent concern about whether airline passengers get a potentially dangerous dose of radiation from the new security scanners at the airport checkpoints, the real risk is after you board the plane, according to two new publications."

There are new security scanners being tested right now that, "unlike diagnostic x-rays that doctors send through the body... go through the clothes and bounce back, so the machine can create an image of the traveler under the clothing." There was talk concern about whether or not people would receive too much radiation from the machines. The scanners meet the standard for a “general use” X-ray machine, meaning that a person would have to have 1,000 scans a year before approaching the maximum allowed dose for members of the general public. Later, the amount of radiation people get AFTER getting on the plane was discussed and it definitely shocked me! At airliner altitudes, we actually get radiation from the sun and the stars, which can be hundreds of times higher than on the surface of the earth, where the atmosphere filters out radiation. Well that's definitely something I never would have even thought about before! Another interesting fact: "airline crew members flying long-haul high-altitude routes receive, on average, greater exposures than the typical radiation workers in ground-based industries where radioactive sources or radiation producing machines are used, [and] flying round trip from New York to Tokyo seven times a year would put a passenger or crew member at the limit enforced at industrial sites." Holy Moly! If we're already getting that much radiation from simply flying, is it really necessary for airports to expose us to even MORE radiation when going through security? There has to be other ways to make a scanner without potentially being able to harm us with much use over time. Although most people don't fly very often, there are people who fly A LOT, like business frequent fliers, and what about the pilots of the planes? It seems to me the inventors/designers of these super high-tech should be thinking about the long-term best interest of everyone... yeah they would stop potential terrorists, etc. from getting through security checkpoints, but maybe there are other ways of creating really efficient scanners/security machines.



http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/for-frequent-fliers-a-radiation-risk-in-the-skies/?ref=science