Students Responsibilities

Today, students have many different responsibilities. Some of them for themselves, then there is responsibilities for others around them. Students today are responsible for their learning and seeing that they make choices which may or may not change an aspect of what they have to do.
For example, after graduating high school, we are to decide what we would like to do and where we want to go to college of we so chose. But it is not us being responsible for ourselves, but in a way we are responsible for helping others. Many people chose to show responsibility for helping others who are not able to help themselves properly, others are responsible for making sure that their family has money and good on the table, some are responsible for taking care of younger siblings and having a job, others are responsible for defending our country in the line of duty. There are many different roles and responsibilities people have, but these roles that seem quite small are in fact quite large.

I have seen this in senior capstone while I help out in a classroom.when I first began my service, I didn't think that helping kids would change anything. After working with students I see that by helping them learn in different ways and showing them that serving in a nearby community is good. Some of the students I work with don't have educational support from home so they are struggling in the classroom. One thing I have noticed is how students there manage responsibility and how some seem to have a little amount of it. Also I see how teachers have a responsibility to help students understand the material and that they would learn more.
Teachers are important because they are the people who have an impact on a child besides the parent. If the teachers are wanting to help the students learn, then the students will want to learn. If some teachers don't care about teaching students, then that may impact how much work they put into education. Senior Capstone has helped me see what it is like for people who have jobs such as teaching and see how large the responsibility of a teacher as well as a student is.

Senior Capstone Service Video

Media Day Reflection

Media Day went quite well in my opinion. I spoke with several perople who were quite interested in what we as students thought of the class, what we would change, and what we think about the technology. I feel that through sharing our thoughts and experiences with important members of the community, we were able to learn more about how our service has helped us. I was able to reflect upon how my service has helped me see things in a different way by seeing how kids learn things differently and teaching things such as matter to students so that they are able to understand it in a different way.

Service

There are many different types of service. From volunteering in classrooms to serving in a third world country. Service is something that can be defined several ways. To me, service means helping others for no international benefit or gain. Although community service is required for this class, I don't serve because of the requirement. I serve because I want to help kids who are in a lower socioeconomic range than those in Saline. For my service, I have chosen to volunteer at Fortis Academy which is a charter school in Ypsilanti. I help out in a forth grade classroom by working with the students, helping grade papers, helping students with lower reading levels read, giving verbal quizzes, or helping the librarian sort books for students to read by reading level. To me, this is a rewarding experience, because the students I work with help me appreciate certain things and they enjoy having me help with the class.

Food Log Reults

                After researching the ingredients in food that I ate over a twenty-four hour time period, I realized that organic food is not necessarily organic. Also, I learned that there are some ingredients in food that cause sleepiness. For example, after looking up the ingredients in turkey, I found that there are different types of cold cut meat products. First there are whole cuts, which are the more expensive because the meat is cooked and then seasoned with spices or sugars then sliced. Secondly, there are sectioned and formed meat products which are made from different pieces of meat and then bonded together to make one single piece.
Finally, there are processed meats which are made through emulsion or non emulsion. Emulsion is where the meat is finely chopped, then hydrophobic proteins react with fat, and hydrophillic protein reacts with water to hold in the fat solution. Non emulsion is in a way the same process; however, no massaging or grinding of the meat is needed. Another thing that shocked me about the meat was that there are enzymes as well as nitrates and compounds which are known to cause cancer. The reason this shocks me is because the FDA does not seem to interveigne on this, nor do other organizations. The companies that produce meat and meat like products seem to be backed by some organization in order to continue the production of their meat.
                  When I was looking up information for a bag of Sun Chips, I found some of the ingredients such as pork enzymes quite interesting. Due to the use of pork, it is not kosher or vegetarian. There are chips made that ay do not contain pig enzymes, but to me, the fact that chips have a meat product in them is quite interesting. I feel that if there are meat products in chips and they are labeled so people could actually read the ingredients, then people would not eat sun chips as much.
                  After looking for the ingredients I ate within the twenty-four hours, I realized that not only have I consumed a large amount of calories, but I also consumed many different acids, enzymes, and oils that I would not think are in certain foods.
          

Born Into Brothels Reflection

         The documentary, Born into Brothels, deals with children in the Red Light District. The Red Light Ditrict is a place where buildings are close together, there are small dirt paths for the roads, children are chained up to posts, and women are lined up along the streets at night. In the first paragraph of the first chapter in Half the Sky, it describes what the Red Light District is like. It also talks about how mothers raise their children to be prostitutes like they are. In the documentarty, one of the mothers does not want her daughter to attend school, because she wants her to enter the line. Later on in the reading, it talks about how the more wealthy girls are more likely to stick to their virtues; whereas the women in poverty are more likely to compromise or overlook their morals. Also, people tend to ignore the needs of people in poverty more than they do with those who are wealthy. Another thing that is relevant to the documentary is that women are beaten down both physically as well as emotionally in the brothels.
               In the second reading, A Crime So Monstrous, it talks about slaves in Haiti. The story begins with a descrption of what it would be like to purchase a slave and what you would see as you go to Haiti. In class, we did group projects on various subjects, and one of them was child slavery. Although we don't see much of it around Michigan, but it still very much exists. We talked briefly about how we don't know much about it, because we are not around a place where it is well known. In the reading, it talks about how police rescued a twelve year old from a home in Miami. They took bought the girl, brought her to the United States, and forced her to clean their home, sleep on the floor, and eat garbage. The police found out that the son of the couple had raped her since he was 9 year old. We did not talk much about this in class, but it just brings the slavery closer to our world. In the documentary, a little boy was briefly shown chained to a pole, not wearing any pants. This little boy was chained up to be sold; whether it was for slavery or to be in the sex trade, the little boy was considered an object, not a person. When people are trafficked, abducted, sold into slavery, and forced to become prostitutes, they are not seen as people, but objects that people can use however they choose. In the documentary, viewers are able to see the Red Light District through the eyes of the children of prostitutes and drug users. They too, are beaten for not doing anything, their parents got upet at the children for not doing something they were not asked to do. Also, the children are in an environment we'd see as negative, but it is normal to them, because it is what they have grown up with. It is normal within their societal structure to see people do things that we may consider improper, illegal, and wrong. To the people in the brothels, it is all they know. Some people know that it is not good to participate in such behaviors, but some see it as good. Near the end of the second reading, it talks about how bad is good for people involved in slavery as well as prostitution.

Great Lakes v. Nestle

         Privitization is both good and bad, like many things, there are both pros and con of privatization. For pros, an increase of revenue is able to be made by controlling water in certain areas, there is an increase in success, improved efficiency, and expansion of services. For the cons, the public right becomes a private good, it is difficult to reverse, tariff and taxes increase, and water starved countries have even more of a hard time accessing water.
         Nestle was pumping water in Wisconsin, until a large group of protesters led the governor to force Nestle out of the state, because of the amount of protesters against the pumping of water from the spring. After leaving Wisconsin, Nestle moved to Michigan. This was a good decision, because Michigan is home to many Great Lakes. With the amount of water in the tate, Nestle can pump more water and produce a greater profit. However, after a "slap suit" against the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, the company was forced to stop pumping water in Michigan. After a while, the company went to the Court of Appeals where the decision was overturned and Nestle was able to resume the pumping of water. With this privilege granted by the Court, they also had restrictions. Nestle was not allowed to import or export any water bottles or water that was pumped in Michigan. With this law, came a bit of a challenge, how would Nestle sell their products if they were not able to import ot export the water? Well, that I am not 100% sure of, but I can guess that they packaged water bottles, possibly found a loophole, and sold the water and bottles to larger companies.
          While reading the article, Race To Buy Up the World's Water, I realized that the amount of water in Alaska is higher than that of many states. In Sitka, Alaska, 6.2 billion gallons of Sitka's reserves go unused. Also, there are two companies that have combined forces to form a plan of siphoning the water into tanks that are normally used for oil then shipped to a bulk bottling facility near Mumbai to then be dispersed among multiple several drought plauged Middle East Cities. The two companies, TrueAlaska Bottling and S2C Global, have only the large water baron in mind. The companies are not rushing to send water to third world countrie or water lacking countries such as Nigeria and Kenya. Instead, they are rushing to send water to oil rich countries in order to recieve financial gain in return. Something which I found quite interesting in reading this article, was that industrial household chemicals are polluting what is left of the rescources. Also, I found it interesting that privately owned water utilities will charge only what the market can bear, thus spending as little as possible in order to get by on maintinance and environmental protection.
        While watching the third video clip about water rights, I was able to gain more knowledge of the problems with privatization and water rights than I had before. Many things were quite interesting and stood out to me, but I think that one of the most interesting things from the video clip, was that people in Kenya are not able to get out of debt, because of the lack of money they get from their exported tea. They keep having to help out other countries; yet they are not able to recieve help from the countries they sell their export to. Because of the lack of money, meters are placed on pipes and residents have to purchase a key or a token to use the expensive water. When I heard the story about the mother who went to work and took the water token with her, leaving her two daughters in the shack they lived in. The shack caught fire and nobody wanted to pay to ue water to put the fire out. The two girls both died in the fire, because they did not have any money to pay for water and their neighbors would not pay with their own money. For me, that is hard to grasp, not being able to access water and having it be a matter of life and death. Also, it is hard for me to imagine that people would not help two kids who are in a burning shack. From a moral standpoint, that is just not acceptable for me, people could not save two kids lives, because they wanted their water for themselves. Although, the fact that people have to pay for water, the fact that people are dying because they can't access water is sad, upsetting, and immoral. I think that water should be as it was meant to be, something everyone can enjoy without having to pay for it.