Reflections: Week 15 and 16

And alas, here is our last reflection, and to think we thought it would never end....

Week 15

This week started off with everyone doing their final advocacy project post! We had to come up with a project that went along with our issue, that would encourage people to vote for the bills to pass! Some people came up with really great ideas! Also, during week 15, on Tuesday Sue Whitney author of JunkMarket came and talked to us! She was an amazing lady, with an amazingly creative mind. We each got a copy of her book Junk Beautiful Outdoor Edition, which was so grateful of her! I've already looked at mine at least a dozen times (And the fact that there's like 9 flamingos in there, just makes me give her even more thumbs up!)

On Thursday we got to go outside and just enjoy the environment for our last day of class... after my let's show this school that we're smoke free extravaganza... embarrassing! It was so much fun to just sit with the class and hear what everyone had taken away from the class! Great!


Week 16

The only thing we really had to finish up for this week, was doing our group members online learning activities, and posting about our results and thoughts about them. I learned so much from doing these activities, and it was really great to be able to think about them!


I have learned so much in this class, and it really is weird to think about the fact that we won't be getting together for two hours each week to talk about the environment. This class needed every single person in it, and I am very glad that I got to know so many of you so very well. Have an amazing summer everyone!!!

Eye Opener: Learning Activity Results

Here are my results from my fellow group 1 members advocacy project activities! Great job everyone!


Steve Goes Green


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 had always known that there were a lot of phobias, but definitely never heard of most of these! It's crazy to hear what people are scared of. I looked it up, and I have podophobia, a fear of feet! I hate hate hate hate feet. So gross! Anyways, Good activity Steve!

Shar's Virtual Environment

Basement: Mold growth, Carbon Monoxide from appliances, Don't use ozone creators in your household. I was most surprised by the ozone creator, the solution was to eliminate the source of the problem all together!

Laundry Room: Dryer Steam, The dryer did surprise me because I had never heard of someone who doesn't have the steam going to the outdoors! The solution was just to have the steam go outside!

Kitchen:Gas Stoves produce nitrogen dioxide! You can fix this by making sure to have a range hood which will help collect the fumes.

Living Room: Wood smoke contains harmful substances. The solution is to keep your fireplace well maintained and have the chimney cleaned once a year.

Garage: Exhaust from a car creates carbon monoxide. The solution to this is never leave a car running in the garage!

Bedroom: Mold growth! It's important to find the source of humidity and rid it!

Bathroom: Cleaning supplies have harmful gases. Read and label all cleaning supplies and always follow the directions when using them.

Roof: Water damage through the ceiling can promote mold growth. Always get leaks fixed asap!

This activity was really fun. I hadn't thought of a lot of these problems as allergen pollutions! I was most surprised by the fact that mold can grow in about any room!

Kaileigh's Nature Log

What are the types of long term care policies?: I was surprised the most by this that there are absolutely no policies that will cover medical expenses fully.

What do policies cost? The policy cost varies depending upon ones: age, benefits, and deductible periods.

I think that long term coverage and care needs to be a nationwide policy! I never realized that Medicare did not cover long-term health care, and I really think that this is a problem. I also did my advocacy project on health care availability and affordability, and I think that it is something that everyone needs and deserves!

Choh's Changing Environment

DOWN
1. Fetal
3. OLDER
4. 1978
5. Myth

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

Our landlord actually gave us a speech about lead poisoning when we first signed our lease for our house! She left us pamphlets and brochures about it, and made sure that we were aware that our house was built before 1950 so there could be lead present! I'm not sure if she's actually ever had it checked or not, but this is something that she seems pretty passionate about, so we try to be as safe as possible!

Christens Environmental Health

I definitely thought there was some major bias going on in this video! However, it definitely proved it's point! Health insurance is such a huge topic (so huge that 3 people out of our group 1 chose to do their advocacy projects about it!) It's good to know the facts, and what's happening with it! Everyone deserves affordable health care!


GREAT JOB GROUP 1

Share and Voice: Green Toilet Paper

As I was sitting in my bed tonight, working on final projects and papers, and dealing with a cold. I realized in a short amount of time, the amount of tissues that I had used. I then wondered if there was any ways in which to go more environmentally friendly with my everyday tissue use, like Kleenex, and toilet paper?! I did a little googling, and found some pretty interesting answers.

First of all I found out from Grinning Planet, that a lot of companies are pushing that forests get cut down, when that is the last thing that needs to happen to make things like Kleenex, toilet paper, and paper towels. Kimberly-Clark is one of the largest companies making waste on the forests. This company not only sells tissue items at retail stores, but also to big end retailers like schools, governments, and institutions.

According to this website, the most environmentally friendly tissue item companies are!
Seventh Generation
Green Forest
Marcal
Natural Value
Earth Friendly

So next time you're out shopping for "the essentials" take a minute to really help our our environment!

Advoacy Project: Healthcare Availability and Affordability

Purpose: To educate on the importance of having affordable and available health care for everyone in Minnesota.

Overview: My issue that I chose was about making health care available affordable to all Minnesotans. At first I was struggling to find an activity that was interesting, however, then through HealthPartners, I found an interactive “Care of Cost” activity. Here, you can go through different health procedures you may need done, and find out how much they cost! You can look at an annual planner, treatment costs, or procedure costs. (To see the procedure costs you need to be a member, so for the purpose of this I chose to do treatment costs) I thought I was amazing to see how much each minor condition can cost in the treatment costs section! This will help with my purpose, seeing how much these conditions can cost, can maybe show us how rough it would be to not have health care available to us, and see in the long run that low income families would not be able to treat so many minor illnesses. So, run through this activity and see how much your everyday illnesses can cost you without health insurance! (I understand that putting an amount or too much information can be not very secretive, so don’t feel like you HAVE to put your results…. Maybe just reflect)

For more information on health care availability and affordability check out these websites

HealthPartners
Minnesota Health Information
Minnesota Department of Health
Minnesota Department of Human Services

Good Luck!

Reflection: Week 13 and 14

I could lie and tell everyone that I won't talk about how we're almost done with school... but I won't lie..

I cannot even believe that we are almost done with the semester! This is absolutely the craziest thing I have dealt with in a long time. whoa!

Week 13

We started off Week 13 but watching Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. This short movie was about how everyday "stuff" that we use, hurts the environment more than we think! Every piece of "stuff" has to go through extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. I had definitely never thought of half of the things that Annie mentioned, let alone realized how bad like everything that I use is for the environment! I liked this video also because I think it'd be good for a lot of different age groups, I loved it, but yet I think you could show it to middle schoolers and they would understand and get the point of it, while still finding it fun. We also kept up with our advocacy projects during week 13, and did an issue overview on the bill that we chose. This was to help familiarize ourselves with our topic that we chose, and to make us think from a variety of angles of information. Then, on Thursday we hit up Bagley Nature Area for some Navigational skills exercises! This was probably my least favorite part of this class so far, and not because I don't love being outside, because I do... but because I'm a horrible navigator, and felt very lost throughout the exercise! Thank goodness I had a good group (Sara J., Autumn M., and Katie N.) so even if we didn't know what we were doing, we could laugh and have a good time!

Week 14

On Tuesday we had a speaker from the Civil Engagement Office here at UMD come in and talk about his career in environmental health. I really enjoyed this talker, although for the life of me I can't remember his name (and I feel really really bad!) I enjoyed learning a little big more about Americorps, because it's something that I've thought about joining, but definitely need more information about. We then wrote a letter for our advocacy project to a representative. This was a new experience for me, and it was hard at first, because I didn't want to sound ridiculous when trying to get my point across. Everyone's turned out really great though! On Thursday we had a junking day in class, definitely one of my favorite days so far! Lots of great ideas from Group 1 ;) and of course all of the other marvelous Groups in our class!

I continue to learn so much throughout the course of this class... it's too hard to pinpoint a few couple things! I will be mucho sad when this is over!

Share and Voice: Dave at Super One

I took a trip to Super One Foods today to visit Dave the manager and give him our Thank You card (which after a long wait, finally got done!) ! I spoke with him personally, and although he looked really confused, and really wanted nothing to do with speaking with me, he smiled! And I'd say a smile is a good thing! I'm so glad that he donated these bags, I brought a few with me to do a little light grocery shopping when I was done, and I realized that carrying these "Green" bags are a heck of a lot easier than carrying a paper bag with no handles as well! So three cheers for Dave for helping out our Environmental Health Class!!

THANK YOU'S

Thank you Shar for taking such a great class picture! As seen above, it really turned out nice :) And also Thank You rest of our class for signing and adding to our beautiful Thank You Letter! Most of all, Thank You Dr. V for making this happen!

Advocacy Project: Letter to Public Official

Heather B.
3333 Flower Drive
Rose, MN 55555

April 28, 2009

Representative Thomas Huntley
585 State Office Building 100
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd
St. Paul, MN 55155

RE: Support for Bill: HF2256

Dear Representative Huntley,
I urge you to support Bill HF2256, which would require health care availability and affordability guaranteed for every Minnesotan, Minnesotan Health Plan, Health Board, Health Fund, Office of Health Quality and Planning, ombudsman for patient advocacy, and inspector general for the Minnesota Health Plan established, and money appropriated. I believe that requiring health care availability and affordability for every Minnesotan would be very beneficial to all citizens.

This issue is affecting many Minnesotans every day. In doing some research, I found that 40,000-46,000 Minnesotans would enroll for an insurance program if it was affordable and available. Making health care easily accessible will be benefit all involved. Keeping people healthy and disease free will enable them to go to work, and help participate in everyday life. Even more beneficial will be the fact that children will be healthier, and be able to go to school and receive the education that they need to succeed in life.

I understand that this issue may be expensive and many taxpayers may not be happy with having to pay for other people’s health care, but I honestly think that the benefits outweigh the negatives. I found that it would take an estimated $159 million for everyone to get insurance, but in the long run and with a lot of organizations help, it will be beneficial.

I’m going into Community Health Education, and a lot of times in that career, I will be working with people who have little or no money. We focus a lot on preventative health care, and people who don’t have money are less likely to partake in prevention programs, because they don’t have the proper resources and money to get there. Knowing that they have what they need to participate in these programs is important and would help everyone stay healthier.

I hope that you support this issue, and that you will vote YES to Bill HF2256 to require health care availability and affordability guaranteed for every Minnesotan, Minnesotan Health Plan, Health Board, Health Fund, Office of Health Quality and Planning, ombudsman for patient advocacy, and inspector general for the Minnesotan Health Plan established, and money appropriated.
If you need any additional information, don’t hesitate to contact me, Heather B, at (555) 444 9999. I am willing to help advocate for this issue, and show how important that this issue is.

Thank you for your time.
Heather B.

Share and Voice: ENVIROcool award

I would like to give out my ENVIROcool award to Noah for his Share and Voice: Do the Green Thing! I loved the videos that the website had to offer, and just thought this was a really neat Share and Voice! I received the blog award from Sara J for my post Share and Voice: Shar Drew. I thought you did a great job Noah, so here are the instructions for you to pass it on to the next lucky blogger!

1. Leave a comment below so that I know you "picked up" the award.
2. Create a Share and Voice post that says you've received the award and indicate who the award is from (be sure to hyperlink).
3. Also indicate to whom you are going to pass on the award and why. Be sure to hyperlink the blogger (use main blog URL) and the blog title (use the specific URL for that blog post).
4. Copy and paste these instructions at the bottom of your post.
5. Publish the post.
6. Visit each blogger you've awarded and leave a comment telling them they've won.
7. Continue the process...

Advocacy Project: Issue Overview

The bill that I chose to do research on is Bill Number: HF2256. This bill was about health care availability and affordability guaranteed for every Minnesotan, Minnesota Health Plan, Health Board, Health Fund, Office of Health Quality and Planning, ombudsman for patient advocacy, and inspector general for the Minnesota Health Plan established, and money appropriated.

Who is affected by this issue…

I think that the people who would be affected the most in this issue, would be people with no or low incomes. This would affect them in a positive way because it is the lower class who cannot always afford health care. Making it available and affordable to them would make them healthier and be able to get the care they deserve. Workplaces would not have employees calling in sick to work as much, if everyone could get the appropriate health care. I guess who would lose would be the people organizations that would have to a make up for the difference in the cost the people would pay, and the cost of what the care should actually be. I’d assume this would mean insurance companies and possibly some health care facilities themselves. . In my research I found that by making insurance more affordable, 40,00-46,000 people would probably enroll and use the services, which shows that this is readily needed.

Consequences of this issue…

I think overall the consequences of this issue would be only good ones! People will overall be healthier, and with people being healthier they can go to work more, make more money and live an overall better life. Their families would be affected in a positive way for a few reasons. First of all, children of low income families can get the health care that they need and deserve. Growing up requires a lot of medical care, and especially for low income families, they have more health problems, so giving them the health care resources that they need would be very beneficial. The society as a whole would be healthier if everyone had health care available to them. This would maybe mean less sickness and diseases spreading so everyone would benefit. One bad consequence would be the money issue; someone has to pay for the health care that the people would be receiving.

Economic Impact of this issue…

If this bill is passed, taxpayers will have to pay more to help cover the costs of health care for the lower class. Some governmental agencies may also be affected by needing to help cover the costs. Insurance agencies may be affected by being forced to give people insurance who could maybe not otherwise afford it. Taxpayers I think will be the most upset by the issue at hand at first. However, this is a really important issue and if everyone can have affordable health care, everyone will benefit from it. In my research I found that if everyone got affordable insurance it would cost between $159 million and $1.8 billion each year for everyone to have.

Social impact of this issue…

A lot of people miss work because of being ill. With health care being more affordable, people would miss fewer days of work. Also, if employees’ children are getting health care and not being sick, the parents won’t have to take off to take care of their children, who are now going to school healthy and not spreading sicknesses. The social impact overall, I think will be that everyone’s healthier, so everyone can live a better life.


Barriers to the issue…

I think the largest barrier to this will be people almost not caring. The taxpayers aren’t going to want to pay for other people’s health care when they already have their own to pay for. These barriers could hopefully be overcome by showing why this issue is important and really pushing the benefits over the negatives of this bill. I think the annual price is really high, and will scare people, but I think it’s needed, because 40,000 people is a lot, and that’s a huge number that aren’t getting the insurance that they need already.

What are the resources…

The main resource we need for this issue is money. It will also take health care facilities to be aware and knowledgeable of the plan so they can recognize that more lower income families will be starting to use their resources more. Insurance companies that are ready to help people who can’t afford insurance will need to be used. Support from community members is very important as well, because without their support, this bill will never be passed.

History of the issue…

I couldn’t find a ton of history in this issue, but I did find something that was kind of beneficial. In January of 2008 resolutions were made about this issue. At first the issue was put aside and rejected because the cost is so high, however a new resolution was made creating a new way to possible afford and implement this plan. Here is what the new resolution said “Whereas, the health care crisis for all Minnesotans continues to escalate with no solutions for affordability being offered by the private sector; Therefore be it resolved, the Greater Minnesota Health Care Coalition (GMHCC) urges the Minnesota Legislature to enact a public, affordable, universal health care system for all Minnesotans, by passing Senate File 102 - House File 479, which would create a process to produce legislation for this purpose and require it to be implemented by 2010, and also proposes a constitutional amendment for the right to affordable health care; and Be it further resolved, the Greater Minnesota Health Care Coalition (GMHCC) supports, as stepping stones, state legislation to create a public health insurance system, such as one to unify state-subsidized programs, public employees', retirees', legislators', and small business health insurance and that of universal coverage for children.” So, things have been tried in the past and it is a difficult mission to try to take care of but steps are being taken.


Allies and Opponents…

I think that allies would be for one the Great Minnesota Health Care Coalition. They advocate for affordable, prescription drugs, sustainable Medicare Systems, and health care. Also, I actually found a huge list of places country wide that support health care systems and are big advocators for health care. So, they would all be allies. The website is protectyourhealthcare.org. I think the main opponent would be taxpayers, because its coming out of their pockets. Another group I found that would be opposed to this issue is the Health Policy Consensus Group.


I think policy makers should vote YES for affordable and available health care for all Minnesotans!


Here are some of the resources that I used to research this issue!

Health Insurance Affordability Study
True North
Health Care Battle Brewing
Health Policy Consensus Group

Reflection: Weeks 11 and 12

Picture taken by Ashley Penrod

Okay everyone, I'm pulling the cliche I can't believe we are done with week 12 already. Onto the nitty gritty though!

Week 11

We started off the week by watching a documentary called Unnatural Causes: In Sickness and in Wealth. I thought that this was the best documentary we've watched so far! It was very informative and was about a topic that I'm recently very interested in! I think the main point of this movie was about how money equals not only power but wealth. The more wealthy you are, the healthier you are and the more access to health care you have. We also learned how to use THOMAS and the Minnesota Legislation and Bill Search to search for a topic related to environmental health that we are interested in doing research on and sending in a letter to the editor. I chose to do health promotion programs for all people in all levels of income.

Week 12

During this week, we had a lot of discussions. On Tuesday we discussed what an issue is. We talked a lot about our upcoming assignment due, which is to write a little mini report on the bill that we are choosing to do research on. On Thursday we had Reading 20 due which discussed the upside of the environment and what positive is going on that we don't' hear of! Shar led us in a rousing class discussion about this. I really feel like since the beginning of the semester, we all have more insight and regard as to what's going on around us. Yesterday was the first day I noticed it, because without Dr. V being the teacher, we still led a very civilized discussion and I think we brought up a lot of really great points!

What I've Learned

Honestly, this is my favorite class right now. Yes, it's a lot of work, with keeping up with blogging, but it's fun work and things that are very new to me! I'm going to miss coming to this class every Tuesday and Thursday and even more than that I'm definitely going to miss the people in the class! Everyones producing such a high quality of work, and it's really neat to see!

Advocay Project: Healthy People/THOMAS

Area 7 Objective: Increase the quality, availability, and effectiveness of educational and community-based programs, designed to prevent disease and improve health and quality of life.

Healthy People 2010's two overarching goals to increase quality and years of healthy life and eliminate health disparities are supported and advanced by the objectives for educational and community-based programs. Knowledge is important in making healthy behavioral and lifestyle decisions, and the mission of these programs is to foster and develop this knowledge. By being local and community-based, these programs reduce disparities by increasing the proportion of the population that has access to health information and disease prevention programs. (I know this comes straight from the introduction, but I really wanted to make it clear why I was doing this topic!)

Progress Quotient Chart: I really liked this goal, because it talked about eliminating health disparities in the United States. I chose School Health Education, because 1. The priority areas are areas that need to be improved in having less health disparities and 2. It discusses environmental health J

Areas of Interest:

7-2: School Health Education

7-2 A: All Priority Areas: -7%

7-2 J: Environmental Health- 0%

Progress Information: Toward the elimination of Health disparities.

White Non-Hispanics had the best rate for completing high school for peoples aged 18-24. The Hispanic population had the largest disparity, with only 66% of their student’s aged 18-24 completing high school. The disparity between these two ethnicities did decrease between the years of 1998 and 2001. Females had a better rate for completing school than men.

Disparities:

Because this entire goal is about disparities, my disparities are mainly listed above with the progress information. I did however find the disparities in Income, location, and disability interesting. Middle high incomes were the ones who were most involved in health promotion programs both put on by employer-sponsored and community based places. I also found that black, non-Hispanics are significantly going down in their number of students completing high school. Hispanic and Latino populations are also having significant differences in numbers of students completing high school.

Opportunities and Challenges:

Steps to a Healthier US is using strategies and methods to help Americans live longer and healthier lives. It works to address diabetes, obesity, asthma, poor nutrition, physical inactivity, and tobacco use.

Healthy Workforce helps employers use promotion programs effectively and provides strategies for developing and maintaining worksite health activities.

Environmental change, New Directions of Public Health descries perceived health promotion capacities of those carrying out programs in State health agencies. This will also hopefully strengthen health promotion activities and programs put on by state and local public health agencies.

Emerging Issues

Healthy People 2010 have found that research on preventing health disparities contains many gaps. There are a lot of areas that need further study such as effective programs, new technologies, relationships between settings, approaches to disadvantaged populations and populations with unique needs.

Bill Related

Bill Number: HF2256

Title: Health care availability and affordability guaranteed for every Minnesotan, Minnesota Health Plan, Health Board, Health Fund, Office of Health Quality and Planning, ombudsman for patient advocacy, and inspector general for the Minnesota Health Plan established, and money appropriated.

Sponsor: Laine ; Rukavina ; Thao ; Eken ; Carlson ; Sailer ; Fritz ; Mullery ; Slocum

Latest Major Action: 4/1/09 Introduction and first reading.
4/6/09 Author Added

My Political Representative:
State Senate Yvonne Prettner Solon
Contact Information
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Capitol Building, Room G-9
St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
(651) 296-4188

I vote YES for the availability and affordability of health care for Minnesotans!

Share and Voice: Shar Drew

Shar Drew, as many of you know from classes is a very great person. Here she is pictured above (also pictured are me, Ingrid, and Sara J.) serving as a health education resource :) I found out some new things about her though on a recent shopping trip to Target that we spent together. We went to Target to gather our materials for our Binder for Community Health Methods, and to get a few miscellaneous items together... it's what happened while at Target though that surprised me. (First of all, I'd like to say that after searching Target's webpage... they have a VERY impressive eco-friendly section... check it out! Anything you can get "normal" you can get in a environment firendly way!) Now, I always knew that Shar was very environmentally friendly (even before this class)! She uses organic makeup, shampoo, conditioner, and lip gloss and tries to buy energy star appliances! First of all, Shar had some cards that she needed to purchase as Thank you Notes..... After awhile of looking around she found some recycled paper cards that were actually way cuter than any of the other blank cards there! Next in line was looking for a congrats card for her friend that got into grad school! The first card she pointed to.... had an earth on it! I tried really hard to find a picture of it, but it was near impossible.... but you probably get the picture! Next it was time to look for a present for her friend. I gave her an idea of a notebook or pad of paper, you probably could guess by now.... the first thing this girl did was go straight for the eco-friendly notebook! (pictured at left). After we decided against a notebook we decided to look at candles, because I love candles! Once again, we head for the candle section, and we head straight for the natural soy candles. The one I smelled actually smelled really bad, but some of them smelled nice (just for future reference). Also for future reference... Shar really likes this kind of cheese pictured at the left if you're ever looking for a present for her... I found her staring at it twice ;) Okay, so after our trip to Target I remembered that I had a gift card for Starbucks that I hadn't used, and rarely go there, and we were both thirsty so we decided we should probably hit it up! After getting our drinks... a Vanilla Bean for me and a Strawberries 'N' Cream for Shar, we look over and boom, there's a huge advertisement for how Starbucks is going Green! When I looked it up online, they are doing SOOOO much for our environment it could be a share and voice by itself. Here is the link for their environment part of there corporation: Starbucks Shared Planet. We even drove together to save on gas in my Pontiac Sunfire... which gets about 30 miles to the gallon and you don't hear me complain about very often! Anyways, I just wanted to let you know about Shar, and congratulate her on what a great job she's doing on helping our environment out! YAY to her : )

PS: ALL OF THE PICTURES ARE LINKED TO THE APPROPRIATE PAGE IF YOU ARE INTERSTED IN FINDING OUT MORE ABOUT THE ITEM.

Reflection: Weeks 9 and 10

Week 9

During week 9 we started our Advocacy projects briefly. We learned what advocacy is, what some of the misconceptions are about them, and started thinking about things we might feel passionate enough about to advocate for. During week 9 we also started heavily learning about our photo essay eye opener! We learned about some serious ethics of picture taking and learned some tricks on how to get a great shot! I had never realized the different kinds of consent needed when taking pictures of people, so that was great to learn about! During week 9 we also did our first advocacy post which included finding our local political representatives contact information which was very informative and useful.
Week 10

While Dr. V was away at AAHPERD for the week, we just had some blogging to do. Our main project this week was actually doing our photo essay. I found this to be very challenging to think of something to do my essay on at first, but once I figured out a topic I enjoyed researching it!


I really learned a lot of new information in these past 2 weeks. I have learned a lot about blogging in the fact that I am now an expert picture putter inner, (although it may not look that way from my photo essay) No, for serious, it's a lot harder than I expected to put in that many pictures and make your blog look decent! Maybe I'm just bad at layouts in general, but I struggled! I learned a ton about the environment and what flooding does to it, through doing my photo essay! Something that I learned about myself these past two weeks, is that this is the only class that I don't procrastinate in! I have actually turned to putting blogging before any other schoolwork :) (other than methods of course!) I think this is because the environemnt is something that I care about, and I enjoy learning about and want to learn as much as I can because I have never taken a class in it before!

Well, Everyone have a great and safe weekend!

Share And Voice: Blog On Award

I recently (when I say recently, I mean probably 3 weeks ago, but with spring break the share and voices were a little lacking for awhile) received this Blog On award from Jeff at Cuddling Conifers with Jeff for my Greener Sex Share and Voice. I have decided to pass this award onto Kathy at Choh's Changing Environment for her post entitled Going Green in Mexico. I thought it was great that she would take time out of her trip to look for ways that they are going green. I think this is definitely a sign of a good health educator, because she's always on the look out!
Great Job Kathy!!



Here are directions for you to accept the award!

1. Leave a comment below so that I know you "picked up" the award.
2. Create a Share and Voice post that says you've received the award and indicate who the award is from (be sure to hyperlink).
3. Also indicate to whom you are going to pass on the award and why. Be sure to hyperlink the blogger (use main blog URL) and the blog title (use the specific URL for that blog post).
4. Copy and paste these instructions at the bottom of your post.
5. Publish the post.
6. Visit each blogger you've awarded and leave a comment telling them they've won.
7. Continue the process...

Eye Opener: Photo Essay

Water, it is something that we use everyday, without even thinking. It keeps us alive, and allows us to bathe and shower. But what happens when the water that we use turns against us... and creates massive flooding which can ruin our homes and environments, and hurt our health. The first few photos shown here, are pictures of puddles after a rainfall. Rain is obviously good for the environment and actually makes a lot of things grow better and look brighter and healthier With the spring thaw upon us, it is important to be aware of floods, once the snow starts melting and rain may start coming. My roommate is from Fargo, ND and went home last weekend during the recent flooding and was nice enough to take some pictures for me, for the purpose of this eye opener. The pictures of the flood in Fargo, were taken by Ashley Penrod.

There are many effects that flooding has on both our environment, and our overall health.
- Destroys all of the Nutrients in our soil.
- Drowning is a possibility.
- Serious injuries can be caused by falling into deep waters
- The stress of sandbagging and after flood clean up can take and impact on both your mental and physical health.
- Carbon monoxide fumes can be let out and effect people.
- Infections can arise from molecules let out by flooding and bacteria building up.




-Service damaged septic tanks, cesspools, pits, and leaching systems as soon as possible. (Damaged sewage systems are serious health hazards.)
- Everything that got wet in the flood will need to be cleaned and disinfected when the water is gone.
- Flood water can bring up a lot of random objects and once the water has gone down, the objects will stay on the land and pollute it.
- Disease can be transmitted if the water is polluted, and not clean.







For more information:
FEMA
HPA
USGS
WLSSD

Share and Voice: St. Olaf Newsletter

I get my church newsletter monthly via e-mail so I can stay up to date on the happenings of my church, St. Olaf in Austin while I am away at school. I signed up for this, just because I thought it was easier than getting a newsletter in the mail every month. Well, I got the April newsletter today and in it, was a nice little article about how they are now encouraging our church members to start receiving the newsletter by e-mail because it is cheaper and is better for our environment. They stated that it is about $.45 a newsletter to send out, that may not seem like a lot, but add it up and it comes out to about $589.50 a month in newsletters alone! Add that up and it comes out to $7,045 a year! Not only is that a high cost, but these newsletters are sometimes pretty thick, so it's a lot of trees! Right now, only about 20 members of the congregation are going green, and getting the newsletters online, and it's already saving my church around $9 a month! I thought it was cool to see this coming from my church and tying it into this class! I put in here the actual little article itself, in case you want to re-read everything I just said ;)

Going Green

As part of our “Going Green” efforts at St. Olaf, we
are giving our members the opportunity to receive the
monthly newsletter via e-mail. Not only is this option
environmentally friendly, it is extremely cost effective.
Currently, it costs St. Olaf Church about $.45 to
produce and mail one newsletter. This may not seem
like much, but when you add all households together,
we’re looking at $589.50 a month, and $7,074 a year!
Currently we have about 20 people signed up to
receive their monthly newsletter through e-mail.
That’s an estimated $9 a month savings. Just imagine
if we could double that amount…triple that amount! If
you have internet access, please consider signing up.
Just go to www.stolafchurch.org, scroll down until
you see the “Going Green” box and enter your e-mail
address. It’s that simple.
Samantha Vaith,
Administrative Assistant

I think its the little things like this that are going to start helping our environment :)

Advocacy Project: My Political Representatives

Here are my local political representatives!



President Barack Obama
Contact Information


US Senate Amy Klobuchar
Contact Information
302 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main Line: 202-224-3244
Main Fax: 202-228-2186
Toll Free: 1-888-224-9043


US Representative James L. Oberstar
Contact Information 231 Federal Building
Duluth, MN 55802
(218) 727-7474


State Senate Yvonne Prettner Solon
Contact Information
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Capitol Building, Room G-9
St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
(651) 296-4188

State Representative Thomas Huntley
Contact Information
585 State Office Building100
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
(651) 296-2228


Governor Tim Pawlenty
Contact Information

Office of the Governor
130 State Capitol75
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
(651) 296-3391


Mayor Don Ness
Contact Information Mayor's Office
dness@duluthmn.gov
Room 402, 411 West First Street
Duluth, MN 55802
Phone: (218) 730-5230
Fax: (218) 730-5904


County Board Dennis Fink
Contact Information
Room 208
100 N. 5th Avenue West
Duluth, MN 55802
(218) 726-2458