Reflection: Weeks 7 and 8

We are officially halfway through the semester! Yay! I feel like weeks 7 and 8 got way busy and kept me on my toes for sure! (Picture taken by Ashley Penrod)

Week 7

During week 7, we had a ton of stuff going on! The week started with Reading 16; III Winds: The Chemical Plant Next Door.This reading was more touching because it was told in a more lifelike manner. It talked about a girl from Buffalo, who lived down the street from Borden Chemical. This story gave me mixed feelings, as it was about a girl who lived in a small town who her family members were getting sick, and she suspected it was from the chemical plant. I did like this story because it kind of left the door open for discussion and for you to kind of decide yourself what you think the cause of the cancers were. It led to some great class discussion!

On Tuesday and Thursday of week 7, we watched a documentary entitled, Green by Laura Dunn. I absolutely loved this documentary and it was definitely my favorite thus far. This documentary talked about Cancer Alley, which is a 100 mile stretch in Louisiana in which 150 petrochemical plants lie. In this movie, Dunn interviewed a lot of people that live in the stretch, and they all think that the chemicals are creating a lot of health problems for the residents. It was so sad to see the kid's talk to the camera who all had health issues of their own, knowing that there is nothing that they can do about them.

Last, but not least for the week, we did an Eye Opener! This one was a really cool one I thought, we went to the website entitled Environmental Working Group. We then chose our favorite cosmetic item that we used, or cosmanic item according to Steve at Steve Goes Green, and typed it into the database. It then told us how healthy our item is for the environment, ourselves, etc... I chose to test out my favorite mascara and my results were pretty bad! I scored a 5 out of 10, and my results showed that my mascara led to cancer, allergies, toxicity, warnings, and plenty of other concerns. The thing that I noticed most in everyones results were that there are still a lot of companies testing on animals! I think that is horrible, as I'm sure there are better ways to test things.

Week 8

Week 8 started off by another reading, Privatizing Water. This reading also tied in with our documentary for the week, Thirst. The point of the reading and the documentary was to show us the fight for not giving the rights of water to a company. I don't think that anyone should be able to own our water, and charge us a high price. Companies are trying to make a profit on anything that they can get their hands on, and it's not right! I use so much water it's probably ridiculous! I should really start thinking of cutting back as much as possible. The movie stopped working on Thursday so we couldn't finish watching it to see what happened, but it led to a great class discussion! We talked about things that we feel passionate about to stand up for... and after much though, I have no idea what I would stand up for! I know that one thing would be comprehensive sexual education in all classrooms.

Anywhose... These past two weeks have been fun. We had some great Eye Openers, and watched 1 (and a half?!) really great documentaries. I'm realizing that I need to make some major changes in my habits in order to really help out :)