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

Share and Voice: Green Sex?

After I Read Sara's Let's Talk About Sex post, I got intrigued (because I am also in Peer Health Educators so constantly thinking and talking about these things) and wanted to do a little bit of research on if there's anything you can do in your sex life to be more environmentally friendly. I was pleased with my results! The first results I found we're about things that you can buy that are more eco-friendly that have to do with sex: "Even Sex Can Be Environmentally Friendly"

Eco-Friendly Sex Toys: I learned something new, sex toys are NOT friendly for our environment AT ALL! Most toys are made from PVC which releases toxins into our air. Pthalates are also used to soften the hard plastic, and pthalates are being tested for producing cancer right now. Because most toys have the warning "for novelty use only" on them, they aren't necessarily being made with the intent that one will use them with the body, because of this, the companies put whatever chemicals they want on them, SO for your bodies sake, use a condom.

Earth-Friendly Bed Sheets: As in one of my previous posts Help for Heather's Sneezes? This part talks about organic bed sheets and how they are so much better for not only the environment but ourselves!

Underwear is Fun to Wear if you Wear... Greenknickers?: Greenknickers are underwear, but they are made from a cotton and hemp blend, and not synthetic materials.



Another website that I found about going green for sex is Eco-Sex Guide. Here are some of their tips.

Turn off the lights: Obviously, this helps energy reduction.

Passion for fruit?: If you enjoy using fruit to start off your night, the article says to make sure that the fruit it was not genetically engineered, something that our class knows oh so much about now!

Last, But never least, this is my favorite, a website has come up with contraception that is eco-friendly!

Condoms: The new condoms are made out of sustainable sourced rubber from French Letter .For each pack of condoms that is sold part of the money goes to healthcare, and disadvantaged people. For vegans, these condoms do not contain milk- based proteins during production. These condoms have passed the UK safety testing.

DISCLOSER: So after speaking with Dori Decker (Health Educator from Health Services) we are not sure what the difference in the standards are between the UK and the USA. I did much googling to try to figure these differences out and could not find anything. The closest I got was the UK's Department of Health website on contraceptions. Although it does not straight up say "Here's our rules" it shows what the UK aims for and what they value important in sexual health. So, before you think about ordering the new condoms online, just read over the UK's thoughts. :)

So, next time you want to engage in sexual activities, please keep these tips in mind on how to help our earth while doing so :)

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 :)

Share and Voice: Red and Green Team

As probably no one knows in this classroom... I love HGTV. This is probably the first channel that I turn on every time I t urn my television on! The other day I was looking for something that I had seen on their website, when I found.... Red hot and Green, a show on eco-friendly housing and decorating. All of the ideas that the show contains are earth friendly, which is really neat! Not only can you watch full episodes and quick tips from the show, they frequently have little quizzes to see how eco-friendly you are in your house.They have everything from kitchens to garages to bedrooms to bathrooms, so it's a really inside and outside show! The picture shown is an example of a before and after of a cluttered living room that they have. Next time you're thinking about making some changes to your house, check out this website and get some friendly environmental tips and ideas!

Share and Voice: ENVIROcool award

Hey Everyone!
I recently was awarded the EnviroCool Blog Award from Katie for my post about TerraCycle and SPAM! I was really excited, because I was really excited about that post! Now it is my turn to pass on this award to Abbey for her Share andVoice post on Everyones doing IT! This post made me laugh, and had some really cool products! Actually, I love reading all of Abbey's posts, because they are all unique and sound like her! Make sure you check out this Share&Voice. Great Job!!

All you have to do is pass this award along to other! Congratulations!! Great Job on your bog! Instructions are below...

Award Instructions

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 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..