Reflection on Video

I thought the video was very informational, although hard to understand just because the speaker and audience were highly intelligent so jokes, and statistics were difficult to follow. All in all, the subject that he was talking about was interesting and I liked the way he put off things that he knew wouldn't be possible. He worded things so that it was a impact on the audience, as well as keeping it comedic, seeing how long he talked for I believe he needed the jokes, always in context.

If I myself was to choose one of the solutions that he talked of I would definitely choose the "solar panel state." But I would also take into hand what John said about having communal solar panels that power up cities or states at a time, instead of the whole country, because if a disaster did hit that area, the power of the country would be out, instead of maybe just a city. I missed the first 30% of the film from being sick, but I still learned and got intrigued by the video based on the subject, and the way he kept me focused with the jokes.

Chili Pepper Plant

Origin: Where does your plant originate...does it have an interesting history of how it became domesticated?

Chili peppers have been a part of a humans diet in the Americas since as far back as 7500 BC. There is archaeological evidence at sites within Ecuador that chili peppers were home eaten more than 6000 years ago, and it is one of the first cultivated crops in the Americas that is self pollinating, or in other words, it can a-sexually produce.

Nutrition: What are the nutritional values for your plant? Are there interesting chemicals in your plant (medicinal qualities, antioxidants etc.)

All hot chili peppers contain phytochemicals otherwise known as capsaicinoids. There are many beneficial findings of capsaicin, among the list is killing cancer cells, hope of weight loss, lower the amount of insulin needed by diabetics, as well as a treatment of chronic pain.

Interesting Facts: Anything that has not yet been mentioned.

In India, chili is used with lime to ward off evil spirits and can be seen within vehicles and in homes for just that purpose.

Also include a color picture of your plant.


BBC News Online. 2007. Chillies heated ancient cuisine. Friday, 16 February. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6367299.stm

Bosland, P.W. 1996. Capsicums: Innovative uses of an ancient crop. p. 479-487. In: J. Janick (ed.), Progress in new crops. ASHS Press, Arlington, VA.

Artist Statement

...My topic was kind of thrust upon me. After taking a vacation with my dad, my partner that I was assigned to be with, Martin, had changed classes, so I was alone to find my own project. Then one class period Margaret told me that Allie's partner also split on her, so I teamed up with Allie, who already had the idea in mind of doing a project on the Mayak region and its nuclear problems. At first I wasn't that excited to work on a project like this, but once I researched and read stories about this topic, I became immersed in it.

It is important because these people in the Mayak region have no voice for themselves, so they need someone to fight for them. Just the fact people now know about this is a big deal, being kept secret for so long. The more public knowledge, the more pressure for these people to stop what they are doing. Mainly the fact that we are spreading the knowledge of this event to people is a great enough call, nobody that we have told about this knew about it.

I feel like a echo, but I'm really amazed by the fact that I didn't know about this before Allie had told me about it, she found it on the company Greanpeaces' website. People really need to start thinking of others, as well as the consequences of there actions. View another persons life as if it were your own.

5 Annoted Sources

http://www.springerlink.com/content/fa6ghqqanadt1y9l/

This publishing directly connects to one of the issues of our senior project. Its main focus is that workers that were exposed to the radiation at Mayak had gotten Lung cancer do to it, but using a new factor of "smoking" as another reason so many people got it.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/l43l150h5v3g16x4/

This paper is even more directly connected to our project, focusing on radiation exposure to inhabitants of territories around the Techa River.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/30ld1gackq3ecdvl/

This study is based on the overall effects of the Mayak plant to workers.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3581291

A study on the cancer mortality rates in workers who worked at the Mayak region.

http://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Abstract/2000/01000/EPR_Dose_Reconstruction_for_Russian_Nuclear.4.aspx

A study done on Mayak workers where they cut workers teeth in half in order to see radiation levels.

Final Draft

Adam Southgate
October 14, 2009
Environmental Science

Did you know that a good amount of the food and items that we use on a daily basis are grown or made by people that are working within third world countries, and aren’t paid fair wages? Fair-trade is a movement that aims to help such people, producers in developing countries. This helps restore their human rights, which I shall touch on later throughout my paper. When you buy something that is Fair-Trade Certified, the slightly increased price is covering the cost of production of the item, as well as a living wage for the producer that covers their food, shelter, clothing, education, and medical care.

Fair-trade provides benefits to farmers, workers, consumers and the environment.
About 1.5 million workers and farmers in 58 developing countries within Africa, Asia, and Latin America benefit from Fair-trade . Some of these benefits include an improved role in the trade of their produce, better access to low or no-interest loans, assistance for building infrastructure to improve production, communications systems, and better health care and education. The Fair-trade system benefits consumers by having the opportunity to buy things with good principles, feeling good about the fact they get to play their part in addressing global trade inequities and getting high quality products in exchange.



Fair-trade rewards and encourages farming and production practices that are environmentally sustainable, such as integrated farm management systems, which minimize pollutants, pesticides and herbicides, organic agriculture techniques, and banning harmful pesticides by helping the producers by selling items that were the product of these practices.

The first Fair-trade label, Max Havelaar, was launched in 1988 in the Netherlands, their first product being coffee from Mexico. It was called Max Havelaar, after a fictional Dutch character who opposed the exploitation of coffee pickers in Dutch colonies. The Max Havelaar initiative was replicated in several other markets across Europe and North America during the early 90’s: Max Havelaar (in Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway and France), Transfair (in Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Italy, the United States, Canada and Japan), Fair-trade Mark in the UK and Ireland, Rättvisemärkt in Sweden, and Reilu Kauppa in Finland. In 1997, Fair-trade Labeling Organizations International (FLO) was established in Bonn, Germany to unite the labeling initiatives under one umbrella and harmonize worldwide standards and certification.

The most common items sold through fair trade are Coffee, Tea, Herbs, Cocoa, Chocolate, Fresh Fruit, Sugar, Rice, and Vanilla . Fairtrade.net notes why there are not more types of things sold fair-trade, “It takes a great deal of time and money to develop Fair-trade Standards to ensure that new Fair-trade Products really will benefit producers. The initial focus of Fair-trade was on agricultural commodities, such as coffee and tea, which have the most widespread impact on the livelihoods of small producers and workers in the developing world. Since then, the scope of Fair-trade is continuously being extended to other agricultural products and some manufactured products such as sports balls.”

The graph below helps explains how Fair Trade is different then regular supply chains. They say they like to stay away from middle-mans and work straight through a cooperative company that helps out fair trade distributors. In other words, there are a lot less unnecessary, time-consuming people to go through to get your goods.


They also note on what the price of Fair-trade items goes to, “Every time you buy a certified Fair-trade product, the producer organization or plantation receives the Fair-trade price (where it exists) and an additional social premium to invest in social, environmental and business development. However, it is important to note that these payments are not linked to the retail price of the final finished product.”
Fair-trade has been getting increasingly better through the years and is talked about on fair-trade.net, “There are now 746 Fair-trade certified producer organizations in 58 producing countries, representing over 1 million farmers and workers. With their families and dependents, FLO estimates that 5 million people directly benefit from Fair-trade…In some national markets Fair-trade accounts for between 20-50% of market share in certain products.”
Fair-trade certified items can only be sold by a Fair-trade company, as touched on by FLO, “The FAIRTRADE Mark must always be used and reproduced correctly. Misleading use of the Mark harms the integrity of the system and its stakeholders... Confusing or misleading use of the Mark is prohibited… ANY use of the mark (by licensees, producers, traders or third parties) on products or for promotional purposes requires prior written approval from FLO or a Fair-trade Labeling Initiative.
To conclude, Fair-trade certified foods have no downsides other then a slightly higher price. If thought is put into what you buy, then you should have no problem in helping producers in third world countries get a better earning and be able to supply for themselves.

Green America, “Fair Trade: Economic action to create a just global economy for farmers and artisans.” 2004. Accessed 15 September 2009.
http://www.greenamericatoday.org/programs/fairtrade/

Reykia Fick, “Global Fair-trade sales increase by 22%” 4 June 2009. Fairtrade labeling Organizations International (FLO).
http://www.fairtrade.net/single_view1.html?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=105&tx_ttnews[backPid]=361&cHash=1082e96b5e

“Fairtrade labeling Organizations International (FLO)” 1 November 2009. Fairtrade labeling Organizations International (FLO).
http://www.fairtrade.net/home.html?&L=title&scale=0

Annotated Sources

http://www.transfairusa.org/content/about/overview.php

I like this website a lot because it has a very in depth view of all aspects of fair trade and goes deep into the different subjects in order to cover everything about fair trade.

http://www.fairtrade.net/about_fairtrade.html

This website is all about current fair trade as well as the background of how it originated, and who it benefits.

Senior Project

Allie Olson and Adam Southgate
October 21, 2009



Who: The Mayak populous and Russia

What: Nuclear Disaster

When: 1950’s to Present

Where: Mayak Nuclear Power plant and the Techa River

How: Russian Legislation, The Cold War, and World War II Weapon Construction

What forms will you use to display your research?

Pictures and Voiceovers.

What do we need from John?

Computer Usage

What are your next steps?

Organize information and Make movie.


Research Questions:

Should the Russian government continue to dump waste in that region?

Where else can they put it?

Why do other governments condone this?

Why do we still use nuclear power plants?

How long does nuclear waste stay radioactive?

What are some side effects to being exposed to radioactivity?

How many people will be affected by this?

Why should the world care?

Can nuclear waste be destroyed?

Is there any way, such as a vaccine, to be immune to radiation exposure?

When was nuclear power invented/discovered?

Paper

Adam Southgate
October 14, 2009
Environmental Science

Did you know that a good amount of the food and items that we use on a daily basis are grown or made by people that are in third world conditions, and aren’t paid fair wages? Fair-trade is a movement that aims to help such people, producers in developing countries. This helps restore these people there human rights, which I shall touch on later throughout my paper. When you buy something that Fair-Trade Certified, the price is covering the cost of production and a living wage for the producer that covers their food, shelter, clothing, education, and medical care. The Fair-trade system provides benefits to farmers, workers, consumers and the environment:

About 1.5 million workers and farmers in 58 developing countries within Africa, Asia, and Latin America benefit from Fair-trade. Some of these benefits include a improved role in the trade of their produce, better access to low or no-interest loans, assistance for building infrastructure to improve production, communications systems, and better health care and education.

The Fair-trade system benefits consumers by having the opportunity to buy things with their own principles, being empowered by the fact they get to play their part in addressing global trade inequities and high quality products in exchange.


Fair-trade encourages farming and production practices that are environmentally sustainable, such as integrated farm management systems, which minimize pollutants, pesticides and herbicides, organic agriculture techniques, and banning harmful pesticides.

The most common items sold through fair trade are Coffee, Tea, Herbs, Cocoa, Chocolate, Fresh Fruit, Sugar, Rice, and Vanilla. Fairtrade.net notes on why they’re aren’t more types of things sold fair-trade, “It takes a great deal of time and money to develop Fair-trade Standards to ensure that new Fair-trade Products really will benefit producers. The initial focus of Fair-trade was on agricultural commodities, such as coffee and tea, which have the most widespread impact on the livelihoods of small producers and workers in the developing world. Since then, the scope of Fair-trade is continuously being extended to other agricultural products and some manufactured products such as sports balls.”

This graph really helps me in that it explains how Fair Trade is different then regular supply chains. They say they like to stay away from middle-mans and work straight through a cooperative company that helps out fair trade distributors. In other words, there is a lot less meaningless fluff to get your goods.

http://www.greenamericatoday.org/programs/fairtrade/whattoknow/images/supplychain-updated.jpg

They also note on what the price of Fair-trade items goes to, “Every time you buy a certified Fair-trade product, the producer organization or plantation receives the Fair-trade price (where it exists) and an additional social premium to invest in social, environmental and business development. However, it is important to note that these payments are not linked to the retail price of the final finished product.”

To conclude, Fair-trade certified foods have no negative other then a slightly higher price. If thought is put into what you buy, then you should have no problem in helping producers in third world countries get a better earning and be able to supply for themselves.



Green America, “Fair Trade: Economic action to create a just global economy for farmers and artisans.” 2004. Accessed 15 September 2009.
http://www.greenamericatoday.org/programs/fairtrade/

Reykia Fick, “Global Fair-trade sales increase by 22%” 4 June 2009. Fairtrade labeling Organizations International (FLO).
http://www.fairtrade.net/single_view1.html?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=105&tx_ttnews[backPid]=361&cHash=1082e96b5e

Garden inventory

HTHMA Senior Garden Inventory

Hoes:

Hula Hoe – 4
Regular Hoe – 4
Extendable Hoe / Cultivator – 4

Rakes:

Large Red Rake – 4
Steal Rake – 3
Small Rake – 4

Shovels:

Small headed Shovels – 8
Compost Shovels – 2
Square Spade Shovel – 1

Others:

Garden Weasel – 2
Digging Forks – 1 large, 5 small
Small Broom – 1
Witch Broom – 1
Red Wheelbarrow – 2
Grey Plastic Wheelbarrow – 1
Circular Saw – 1
Drill – 1
Wire Scratch – 2
Potting Soil Bags – 4
Black Tubing – 2
Hoses – 2
Tree Netting – 2
Shears – 2
Screwdriver – 1
Gloves – 3 Pair
3 Prong Cultivators – 1
Watering Wands – 3
Trash Cans w/ Lid – 3
Hammer - 1

Socratic Seminar Reflection

We read a paper call Farmer in Chief, a open letter directed towards President Obama written about issues that our country is facing within agriculture. This reading was mostly surprising to me. A lot of facts within it were new to me, and some things left me questioning.

One of the main things that I was really surprised about was the fact that "milk and meat contribute 18% of all the US's GHG (green house gases), more then all transportation put together. I mean, WHAT?! This is never touched on within the media, everything is all "prius this, hummer that, oh my gosh al gore" and then I hear about Milk and Meat production being more of a valid problem? Why is this never touched on within the media? The average public must have no idea about this.

That was pretty much the most shocking part of this paper, but throughout the whole thing it was well prepared and had plenty of evidence to back up what he was saying, so I would definately reccomend this paper to my friends to learn something crazily interesting.

Guest Speaker

I love the guest speaker, how chill he was and how "normal" of a guy you could say. He just did something that seemed fun and green with his buddies and turned it into something big with a message, and he started a few companies in the process as well.

One of the cooler things I learned from the presentation is how big of a impact it seems like hes going to make further down the line. He said he is going to use the San Fransisco using its own energy as a model per say, in order to lead other cities into doing the same thing, saving up majorly on energy bills / taxes / and energy in general.

Best Practice for Shed Organization

For shed organization, we are going to keep everything in the shed in groups of what they do, and what they are. Each item will be numbered accordingly, and we will have a checkout list in which you sign off which number you took, and when you took it / brang it back. We will also have a bucket of olive oil and sand in order to clean off tools such as shovels after use.

We want to make sure the shed is not hard to find things in, seeing as this is not the hard part of gardening, we want to keep it pretty simple. We also have a major spider problem within the shed, that we have tried to deal with with natural means, and they came back. So we are going to have to find a natural ingredient bug repellent to keep them away.

Senior Project Entry: Waste

On Friday, we watched presentations based on subjects in Environmental Science. The subjects that the presentations were on were Waste, Water, Foods, Energy, Land Development and Population. The one presentation that really struck me was the presentation on waste. The fact that they touched base on the verb of waste, not just the noun of it was very cool. When Kaory talked about how if you throw away a notebook that is half used, your wasting half a notebook worth of tree, pretty crazy.

This presentation really ties into my senior project because my project is based on waste, or nuclear waste to be exact. There is a town that is being directly effected by nuclear waste, and the government in Russia continues to dump their waste into the waters. Allie and I are going to make a documentary/animation on the horrible stuff that is happening in this town and why nothing is being done.

Tulips are prettyful

Tulips:

It is a flower that is native to Central Asia and turkey.

Tulips can be grown in any type of season, aslong as you can dig a hole and plant them in the ground.

It is grown from seed, and no special preparation. It doesn’t say anywhere how long it takes to germinate, but seeing how fast tulips bloom it wouldn’t be long.

As soon as the flower blooms, you can pot it. It would make the garden look nice long term.

Tulips can be bloomed very close in a patch, so there is no space issue.

It is not required, but is recommended to enrich the soil with minerals and compost. The soil can’t be too dense.

Tulips do not require a lot of watering; one overhead watering every two days is well enough water, with sunlight.

Tulips grow well with any plant

Lettuce is the shiznit

Lettuce: a green vegetable
-grows in cool weather anywhere from 35 degrees - 67 degrees F.
-seeds will germinate in up to 40 degree soil, but they need light so they need to be near the top of the soil.
-needs a lot of water
-best grown in spring / fall
-can take up to 5 months before ready to harvest, but as little as 2-3 weeks.
-keep seeds 8-12" apart.
Nutrition:
-Vitamin C, beta-carotene, iron, calcium, folate, and dietary fiber are all included within eating Lettuce. The darker the lettuce is, the more nutrition it contains.

Types of Lettuce:
-Butterheads, Romaine, Crispheads, Looseleaf.

Plant the lettuce seeds in shallow soil, make sure to water good and not to do it half-ass.
Lettuce needs nutrient rich soil, even though it is in shallow areas, so if you know your soil is not good enough make sure to add compost or some other nutrient source.


Sources:

-http://www.foodreference.com/html/artlettuce.html
-http://www.selfsufficientish.com/lettuce.htm
-http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetablepatch/a/Lettuce.htm