Saturday, October 24, 2009

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.

Friday, October 23, 2009

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?

Friday, October 16, 2009

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

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

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

Friday, October 9, 2009

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.

Monday, October 5, 2009

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.