Event 3

For my third event, I attended the "Heartbreak House" performance on Thursday November 29th. I enjoyed supporting my friends in their performance by attending, but I really didn't enjoy the play as a whole. The acting was phenomenal, and the props were beautiful. The play itself, however, was way too confusing. The dialogue was clever and quick, much like the show "Gilmore Girls." However, it was too random and confusing for much of the audience to understand. I didn't really get anything after the first act. When I asked those around me, they didn't understand either. I also asked many of the tech crew members, and they didn't know either. I thought this play was a poor choice, given the audience hadn't already read the play, analyzed it, and understood it. Overall, I am glad that I attended this event because I was able to support my friends, and actually have the experience of attending a school play.

Wikipedia vs. Britannica or Public vs Private

Is Wikipedia reliable? Is it worth going to? Would you prefer to go to a place like “Britannica Online” or Wikipedia to search for a topic? For our final blog assignment, the First Year Seminars were asked to pick a topic, and compare a Wikipedia article an Encyclopedia Britannica article. It was quite difficult to find two pages that were relevant to one another, since Wikipedia covers many more topics than Britannica. I chose skin cancer as my topic because while there is not a lot of controversy over skin cancer, there is room for misinformation. I compared these two articles on the basis of attribution, recency, references, links, consistency, bias/controversy, and my overall impressions of the quality of each page.
Attribution, or who is responsible for the information provided in a piece of writing, is very important in determining the quality of the information being received, and a useful tool when a reader would like to contact the author. While Britannica Online does not note the author on the page or any contact information, this web site does have a place to comment on an article. A reader can ask questions, comment on something, or point out any mistakes (spelling or otherwise) that need to be addressed. The Wikipedia article is a whole other story. The listed editors (located under the “history” tab) consisted of bots, Wikipedia editors and administrators, a few good citizens, and many anonymous users, with no user details. One Wikipedia worker was kind enough to list all of his editing history, the reason for his nickname, and what research he does on the side. Under his username, there is a tab labeled “discussion” in which many people have left comments and questions, as a way of contacting him. This is great for those who have questions, but its still leaves the worry about those users that have no user page and no way of being contacted.
Recency is vital to a topic, especially one that is time sensitive, like cancer. The Britannica article was last edited in the year 2007. I would personally like more information--was it edited early this year, or just recently? The date is very important, especially if new information has been found since then. In Wikipedia’s article, under the tab “history” the last edit is listed as November 29, 2007, with the hour and minute of the edit. This is helpful, because I know that if there were recent breakthroughs on skin cancer, and no new information had been added in a long time, that article wouldn’t be as relevant. Both these sites made it easy to find out when they were last updated, but Britannica Online wasn’t as specific as I would have liked it to be.
References are helpful when determining the reliability of a source. This specific Wikipedia article lists three references at the very bottom of the page. Two links are from the internet (thus, clickable) and one is a book, with its listed ISBN number. One link takes me to a British Pathology website (which looks homemade), and another link leads me to the National Cancer Institute (which is quite reliable and professional). Britannica Online does not give a bibliography, but it does have links to further readings, located in the grey “expand your research” rectangle on each page of the article. They seem very reliable, and have very good information for anyone who wishes to research further. They are all clickable and lead me to websites like CNN and Medicinenet, which are well known and accredited sites for information. Both of these sites have reasonable references, but in this area, I am more likely to count on Britannica for respectable references.
Updated links are very important to a webpage’s credibility. Sites that have “dead” or broken links are most likely not updated on a regular basis, and thus not necessarily up-to-date on all the information. Apart from the references, Britannica’s article consisted of 12 links that were all up-to-date and working. The Wikipedia article had approximately 38 links, one of which was being edited for content. Overall, both of these sites prove to be keeping up-to-date with their links.
Both the Wikipedia and Britannica articles had similar information. Wikipedia seemed to have more specifics, and overall more information in the article itself than that of Britannica. Wikipedia also listed skin cancer as having three categories, and Britannica considered skin cancer to have only two categories. Both of these are consistent with other websites (neither are wrong). Wikipedia seemed to have more specific facts, and Britannica seemed much more general in the information they provided.
When clicking “discussion” and “history” on Wikipedia, I can find evidence of much controversy over skin color and its relation to skin cancer. There is much discussion over recent vandalism on that page, and it seems the whole page was wiped clean not too long ago. Some people seem to get offended over certain mentioning of color and gender in relation to the likelihood of skin cancer. There is no comparable section on Britannica Online.
Finally, both articles are quality. Both articles are thorough, professionally worded, and overall seem to speak the truth. I however, preferred Wikipedia because it can tell me what topics are controversial, where people found their information, and allow me to come up with my own opinion. However, I would not use Wikipedia as a valid source for any paper because its information is easily compromised. I would be more likely to cite Britannica Online, or one of its references in a paper because that is a more professional and viewed reliable world-wide.

Mark Hertzgaard's Visit

Mark Hertzgaard visited the FYS classes in a lecture in Irion Hall. Beforehand a couple of students from each of the class, and some of the professors had lunch and a discussion with him. We focused a lot on our FYS class Local Choices, Global Effects. He seemed very impressed with our class and what we were doing with waste management, sustainable living, and energy. He also talked about the presidential candidates, and where to find information on what they stand for in the climate change/going green areas of their campaigns. He was very intent upon not telling us which party or candidate he supported. I completely respect this, because as a journalist, his responsibility is to give unbiased information about the candidates and what they stand for---not to persuade the public to follow his opinion.

Event 2

On Tuesday, October 30 I went to the showing of Smoke Signals in the Illinois room at 4:00 pm. This movie was about two Native American teenagers living on a Reserve in the United States. These two boys, who were not friends, go on a journey to Arizona to recover the dead body of one of the boys’ father. These two boys leave the Reserve into basically a different country where stereotypes about Native Americans rule what people think of them. They run into some very interesting characters including a substitute for the Olympics, two very prejudiced white police officers, a drunken abusive man and his wife and their friends, and a friend of the boy’s father. Many of these individuals hold their own views of what Native Americans are like, and treat the boys thusly. Slowly, as the boys make their journey, the stereotypes that many Americans have about Native Americans disappear. This movie ends with the boy recovering the ashes of his father, and coming to the terms with the fact that although his father left him and his mother, he did genuinely love them. The two boys split the man’s ashes and one dumps the ashes into the river, and the other gives the ashes to the mother. The boys form a very strong bond that cannot be broken, even if they don’t remain good friends.
After the movie, we talked as a group about the movie and the stereotypes that many Americans have about Native Americans. We all agreed that this movie had a great balance between viewing Native Americans as savages, and Romanticizing them, like some movies do (like Dances With Wolves). This movie educated all of us about the Native American culture and the stereotypes about them. I would recommend this movie to anyone who was interested in this topic.

Sustainable Living Project Presentation Reflection

For this project, I was responsible for coming up with ideas for new courses on sustainable living, while my partner researched what our school already offered on this subject. I felt like the two of us did a really thorough job on our topic, and our audience seemed very interested in the ideas that we came up with. I think that if I had more time, I would have extended what other schools offered in courses, and what we would take from that.
Overall, I think we did a pretty good job on our presentation. I felt like this time, our actual presentations skills were improved, but our information was lacking a bit in comparison to our first project. I know that we didn’t follow through on our due dates because of extenuating circumstances, but I believe that there should have been a back-up plan because it wasn’t really fair to Jason (our power-point creator). I preferred our audience during this presentation to our previous audience. They seemed much more genuinely interested in what we had to say, and seemed genuinely interested in changing things about our school in order to make it better. They asked a lot of good questions about our presentation, our opinions, and the class in general.
Also, many of my classmates seemed much more confident, well dressed, and prepared for the project. It was actually very cool to see the normally quiet students speak up, present and defend their ideas, and answer good questions. I also saw a lot of students encouraging one another before they presented, which was also a cool bonding experience.

Event: Dr Goldsmith's Lecture

On Wednesday, October 24th, I attended a small dinner at the Chaplain's house followed by a psychology lecture by Dr. Goldsmith on Erikson's works. Since I had no idea who Erikson was, and have no interest in studying psychology, I was quite confused for the most part. However, there were some points that I thought were very useful. He told a story about how one of his patients was a two year old girl, who was developmentally behind. Apparently, the child would not go to sleep in her own bed--even if she started out in her own bed, she would sneak into her parents' room in the middle of the night. It had become somewhat of a routine. The mother was distressed about this and asked Dr. Goldsmith what to do. He gave her great advice, saying that she should make the child's room into a fun theme, and have playtime in the girl's room, so the little girl would associate her room and her bed as a positive and happy place. Since it was around Halloween the previous year, the mother decorated the young girl's room in a pumpkin patch, and played with her daughter like she was told. When the girl and the mother came back for the next visit, Dr. Goldsmith was told that the little girl slept in her bed alone, every night. I particularly liked this story because I babysit for a developmentally behind four year old with the same problem. I relayed Dr. Goldsmith's advice to this woman, and I hope that it works for them.
Overall, Dr. Goldsmith's lecture focused on different ages and what they need developmentally. He also focused on three aspects of life: work, love and leisure. He really stressed our need to have an appropriate balance of these in order to be content with our lives. I thought this was a great point--since a lot of us can either get too caught up in our work, or too lazy and leisurely to do any work. I somewhat enjoyed this lecture--but I think that the psychology students appreciated it a lot more--since they actually knew the majority of what he was talking about.

Toxins in my shampoo? What is the world coming to?

For our First Year Seminar Class, Christine Smith sent us to two sites to look for products we use every day, and to see if they contain harmful toxins and if they meet certain standards, are tested to lead to cancer, etc. The site http://www.ewg.org/ was much more helpful and easier to understand than http://www.thegreenguide.com/, so most of my research is based on ewg.org.

The first product I looked up was my shampoo--Pantene Pro-V's John Frieda Collection--Sheer Blonde Highlight Activating Shampoo. I learned that my shampoo is connected with cancer, allergies, skin irritation, and organ system toxicity, among many others. They also have violated many restrictions, and are not a signer with Compact for Safe Cosmetics. The Toxin level is at 5, which is considered moderate. However, now that I know that this product is associated with many health concerns, I will not be using this product. I have enough health concerns (many of which could be connected to this product) and I would rather not add to them. I would also like to use a product that takes a strong sense against animal testing, and since this product isn't labelled either way, I'd rather not risk it. Honestly, what is the world coming to if I can't even wash my hair without going through the danger of exposing myself to cancer-causing chemicals. Seriously, don't these products have to be labelled or something?

The second product I researched was the Dove Beauty Bar--Sensitive Skin. This product had a toxin level of 3, which is very low. There is no connection between this product and cancer, and this product doesn't violate any restrictions, which is always good. However, this product is still connected to allergies and skin irriations, but nothing too serious. The only real downside to this product is that it tests on animals. However, I don't believe that I will be changing my soap anytime soon because of the differences of cost between this product and soaps of a lower concern. Most of the other products that I could use that would be better for me are twice as expensive and are not sold at the average convenience store.

Through this research I learned a lot more about being a responsible consumer. I have already had better skin reactions since I stopped using my Sheer Blonde shampoo. I am very grateful for this assignment, its leading to a healthier lifestyle already.

Field Trip!!

On Thursday, October 4th, The First Year Seminar: Local Choices, Global Effects went on a field trip to the Nature Museum located in Chicago. The focus of this museum is primarily education. Since many of its audience do not have a PhD in ecology or other nature related degrees, the museum itself is very simple and easily understood. The museum itself has many sections: the wetlands, the river systems, the butterfly exhibit, the wilderness walk, the going green area (complete with a under seven children’s section), a green rooftop, a reptile exhibit (not open until later this month), and a gift shop.’
My favorite exhibits were the wetlands and river systems. These two exhibits (situated next to each other since they are very alike) have three dimensional models full with flashing lights, pouring water, and sound effects. One particular model even has a narrator explaining the model, while lights flash on the area that is currently being explained. These models are full of color and effects that would attract a young child, and yet the content still holds the attention of the adult. Another favorite model of mine is the city irrigation system in which there is a model of a city (with skyscrapers) complete with water canals. Above the city, there is a “cloud” in which rain pours down (after pushing a button) and you get to see which directions the water flows, how fast, etc.
To me, the green area with the kitchen was probably most related to what we were doing in class for the waste management project.. The exhibit shows diagrams of what you should/should not recycle, how to best avoid wasted energy in your kitchen, and the like. However, I do believe that the wetlands/river system exhibit could relate more to what we are doing for this next presentation on sustainable living because it has to do with how our communities are built, how long those communities will last under certain conditions, what is necessary for planning the construction of a community and so on. These two exhibits helped me expand my thoughts on what sustainable living actually means. Before I was focused on food and the growing of plants, but in reality, sustainable living is more than what we put into our bodies, but what we put into our communities, and where we put those communities. It is very logical to think that communities located on what were once marshes and swamps will not last as long as communities built on higher ground, and are thus not as sustainable.
Overall, I enjoyed myself during our time at the Nature Museum. If I were to do it again, I would do everything the same (except maybe take more pictures). Also, I would definitely recommend this museum for the FYS Exploring Chicago class, if they have not already visited.

waste management project essay

Throughout my research on waste management and recycling, I have learned that even the smallest choices do make a difference. For example, if I myself begin recycling regularly, I not only reduce the waste I am producing, but I set an example for those around me. This is clearly shown through the RecycleMania competition. The fact that there is even a competition and convention for schools interested in recycling is not only huge, but it also fires up other schools and encourages them to join the competition and start or improve their school’s recycling program. Another example would be Harvard Law School’s guarantee that all of their e-waste is disposed of within the United States. The fact that it is even possible eliminates any excuses on behalf of any other institutions. So, overall the most important lesson I learned about recycling and waste management is that a small decision goes a long way…and that there are those that are watching us, and following our examples.
This project and presentation taught me a lot about working with a partner and relying on that individual. All throughout high school, I was always paired up with partners that didn’t pull their own weight. This was the first project I was involved in that all the work was shared equally. I had to learn to trust Andrew and give him the space he needed to work comfortably. I was very tempted to take some of his workload on myself so that I could ensure that it was done correctly. My worries were for naught. Andrew did a great job researching his topic and was very well prepared. I believe through this experience I grew as a student and as a person by learning to rely on others to do their part (when their competent) and not stress about it so much.
The presentation really enhanced my knowledge of Elmhurst College. Since my part of the topic wasn’t related to Elmhurst College, I learned about our school’s recycling habits and such on the day of the presentation. It was enlightening to say the least. It was wonderful to hear firsthand how helpful and willing the faculty and staff were to interview with the students. It was also great to have an audience that had power on campus, and was actually engaged what we were saying in the presentation. I hope to experience that for myself during this next project.
This whole past month completely supported my view of what liberal education is. To start off, the project’s subject is something that actually effects us as individuals, as a community, and as global citizens. Then, we’re focusing not only on the big picture, but we’re bringing what we learned back and applying it to Elmhurst College. If that wasn’t enough, our audience consisted of faculty members that held the power to change things in campus…the power to get things done. They were a wonderful engaged audience and seemed to have a genuine interest in what we thought on the subject. All of this is my ideal when I think of a liberal education and has affirmed me in my choice of colleges.
Overall, I really enjoyed this past month of class. I feel that I have learned about myself, my classmates, the environment, and Elmhurst College itself. This project has really convinced me to improve my daily choices to recycle and using environmentally healthy products. I have found myself making a conscious decision to buy recyclable products and purchasing more environmentally-friendly goods—something that I had never thought of before. Overall, the lessons I have learned and the knowledge I have acquired will follow me for years.

academic dishonesty

Academic dishonesty is a topic that as a student, I have dealt with every day since I entered junior high. Students cheat on tests homework, projects, and in class assignments every day. Many times I wonder—should I tell someone? Or should I mind my own business? I have always defined academic dishonesty as stealing ideas and answers with or without the express permission of another individual in order to obtain a better grade or recognition in the classroom. But to be honest, cheating extends to all those around the cheater. Allowing someone to copy your test, paper, or any other assignment is just as bad, if not worse, than actually cheating yourself. You are an enabler. In a sense, if you help a cheater, or let them get away with it, you are comparable to a person watching a murder in progress, and not doing anything about it. Do we really believe that murderers only commit the one crime? Similarly, do we believe that cheaters only cheat the once? No, of course not. That is why we have prisons, to keep the criminals from committing the same crime, as well as punishing them. Throughout the class in the library, my group didn’t touch on this subject of academic dishonesty. I believe this is because most don’t believe that the enabler is really guilty of anything—or that it isn’t as bad to help a cheater, as long as you don’t do it yourself.
In reality, academic dishonesty is not necessarily a problem with the establishment of any educational system, higher or otherwise (like the article by Bill Puka “Student Cheating”, says). Nor is it a problem with society or other people. It is a deep seeded issue within all of those who believe that there is nothing wrong with putting down words that are not their own, stealing answers, or taking credit for something that did not come from them. These individuals who cheat must have either a nonexistent conscience or a very quiet one. I myself have only cheated a handful of times since the beginning of my education, and each time my conscience ate at me until I turned myself in. The kind of person that can either ignore their conscience, ignore the fact that they are not only disrespecting their instructor, but also themselves, and still continue on this path of dishonesty have a corrupt moral integrity.
What are the ways that we cheat in the academic world? This was a highly debated subject of my group’s discussion. Is the term “cheating” left only to copying answers for tests, and copying papers? I don’t think so, but some people do. But we did all agree that there are many methods that students cheat nowadays. A survey done by University of Wisconsin in Madison found many creative ways of cheating. [i] My personal favorites were programming the test answers/information into a calculator, text messaging each other answers, and putting notes on the floor because these particular methods are easily eliminated by having an attentive teacher proctoring the exam and having clear testing rules to eliminate certain technologies from being used during the exam such as iPods/mp3 players, cell phones, PSPs, calculators (unless needed to complete a math exam, make them use the old versions, or a class set, or even have them erase the information off their calculators), etc. Those classroom rules definitely cut down cheating in many of my classes—forcing the rather determined students to come up with new ways.
One issue we briefly touched on as a class was the idea of an “Honor Code”. I personally like the idea of signing a contract agreeing not to cheat, allow someone to cheat off of me, and agreeing to alert the professor of any cheating I may witness. I believe that those who are “on the fence” over cheating on an exam can be pushed towards the right decision by signing that agreement. Also that agreement will show the students the how that university takes academic dishonesty seriously, and it has a high penalty if caught. However, if the idea is met with opposition by others within the school, classes are within their full right to have an Honor Code for each specific class. I personally think that an honor code is a step towards showing students that they are trusted to sign an agreement and abide by it—but that there are serious consequences.
Academic honesty is something that we as individual students in Elmhurst College are responsible for. No one else is to blame for students’ lack of integrity in the classroom. Honesty is a vital part of the classroom setting. Just as I expect my professor to be honest with me, I am expected to be honest with my professor. That means not plagiarizing, cheating, allowing someone else to cheat, or outright lying to my professor. Nothing is more distracting to the learning environment than cheating, and I hope that over the years it gets better, not worse.
[i] http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/bateman/Ways%20to%20Cheat.htm