Getting Into the Flow: Sheila's Blog

       Ocean, lakes, rivers, streams, puddles: water is everywhere and we use it in multiple ways . It is used to water plants, wash the dishes, drink, take showers, wash you hands-- these just are the most obvious ways. People don’t think about it, but water is also used in the making of clothes, making food, and plenty of other ways . You may not know this: 70 % of the earth is water, but only 2.5 % is fresh water.  The rest is too salty to drink . And from the 2.5 % of fresh water, only less that 1% is available for us to consume because the rest is trapped in glaciers. This is an important fact, because if we keep misusing our fresh water then we won’t have enough water for the human population: that's what Mr. Madsen taught us.

        This week in most our MSEL classes we focused more on water and ways we humans affect the environment. In World Geography , we watched The 11th Hour, in English, we spent time working on our “Trash Talking Essay” and spoke about socially acceptable addictions, and in Seminar we continued working on our “Ocean Acidification” projects, using Prezi.

        Throughout the week, Ms. Leonhart had us work on our “Trash Talking Essays”*. There is probably no better way to evaluate how much waste we produce on a daily basis than to carry a bag for twenty four hours and fill it with your own garbage. I think it helped us become more cautious and aware. Now, I notice more people carrying reusable water bottles and also bringing reusable plastic containers for snack or lunch. My personal experience with this project was that I found it difficult to carry a bag and fill it up with my garbage. At times I would forget to do it, but in the end, I learned from this experience that its important to reduce our waste habits. If just 25 people produce so much trash, imagine how much much the whole population puts on the Earth. It’s a tremendous amount of weight that we all put on the Earth.

        

The 11th Hour explained to us how humans affect the environment and also what we are doing to decrease our fossil fuel footprint. We as humans create vast amounts of pollution. Fossil fuels are substances made from remains of ancient plants and animals that reside deep inside the Earth. Over time, heat and pressures turn decompositions into fuels which release a huge amount of energy when burned. Coal, oil, and natural gases are the three main fossil fuels that humans use. Fortunately,  scientists and many other people are coming up with more and more ideas to to save our environment.  One idea they have is to build a photosynthetic building . This was scientist William McDonough’s idea. That means buildings could act like trees and plants and take in CO2 and produce oxygen for us to take in .  Isn’t that clever ? In my opinion,  we need more people thinking like William McDonough : outside of the box.

        In Seminar this week, we worked on our ocean acidification projects. We researched the oceans of the world, and helped each other learn how acidification has social and economic impact as well as environmental.  From the projects, we’ve all learned that the more acidic the water is, the fewer sea creatures are able to stay alive. Having fewer fish, oysters, shrimp, octopi and other sea life affects our economy (and the earth) tremendously. If we don’t have enough food to sell then the economy worsens, and many fishermen could potentially  lose their jobs. There’s plenty of other affects of ocean acidification , but its important to conserve our oceans. We are a part of a food chain. We look at it like a pyramid where we are at the top, but in reality, it’s a chain, and when one animal suffers, so does everyone else.

We have a long way to go, both as individuals and as a whole planet. Together we can come up with innovative ways to reduce fossil fuels, reduce pollutions, and help our oceans from further ocean acidification. Marin SEL is just the beginning, but we’re part of a chain, too. If we commit ourselves to the work we are beginning, we can accomplish our goals and encourage more people to be aware and act in the service of the earth and all its connected inhabitants.

*Students have been working on observational writing: paying close and objective attention to our environment to see what it can tell us. With this assignment, we’re seeing what insights our trash can yeild. Thus, “Trash Talking.” Much more constructive than the usual kind!

Connections, Addictions and Solutions! By Sami McLaughlin

“You want connections, I can make connections: they call me The Connector,” says Zargar. Over the past week, I closely observed class and found that what we are learning in each subject really connects, even though it may be taught in different ways. 

One of the main ideas that we tackled over the past week in MSEL was overpopulation. In World Geography, we learned that if the growth rate continues to progress, then not only will areas become more crowded, but we will accumulate more waste, and start to run out of non renewable resources such as fossil fuels. This then lead to a debate regarding China’s one-child policy, an attempt to reduce the population by creating a law only allowing one child per family. This may only be in China for now, but if it becomes an issue in the future, do we want the government getting that deep into our personal lives? While this law will help decrease the population growth, it also brings up issues: families want boys who can carry on the family name, or a child that will become a doctor or a lawyer, not a factory worker. But fewer people making our stuff, means the price of things go up. What if we had a decreased number of just skilled workers, only making essential items? This idea is very unlikely, because we seem to be addicted to consuming and buying more and more stuff. John made the analogy, “When you feed wild animals people food, they’ll always want more.” It seems that the more we buy, the more we want, but what do we actually need?

This leads us to the main focus in English: our addictions. What’s in your box? Do we really need everything we have? In a section of Andrew Weil’s article, Why We Are All Addicted, he says, “Addiction is a part of our core being. It’s a part of who we are. Given that, what can we do about addictive behavior?” There was an idea that caught my attention from the TED video about editing our lives, in Seminar as well. The presenter was talking about how by owning less stuff you are being environmentally conscious, saving more money, and are all around, a much happier person. Yet, we still chose to consume! It is true, there is no point in trying to deny that we are obsessed with certain actions. In Ms. Leonhart’s class, we have been trying to decipher what addiction means, and how we can replace those obsessions with something else. 

As a group, we came up with some alternatives to addictions. Some short term solutions are to simply take a break, slow down, and really think about your options before making a decision. Also, a good strategy is to replace that craving with something healthier, more eco-friendly, or even try to cut it off at the roots. To gather insight on our own consumptions, we collected our trash for 24 hours, to see how much waste we produce each day. Then, we came up with solutions to each item we collected. For example, I buy a soup that comes dried, in a plastic bag. The next step could be to buy a soup that comes in a can, or even make my own with organic vegetables, which is in fact much healthier. Then, we are planning to tie all our thoughts together on our addictions to consuming in an essay over the next week, and submit the final draft in by email, a great way to save over 100 pieces of paper. 

Speaking of saving paper, in Seminar, we are working on graphing where the garbage cans are around the school. Therefore, we can see how much waste we would reduce with a recycling system. It may be a long process, but in the end, it will help save money, resources and of course the environment. We also got a sneak peek on our next unit, Water, both in Seminar and Biology. Because of the CO2 from cars, and SO2 from coal plants, acid is being created in the air causing the H+ ions get in the water, making PH levels go down, which eventually leads to ocean acidification, no longer allowing organisms to survive. That isn’t only bad for the oceans, but for the economy and our needs as well.

In between all the work we accomplished throughout the past week, we also had time for fun. For example, we got to hear about Ms. Leonhart’s coffee addiction (*slurp*), and of course Mr. Madsen’s daily classic, jazz song on his record player. A fun experience was when we found a device that shoots air in the back of the biology classroom, and Mael, Dylan, Ethan and others went around blasting air at everyone. Also, something that will definitely not be forgotten: when Zargar was convinced that he was the Persian Airbender. To impress us, he even set hand sanitizer on fire, turning the flames blue! It is amazing how after only a couple of months, our class works together like we have been a group for a years. Last week was an exhilarating journey in Marin SEL, and I am looking forward to another week full of more learning, as well as fun memories shared within our class.

Sydney's Blog: Apathy and Objectivity

In class, I’ve been hearing a lot about apathy: people not caring. Most say apathy exists because our society encourages it. The media discourages inclusion in politics, about half of eligible American citizens don’t vote because they don’t think that their vote matters. Apathy is a result of obstacles put in the way of people caring, such as people being encouraged to do the wrong thing because it is the easier choice. This is seen very often at school: all you have to do is look in one of the recycling bins, and they are filled with trash and different types things that belong in the bins right next to the bin you’re looking into.

In almost all movies and books people are told to be a hero, so they become one, they don’t choose to be a hero they are chosen to be. People see or read this and they believe that they can’t choose to be a hero or a leader; someone has to tell them to. How do we get a bunch of apathetic individuals to become heroes? That's the question.

The main focus of the week had been observing objectively. We are developing this skill in each of our classes in different ways.

In English, we’re working on being able to look at a scene or a place and write down observations that are free of judgments and personal opinions. As writers we must be able to both write our feelings but also what we see without our personal beliefs. We have been reading A River Runs Through It: on the surface it’s just a book about fly-fishing, but as you start to look deeper, there are lots of metaphors for life, such as the river. The author, Norman Maclean, writes the story both with a lot of emotion and no emotion at all (subjectively and objectively).

In Biology, it is a daily requirement to be able to observe and hold back our opinions. Every week we perform a lab, in the lab we record the data that is observed, nothing more nothing less. If we were to add our own personal thoughts to the data collected from a lab, all of the results would be thrown off track, one group’s results would be nothing like their neighboring group’s results.

In Geography, we are beginning to study the different cultures of the world, to do this we must be able to look at the characteristics of each culture objectively to learn about them. If we let our judgments get in the way of what we are seeing and learning, we will never be able to see them and learn about them as they truly are, we will learn only what we see through our judgments.

In Health, we’re learning not to judge people at first sight, but to truly get to know them before we decide who there are to us. To try to stop stereotyping people because it is impossible to tell just how much everyone is affected by individual judgments.

As well as learning, we also have lots of fun goofing off, even though some of things we do are because we are so tired, such as Mael calling Madsen by his first name. Despite how tired we are, we are one of the loudest classes I have ever heard. This results in some interesting quotes form our teachers: as Zargar summed it up, “If I have to tell you to be quiet one more time, I’m shutting this operation down!” Most of the crazy things happen in Zargar’s class… mainly because he’s crazy. Mael, Dylan, and Ethan where losing their minds raising their hands so they could make a comment. It ended in a row-sham-bo match that ended in the two people who didn’t win the match desperately saying “two out of three, it’s always two out of three.” In the end, Ethan was given permission to say that Mountain Dew kills sperm and White Mountain Dew was invented because it didn’t kill sperm. In one of the two classes that we have Zargar, we just do whatever needs to be done and these were a result of that. All in all, we are having a lot of fun and also learning a ton: as Zargar reminds us, “You gotta get data; to get data you gotta count garbage!” and finally, perhaps the most important, “You do what you gotta do so can do what you want to do.”

Ms. L’s note: It sounds, overall, like the connections your are making are powerful and applicable in all walks of life. I am curious how you see our “Trash Talking” Essay (it’s not what it sounds like!) is bringing this all together, and I’d love to hear more about your feelings on creating heroes out of apathetic individuals. For readers who are interested as well as honors strand MSELers, please read the NY Times article link on our site. I look forward to next week's blog from Sami McLoughlin--stay tuned for her picture and more links to great articles and videos.