Counterintuitive Fall 2024

The president of the United States stated in late February that “The flu, in our country, kills from 25,000 people to 69,000 people a year. That was shocking to me.” This information isn’t entirely wrong. In fact an article from health.com states, “Overall, the CDC estimates that 12,000 to 61,000 deaths annually can be blamed on the flu.” This information convinced a lot of Americans that COVID was nothing to worry about. At this point in time to think this was normal. With the lack of information from China and the faulty testing kits in the United States. We never really knew the real severity of the virus.

Making statements comparing the virus to flu prolonged the exposure to the virus by downplaying it. With so much changing information and lack of testing in the United States. Counties and States had no good reason to shut down when looking at the information of confirmed tests in a particular area. According to an article by Live Science “The first case occurred in a 35-year-old man who was tested on Jan. 19”. This was the first known case inside of the United States. This should have been used as a warning sign to politics and other Americans but during this time it was thought that this man traveled to Europe or an infected area and contracted the virus. Transmission of the virus at the time was thought to still be through touching a contaminated surface. Later on the CDC changed this to state “COVID-19 is able to be spread through the airborne route.” Meaning that infections were popping up in places that the United States never knew about. Since only one case was reported at the time life went on as usual. Events like the Super Bowl, National Championship and multiple hockey and basketball games continued to pack arenas and stadiums with potentially infected people. With the thought that the flu and COVID were very similar the virus was thought to spread all around the country in the months of February and March.  The only problem was there was no way to find out. With the thought still drilled in the majority of the public’s mind life remained normal when in reality the virus spread like wildfire. To put things in perspective the virus was known to be in the United States started January 15th. An article by Life Science claimed that “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in early February distributed 200 test kits.” When the virus starts in January and only 200 test kits are sent out, the probability that more cases exist than the ones reported get higher and higher.  On top of this during this time period COVID was misidentified as the flu which could’ve led to mass amounts of infected people. The CDC stated on their website that, “Elevated influenza-like-illness is likely related to COVID-19.” meaning that in late February elevated cases the flu really just spiked the cases of COVID-19.

The public and other politicians thought that the flu and coronavirus were similar and cost the United States so valuable time in determining the severity of the virus. But information at the time supported their claims. According to a symptom list by Hopkins Medicine. The flu and COVID share around 7 known symptoms. These can include “ fever, cough, body aches and fatigue; sometimes vomiting and diarrhea” along with pneumonia. This prompted some individuals to think that the viruses were both similar. 

The thing that the public didn’t take into account was the transmission. For every one person infected with the flu it is predicted that one more person will get infected. But on the other hand the coronavirus statistics are that for every one person three new people get infected. This may not seem like a lot but when repeated multiple times the virus gets harder and harder to contain. Let’s talk numbers. If you were to repeat the chain 10 times meaning 1 person infects another person. The number of infected people would be  10 people. With coronavirus it’s quite different. If you were to repeat the chain 10 times but now with the proper infection rate of 3 new people infected per every one person now 31 new coronavirus victims. The numbers only get worse as time goes on unless proper guidelines are put into place.

In conclusion, the United States and other countries will get through these tough times. Knowledge will be acquired. States and other countries will ease restrictions and life will be back to normal. 

“Is the Coronavirus Worse Than the Flu” health.com. 17 April. 2020. Web. 19 April 2020.

“Coronavirus was circulating in France in December” LiveScience 14 April. 2020. Web 15 March 2020.

“Coronavirus” CDC 15 April. 2020 Web 17 March 2020

Carbon-Free Power Grid

With global warming daunting as a major issue, society must switch to a power grid that utilizes nuclear power with renewable sources of energy. Global warming is caused from carbon dioxide being released into the air. Currently one of the largest contributors of carbon emissions is our carbon-based power grid. To reduce carbon emissions society must replace carbon-based power plants like coal plants to sources of energy that are carbon-free. But to avoid problems renewable sources like wind and solar should be utilized alongside nuclear power plants. If we rely strictly on renewable sources large amounts of land will have to be dedicated to power fields, and conditions are not always optimal for power production. A large portion of society believe that nuclear power is unsafe and should not be used because of this. But contrary to popular belief nuclear power is extremely safe, especially with new technological advancements. When using nuclear power and renewable sources together we can create an efficient power grid that utilizes both power sources strengths and eliminates their weaknesses.

 When renewable sources are strictly used for all of power production large amounts of land will have to be dedicated for strictly power production. From the Tedx Talk “Why renewables can’t save the planet” the speaker environmentalist Michael Schellenberger explains, “Building a solar farm is a lot like building any other kind of farm, you have to clear the whole area of wildlife.” Shallenberger goes onto explain this process is extremely expensive and invasive in terms of removing wildlife from their natural habitats. To solely use renewable sources of power to produce the worlds energy we would need to clear large amounts of land to sufficiently produce enough energy for society’s needs. In doing this we would be destroying a large amount of wildlife.

Another major problem with using strictly renewable sources of energy is conditions are not always optimal to produce energy. The two largest renewable sources of energy wind and solar require perfect conditions to produce energy efficiently “Hybrid nuclear-renewable energy systems” the author, Author Siddharth Suman explains, “Renewable energy sources are not continuous, dependent upon geographical location as well as climatic conditions, and require a very large land footprint.” Suman not only talks about the large amount of land needed for renewable sources. But also explains how climate conditions play a huge role in how effective renewable sources are in producing energy. The problem with this is the wind does not also blow perfectly and the sun does not always shine. During bad conditions renewable sources will not be suitable to keep up with our large demand of energy. Considering our use of energy increases every day only using renewable sources will become a major issue.

Contrary to popular belief because of disasters in the past nuclear energy has become extremely safe and far safer than coal plants. To begin with nuclear power plants have made huge technological advancements to make them far safer. From Applied Energy article “The benefits of nuclear flexibility in power system operations with renewable energy” the author states, “nuclear power plants are technically capable of flexible operation, including changing power output over time (ramping or load following) and providing frequency regulation and operating reserves.” This means that nuclear power plants do not have to operate at maximum power. Instead they can operate at lower levels of production making them far safer. Not only this but From the Nuclear Energy Institute in their article “Is Nuclear Energy Safe” the author Kelly McPharlin explains why nuclear reactors are safe in the modern world. McPharlin explains how nuclear reactors have many layers of safety systems. The layers of safety are used to prevent any issue the reactor might have. Not only this but the people working in the reactor now are extremely trained to handle any situation the reactor might go through. Nuclear reactors are proving to be far safer than coal plants. Coal plants cause far more deaths, and will continue to cause even more from the carbon being released into the air causing global warming

The most efficient carbon free based power grid would be utilizing nuclear power alongside of renewable sources. Since renewable sources cannot always operate at maximum capacity due to climate conditions nuclear power would be needed in times where renewable sources can not produce a large amount of energy. Going back to the Applied Energy article “The benefits of nuclear flexibility in power system operations with renewable energy” when the author explains, how nuclear power plants can operate at different levels or production. From this statement we can infer that when renewable sources are producing at maximum capacity because conditions are good, we can lower production for nuclear power plants. This goes for the same when renewable sources are not operating well due to climate issues, we can ramp up production for nuclear plants to make up for the renewable sources not producing at maximum capacity. Using renewable sources alongside nuclear energy also solves the issue of large amounts of land being used up from renewable sources. Some solar and wind fields will have to be used even if renewable sources and paired with nuclear energy, but a lot less land will be needed for solar and wind fields. Since nuclear will be utilized we can focus of using less solar fields and focus on installing solar panels are more roofs. To completely remove the use of carbon-based power plants and stop global warming, society needs to start utilizing a power grid that contains nuclear power and renewable sources working together.

References

Jenkins, J. D., Zhou, Z., Ponciroli, R., Vilim, R. B., Ganda, F., Sisternes, F. de, & Botterud, A. (2018, April 24). The benefits of nuclear flexibility in power system operations with renewable energy. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261918303180

McPharlin, K. (2019, November 22). Is Nuclear Energy Safe? Retrieved from https://www.nei.org/news/2019/is-nuclear-energy-safe

Shellenberger, M. (n.d.). Why renewables can’t save the planet: Michael Shellenberger:TEDxDanubia. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shellenberger_why_renewables_can_t_save_the_planet

Suman, S. (2018, February 1). Hybrid nuclear-renewable energy systems: A review. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652618302993#!

The One-and-Done Rule Degrading College Education

The one-and-done rule became apparent for the NBA in 2005. The reason for this rule was to give high school seniors a chance to mature before entering the pros. Once this rule was implemented, all of the NBA prospects did their first year of college and then went straight to the NBA; not many stayed longer than the minimum year. The NBA teams look for the young, healthy players that they know will flourish for years to come rather than drafting seniors out of college. I understand the idea of wanting the players to mature and get a sense of playing at a higher level of competitive basketball before entering the NBA, but at the same time, there is no benefit of getting a college education for a year, just to go to the NBA and not get a degree out of the college education part. I see benefits only coming from either staying in college for four years to get a degree and then go to the NBA to make a bunch of money or just going straight to the NBA from high school to make a bunch of money and try to get a college degree during their careers. Either way, the player is going to make a crazy amount of money from playing, it’s just a matter of do they want to get a college degree or not. Players can even decide to go get a college degree, than go to the NBA and after they retire, get a job that revolves around the degree they earned and make even more money rather than living off of their NBA salary.  

If you look at it this way, a player can go play college basketball and risk getting a career ending injury before entering the NBA or they can go straight to the NBA and make a bunch of money and risk getting a career ending injury. In “The One-and-Done Dilemma” written by Rachel Stark-Mason, she interviewed Jonathan Bender, the 5th overall pick in the 1999 draft. Bender states “When you’re projected to be a top-10, possibly top-five (pick), you don’t want to sacrifice (it by) going to college at that point, or going anywhere else, because you could get injured or anything else could happen. So you want to take that opportunity when it’s presented.” Players are better off being able to make their own decisions whether they want to go straight to the league or take a year to adjust to playing in a different level of basketball. The one-and-done rule seems to only benefit the players that need a year to mature physically and emotionally and who need their names to get bigger so they can have a chance at a better draft pick. 

In the article, “Why the NBA’s 1-and-done Rule Is Causing More Harm Than Good,” Grant Hughes makes a good point that players have to go through watching their families struggle financially while they are playing college basketball. When the players are in high school, they have the chance to get a job to bring in another source of income for their family. If the players are forced to go to college, they most likely do not have time to work and they are not home and not able to provide money for their family. Going straight to the NBA from high school is giving the players the opportunity to make millions of dollars that can help keep their families in stable living conditions. In another article, “Here’s how much the first pick of the 2018 NBA Draft will make as a rookie,” Tom Huddleston Jr. commented that the first round pick in the 2018 draft was projected to make as much as $8 million dollars. The second pick can make about $6 million, the third pick can make about $5.4 million and even the last pick in the first round can make around $1.3 million. Those salaries are just for playing basketball, not even considering how much more money a player can make with all of their endorsements. If high school seniors know that they are able to make this amount of money as soon as they leave high school, they’re not going to want to waste their time at college for a year where they are risking injury and doing the bare minimum for classes just to make them NBA eligible. A lot of things can happen in a year and if a player’s family is financially struggling, waiting a year to make it to the NBA might be too late. 

The one-and-done rule can give people the impression that it is encouraging players to only look out for their best interest rather than the college teams’. Players are going to college for the one year to do their time so they can move on with their lives. This can affect the team’s overall work ethic. Players could only be looking out for their stats rather than working as a team to bring home a championship for their school. Having players stay on the team for only a year or two can make it hard for the teams to actually have a flow because they are constantly getting newcomers who have never played together before. When athletes play for teams, they are expected to be 100% committed to that team. Mark Emmert, president of the NCAA, makes a good statement in Allen Barra’s article, “Both the NBA and NCAA Want to Keep Athletes in College for Too Long,” saying “if you’re coming to us to be a collegiate athlete, we want you to be a collegiate athlete.” Also, not every college basketball player has the opportunity or wants to make it to the NBA, so it does not benefit them in any way when they are trying to play during their junior or senior year and have new freshmen and sophomores coming and going, not caring about the teams’ overall wellbeing. 

If student athletes decide to take advantage of the college scholarships they are awarded, there is a big benefit. By taking advantage of the scholarship, that means they stay for four years to get their degree. They would be able to come out of college debt free, not having to spend a single dime of their own. Then if they went to the NBA, they could spend their salary on beneficial items for their families. If players decided to get their degree during or after their NBA career, they would still be able to easily afford college and barely make a dent in their bank accounts. Being able to get a college degree is a very remarkable achievement, so the opportunity should not go to waste. The one-and-done rule just seems to degrade the whole idea of getting a college education by showing the NBA prospects that all they have to do is the complete bare minimum to be eligible to play for their college team and eventually make it to the NBA.

References 

“One and Done Dilemma.” NCAA. The One-and-Done Dilemma. Rachel Stark-Mason. Fall 2018.

“The Harm of One-And-Done.” Bleacher Report. Why the NBA’s 1-and-Done Rule Is Causing More Harm Than Good. Grant Hughes. August 2013. 

“NBA Rookie’s Earnings.” CNBC. Here’s how much the first pick in the 2018 NBA Draft will make as a rookie. Tom Huddleston Jr. June 2018. 

“The NBA Having Players in College.” The Atlantic. Both the NBA and the NCAA Want to Keep Athletes in College for Too Long. Allen Barra. April 2012.

Changing to Become More Engaging

The way we engage our students today should be vastly different than the way we engaged them years ago. Unfortunately, we have kept the same model of education forever and with the aspect of technology, the model just doesn’t fit the students anymore. In the book, Engaging ‘Tweens and Teens, Raleigh Philp begins the first chapter by sharing what is known about the brain and learning. Keeping education the same has not let the learning process take its course like when students used to research in books piles high. It would allow them to have to read through and fully comprehend the information for their school research. Now, technology is at our fingertips and it doesn’t take much to look something up on Google and then quickly forget it. It’s a phenomenon that is even mentioned in the book through the lens of a college student. Her professor asked her class a science question, and frustration shook the room. After much of this struggling, she raised her hand and said. “I didn’t care that we had to think. All I wanted to do was ‘Google it’ to find the answer.” 

The answer to this is to think ahead of the rapidly evolving environment. The future of education should not rely too heavily on technology. The students of today will develop an intolerance to learning. At the core of it, it all comes down to three main overlapping sciences, biology, psychology, and chemistry. The research in these areas help teachers understand the structure and development of the brain’s stages of maturity. Extensive research shows that the brain is best at learning when it needs to survive. A typical student’s brain does not rank academic success high on the to do list for this reason, but what if academic success relied heavily on survival in the real world? It would only be then where students would be engaged to learn because of the need of that survival in the future. Without learning crucial information, it will be very hard to live a comfortable life. Of course we do not want to enact fear into these students, but we want to make them understand that learning these specific skills are a crucial part of being an adult. This is where it is important to understand the development of students. The skills that are tailored towards adulthood are of course for the students in high school. Understanding the way the adolescent brain works will help find that perfect time to introduce these skills. Just like there is a pivotal point when a baby learns how to walk, there is a pivotal point when teenagers learn how to deal with the adult world.

It’s time to be forward thinking. We need to take the old education model and shift it with today’s changes. Take a model schedule like Model A for example. This is your typical high school schedule that has been used for years. 

Model A:

This schedule uses the four main core subjects along with a language and a couple of electives to balance out the school’s graduation requirements. This model is not necessarily bad, but for the new era we are in, it needs a bit of revamping. The introduction of technology into the classroom can be beneficial in the speed of the class, but as stated previously, it could be a detriment to the free thinking minds of the youth. Technology creates an instant gratification that rids the want to figure out a problem only using the brain. 

A more forward thinking model would be not to require an Intro to Business class where students spend most of their time discussing business terms that have no bearing on them, unless they are truly interested in studying this in the future. For the general population of students, they just take the class to receive the credit and graduate. Instead, make a class like psychology or finance a required class for everyone. The education system can also update the curriculums in core classes such as math and english to tackle more specific life skill topics. In between learning algebra and reading Shakespeare, there can be time to learn about tax and how to develop the proper interviewing skills for a job. This new schedule would look like Model B. 

Model B:

Model B, not quoting it exactly because there is some push and pull, but this layout would be much more beneficial to high school students. It incorporates a similar format to the original schedule, but there is now more of a purpose with some new curriculum or requirements. Psychology is beneficial to understanding the mind, while child development is beneficial to knowing how to take care of a child either by babysitting or a child of one’s own. Another element of this model is to lessen the dependability of technology. The idea is to promote free thinking instead of the Google scavenger hunt. Technology would not be eradicated, but the use of it would be different. Students need to exercise their minds while they’re still moldable so that the idea of thinking isn’t such a painful experience. Once these changes are put into motion, the new results will slowly ease, but the future results will better prepare students for getting a job, or interviewing for a college, and much more. Overall, the practice of more conversational free thinking will allow for their voices to be heard and for them to be able to make an impact on the society they will soon be a part of. 

References

Marshall. (1997). Does education and training get in the way of learning?. Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, USA.

Philp. (2007). Engaging ‘Tweens and Teens. Corwin Press.

Adaptations

I think most of us can agree that the book was better than the movie. Maybe some movie-purists won’t, but I think the phrase is well-known enough for it to be basic knowledge. Now, not all movies based on books are bad. The movies based on J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter collection of books are some of my favorites, but I feel as though other media adaptations of original works cannot live up to the standards due to the goals of each media form.

Let’s start off easy. Going back to Mr. Potter’s adventures in the cinema, they are enjoyable works of art on their own right. The characters are lovable, the locations are memorable, and they are really fun to binge-watch. However, each movie is based off one of the books, with the exception of “Deathly Hallows,” which was split in two. Despite movie precedents of ranging somewhere around 90 to 120 minutes, the Harry Potter films clock in at around 150 to 160 minutes. While they are longer than the typical movie, they do not cover every bit of information featured in the book. Details could be left out, but that won’t be noticed by those who haven’t read the book. By default, the lack of detail and content in the movie, at a storytelling perspective, is inferior to the book. Why don’t movie producers just make the full book in a movie form? Well, movies are expensive. The first film in the Harry Potterseries, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, cost around 125 million US dollars to make, which is less than half of what it cost to make the movies based on the books towards the end of the series. If the movie ended up being 6 hours long and included every detail from the book, imagine how much that would cost to create. The movie might not break even. For a stand-alone movie adaptation of a book or an adaptation of the first in a book series, having a 6-hour long film could turn many viewers off from seeing it in theaters.

Now, a comic book with a movie adaptation is more widely accepted and enjoyed. Having a comic book to read is one thing, but having a two-hour movie with the same characters, one-liners, and everything you love about the comic but as a motion picture? That sounds amazing! So why are comic books as movies not as criticized? It’s the way in which comics are produced. On whatever schedule is decided, comics come out in issues. 2008’s film Iron Man is just Iron Man. If the film remained the same as we know it, but was called “Iron Man: Issue #57,” there would be a serious problem. (I just checked to make sure Iron Man #57 isn’t what is featured in the first movie. It actually features the same villain from the third Iron Man film!) The movies are the equivalent to starting the series over again with a #1 issue. As long as Iron Man is still Tony Stark and acts just like his original counterpart, the message of the movie being a story about Iron Man is achieved. (despite the overall quality of the movie and how much money it made). However, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has a distinct name, which is one of the books, so it is expected that the movie is accurate to the books, which is not entirely, since it is missing details.

On another note, just because the movie is based off a comic book, it doesn’t mean it works. The film Scott Pilgrim VS. The World is a movie adaptation of the entire series. The name is fitting, but it shares the name of the second volume, which could be misleading. It encompasses the entirety, including volume 2, but it is not exclusive to volume 2. Again, making a 112-minute movie to cover 6 graphic novels will have some drawbacks in terms of what is included. Some examples include certain dialogue pieces being said at the end of the film, when the context and setting in which they were said were excluded entirely. Each form of entertainment media, as Douglas M. Kellner and Meenakshi Gigi Durham put it in their book Adventures in Media and Cultural Studies: Introducing the Keyworks, “media and consumer culture, cyberculture, sports, and other popular activities engage people in practices which integrate them into an established society.” In the case of Scott Pilgrim, fans of that series, comic readers, and movie watchers, are all societies. One person can be in all of them, like I am, but they are separate.

Movies aren’t the bane of a book’s existence, though. Would you want to read a novel (just words!) of Star Wars: A New Hope that includes nothing extra? Even if it was a comic book that still just included images and set pieces from the movie, what would you get out of it? Maybe it could appeal to collectors and the art could be fun to look at, but how can it achieve the iconic sound of Star Wars blasters or the ear-piercing whirring of the TIE Fighter? When it’s the other way around, the movie fails in comparison to the book on a storytelling front, but it is still exciting to see the casting, the visuals, etc.

Fans of each medium will be able to criticize and point out certain things due to their belonging in different societies and their normalities. People used to comics expect the characters to function and look how they are supposed to. That’s why people didn’t like how Spider-Man in the Tobey Maguire trilogy didn’t build a device to shoot webs but could already shoot from his body. The effects of each form are what makes it unique. What if you took the art out of the comic book? Captain America would be a stick figure holding a circle. What if you took the detail and explanation out of a novel? It wouldn’t be the same.

References

Durham, Meenakshi Gigi., and Douglas Kellner. Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Blackwell Publishers, 2001, https://we.riseup.net/assets/102142/appadurai.pdf.

The MIT Press. “Understanding Media.” The MIT Press, The MIT Press, https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/understanding-media.

School Lunches Result In Better Students

School lunches unlike homemade lunches give access to a nutritionally balanced meal everyday to students and teachers. Homemade lunches can have such a variety that students could have one of the healthiest meals one day, but the next day they bring it a donut with some chips and a fruit punch. Clearly it’s known how different homemade lunches can be and a parent and student could both believe that saying homemade lunches not being nutritional enough is obnoxious and just judging off what’s wanting to be seen for the argument. It should also be known that the goal of the argument is to present the idea that school lunches, given the variety and health benefits, are a better choice for students and teachers since their being provided a well-balanced meal everyday whereas the homemade lunch is uncontrollable. Also, school lunches being improved each year really just provides a strong backbone to the argument.  

School lunches have multiple goals in their paths. Their goals are to satisfy students’ hunger, provide proper nutrients and to do it all with a great variety. Homemade on the other hand has one known goal and that being to satisfy hunger for students. Most students and parents don’t go through lunch prep at home and think they need food from each of the food categories, but they think about what’s going to make them not hungry anymore. Overall, school lunches are given known thought to what is being put out for students and homemade lunches are not. 

There might be underlying reasons hidden behind these school lunches, but what are they for exactly? There for the students/ teachers and their health/ academics, but lots aren’t aware of that goal. The nutrients being provided are there to satisfy most daily health needs throughout a day given the unknown circumstances of students personal lives. In the “School Nutrition and Meal Cost Findings” summary, the USDA says, “Virtually all daily lunch menus met the daily quantity requirement for milk. Nearly all daily lunch menus met the daily quantity requirements for fruits (95 percent) and meats/meat alternates (91 percent). Roughly 8 in 10 daily lunch menus met the daily quantity requirements for vegetables and grains (81 and 80 percent, respectively).” Being able to provide these percentages of foods weekly for students and staff is unbelievable. These stats are the proof of a true well-balanced lunch meal. Now that it’s known that these school lunches have the nutrition in them, it’s easy to see how the ones consuming them are receiving the daily vitamins/ minerals/ nutrients/ etc. for a positive healthy lifestyle. 

Having the great daily health needs from the school lunches ends up causing the students to do better in school and with their health. One can easily connect the retrieval of the nutrients to the health of the student. If a student was to eat these lunches multiple times per week, given the consistent nutrition, they will be on track to living a healthy lifestyle. It won’t be one’s clear path to a healthy lifestyle since it’s only one meal of the day and it’s always going to be uncontrollable what students eat outside from school, but it helps students out tremendously. Having that healthy lifestyle, while still being in school, can also positively affect your mood and mindset. If someone is getting their daily health needs and has the energy and drive in life then that would mean these school lunches are indirectly causing a person’s life to be a little bit better and happier. 

The second causal component school lunches connect with is student performance in the classroom. The article, “The Impact of Nutrition on Learning and Behavior: A No Brainer” the National Institute for Student-Centered Education says, “The brain needs a variety of nutrients to be able to function optimally. To focus, remember and regulate our emotions we need protein, unsaturated fats, complex carbohydrates and sugars (in grains, fruits and vegetables), as well as a host of trace elements such as iron, potassium, and selenium.” These nutritious lunches provided by the school helps with student performance tremendously. Students continuing to grow and develop need a good lunch plan for success. Without the proper consumption of essentials like amino acids, vitamins (A,B,C,E), iron, proteins, complex carbohydrates, etc. humans wouldn’t be able to function to their max potential. That’s the idea around these school lunches. They are giving the students and teachers the chance to reach their maximum potential. One example of direct effect these nutrients have on the brain is with complex carbs. Not getting enough complex carbs can result in low blood sugar which then results in the hippocampus (part of the brain) being affected and given that the hippocampus plays a central role in learning that would mean the lunches packed with these nutrients play huge roles in how students do academically. Once again, it’s not this one meal that will control the success of one’s self, but it’s one that can play a huge role. It’s known that lots of students don’t eat breakfast before school or class because of how early school is, so in lots of cases these lunches are students’ first meals. School lunch programs understand not all kids eat breakfast so they make sure to fill up these lunch meals with nutrients as if they were the first meal of the day, while still maintaining a good portion so students are not over eating. 

Stating that school lunches are more nutritional and more well-balanced often brings up occasional questions like what’s in the foods, what’s so healthy about these lunches, how many calories contained, what are the effects, etc. The one spot not detailed on was the caloric measurements of these lunches. These lunches could most definitely acquire lots of nutrients while having an insane amount of calories, but that’s what makes these lunches twice as special. They keep the calories intake to a fair level so that students get the calories needed while not over doing it. School programs also keep track of the calories being put out so that it’s different by grade. On Action For Healthy Kids, the article, “How Does School Lunch Work?” says, ”Kindergarten through fifth-grade students get 550-650 calories. Sixth through eighth-grade students get 600-700 calories. Ninth through 12-grade students get 750-850 calories.” These lunches are approximately ¼ – ⅓ of the calories generally consumed daily. School lunches put out a perfect amount of calories, with the nutrients inside, to the students and staff so that they can stay focused and energized for the whole day. 

These school lunches have multiple hidden objectives that aren’t thought of by parents and students when making lunches. Given these hidden objectives of school lunch programs a reaction follows. Like every action there is a reaction and the reaction is the students maintaining a healthier lifestyle and overall better academic life.

References

School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study . (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2020, from https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/resource-files/SNMCS_Summary-Findings.pdf

Cuninggim, P. (2014, May 6). The Impact of Nutrition on Learning and Behavior. Retrieved from http://nisce.org/blog/features/impact-nutrition-learning-behavior-brainer/

How Does School Lunch Work? (2019, June 7). Retrieved from https://www.actionforhealthykids.org/how-does-school-lunch-work/

Speeding Through Neighborhoods

Speeding can be one of the most dangerous things a person can do while behind the wheel. One in every six drivers gets pulled over for speeding and receives a ticket which accumulates to over 41 million tickets per year. Most speeding stops occur on active roads but everyone over looks speeding in neighborhoods and developments. I am sure that cops have pulled over people for speeding in neighborhoods but it is for sure a low percentage. I just feel it is necessary for police to give more attention to neighborhoods due to the fact that I see people speeding through my very own neighborhood every day.

Police will tend to just leave a speed tracker sign in neighborhoods when a report of people speeding comes in. That speeding tracker doesn’t do anything for a neighborhood because people will still continue to speed. Police are very strict with people speeding through areas where schools are located due to the kids during the day. Neighborhoods are basically 24 hour schools since kids are every where and are always playing outside. If you can pay close attention to school areas during the day I don’t see a problem with keeping a close watch on neighborhoods.

I understand that police have bigger items they need to worry about but people deserve to know that speeding is being controlled around where they live. I think that possibly keeping a police vehicle parked in neighborhoods even if the cop isn’t in the car will make speeding go down tremendously. The police vehicle itself will be enough to scare people into slowing themselves down. It is a creative way that will not cause the police to use any resources for a problem that may not be as big as the ones happening today. You could even put a camera inside the police vehicle that will be able to record people when they are speeding and give the speed they were doing.

Neighborhoods are super active every day and the speed limit of 25 is just too high. Lowering the speed limit to 15 and putting up signs all throughout the neighborhood saying “children playing” or “active people,” could really slow people down. You could argue that it’s a low percentage that something happens in neighborhood because of speeding but I disagree. My reasoning for disagreeing is that I have watched with my own eyes people almost get hit and they were just standing on the side of the road or grabbing mail. My neighbors dog was hit because of a speeding driver and it seems like no matter how much you complain little gets done. By lowering the speed limit you are telling people that 25 was not cutting it and the signs are relaying a message to drivers that a neighborhood is not a place to be speeding through. 

In all people really deserve to have stricter speeding limits in their neighborhoods. The littlest things can go a long way. One sign or just one car can make the difference in a persons life. As a brother, a dog owner, and someone who wants to be a future parent I really want to see an increase in speed control in neighborhoods. If it can get under control now than that means it will only get better in the future. Having first hand experience and just believing in whats right for the people around me I just want to try and get through to police departments every where. No one in the world deserves to have a tragic accident happen to them possibly or someone around them due to speeding in a neighborhood. 

References

• Traffic Ticket Statistics. (2019, October 1). Retrieved from https://jeffdavislawfirm.com/traffic-ticket-statistics/

Learning In the Womb 

Fetuses have enough cognitive ability to absorb information, process sensory data, and enter the world with a set of preferences that they developed by being in their mother’s womb during their gestation period. Learning is a huge part of what goes on with the fetus as it is growing in the womb, even up until the last day it is fully grown and ready to come out. Lots of people would disagree and say babies don’t begin learning until they are born. The argument here is that if a one-day-year-old newborn is learning why can’t a 270-day fetus also be learning? 

We can begin exploring this idea by taking a look at how babies in the womb absorb information. By absorbing information such as the vibration of their mother’s voice babies are learning. While the mother is talking when pregnant the baby begins to pick up on the vibration that leads to the womb and know that it’s their mom’s. When the baby is born it knows right away the difference between anyone else’s voice and their mom’s. The baby gravitates toward their mother’s voice because it was comforting to them in the womb and is now a sign of comfort outside of the womb. The fetus learns through sound vibrations so that way when they are born they will automatically know their mom’s voice and know that that is a safe place.

 At the University of Washington, co-author and director of The Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences Patricia Kuhl says the mother’s vowel sounds in her speech are the loudest and the fetus locks onto them. She also says, “Sensory and brain mechanisms for hearing are developed at 30 weeks of gestational age, and the new study shows that unborn babies are listening to their mothers talk during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy and at birth can demonstrate what they’ve heard,”. The study that proved this statement was conducted at Pacific Lutheran University of Tacoma, and professor of psychology there, Christine Moon, says previously it was believed that babies discriminate language in the first few months of birth and proves this is the first study done that shows fetuses prenatally learn language, which moves the results from the first six months of birth to before birth. The study was conducted in Sweden with one-day old babies and was described as this: “ babies listened to vowel sounds in their native tongue and in foreign languages. Their interest in the sounds was captured by how long they sucked on a pacifier that was wired into a computer measuring the babies’ reaction to the sounds. Longer or shorter sucking for unfamiliar or familiar sounds is evidence for learning, because it indicates that infants can differentiate between the sounds heard in utero. In both countries, the babies at birth sucked longer for the foreign language than they did for their native tongue,”. With this information we are able to provide aid in the fact that babies begin recognizing language and sounds through their mother’s voice in utero.

It’s not just sounds that babies learn while in the womb, preferences are acquired as well. Food preferences are learned through their mothers repetitive eating habits. Some pregnant mother’s have cravings while pregnant, eating too much sweets and junk food, which may lead to their baby wanting more desserts when born. But a different study was done that involves something much healthier for their mom and baby; carrots. In Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism; Complementary Foods and Flavor Experience: Setting the Scene an experiment was done on pages 44-45 by author Julie Mennella with random pregnant women who planned on breastfeeding were assigned to three different groups. Group one was in their third trimester and drank carrot juice for several days, group two was in their first three months of lactation and drank carrot juice for several days of the week as well, and the final group drank only water. When born, the babies were introduced to regular cereal and carrot cereal, the babies whose mothers drank carrot juice gravitated and had a liking toward the carrot juice than the babies whose moms drank water. The babies who weren’t exposed to carrots either from amniotic fluid or breast milk were reluctant to try the carrot flavored cereal and showed this through facial expressions and ate way less of it than the babies who were exposed to carrots in the womb. With this information we can conclude that babies learn from their mother’s daily food intake and agree with whatever food their mother ingests more, whether it be negative like junk food or positive like the carrot juice.

Here’s where I discuss the fine line between learning and developing in fetuses. In a TED Talk called What Babies Learn Before They’re Born speaker Annie Murphy Paul tells about the fetal origin hypothesis. Annie Murphy is an advocate that learning begins in the womb and tells about different instances when the fetus is learning. One study she talks about was conducted on pregnant women who were in New York during the 9/11 tragedy who developed PTSD. Professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Mount Sinai Medical Sentre in New York, Rachel Yehuda, and her colleagues conducted an experiment with these women and then their born babies a year later. They found that the women in their third trimester who had been diagnosed with PTSD baby’s also showed high levels of stress in the only one-year-old infant. While discussing this experiment in her TED Talk, Annie Murphy uses the words, “the mothers with PTSD had passed on a vulnerability to the condition while they were still in utero,”. I find this word “passed” to be the key point in my argument that there’s a fine line when defining what learning is. By using the word “passed” I believe Murphy throws away her point in proving that babies are learning in the womb, the fetus does not learn to develop PTSD, it is passed onto them. So because the mother has undergone traumatic stress during pregnancy it is likely the child also develops it, just like Yehuda’s study shows but the PTSD is developed not learned. 

Babies and toddlers are often described at sponges who pick up on everything around them, but through science we’ve discovered that actually they’ve been sponges since they were fetuses. Newborns come into the world the way they are because of what they learn and experience through their mother in the womb. 

References

“Can Trauma Be Transmitted Intergenerationally?” – Sandra Hercegova. (n.d.).

Mennella, J., & Trabulsi, J. (2012). Complementary Foods and Flavor Experiences: Setting the Foundation. Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism, 60, 40-50. doi:10.2307/48507172

Murphy, Annie(2011) What Babies Learn Before They are Born. Retrieved from TED Talks.

While in womb, babies begin learning language from their mothers. (n.d.). Retrieved from Washington University.