Reflection: Weeks 15 and 16

It's the end of the semester.  Wow.  I can't believe we are actually done after this week.  I have learned so much throughout this class and it seems like it was such a short time.  I will be sad to not have classes with all of you anymore, I had so much fun! Here is what we did the last 2 weeks of class...

Week 15

First off we made our Advocacy Project Learning activity.  I thought it was a bit challenging for my topic, but I ended up finding something that I thought was useful.  It was fun to see everyone elses ideas as well.  Next, we had our guest speaker, Sue Whitney, who came and taught us about "junking."  She also gave each one of us one of her new books, which was really cool.  Then some of our classmates participated in the junking activity and it was really fun to see what they had come up with using things from home.  I was impressed.  The last thing we did during our actual class time was going outside in the courtyard and talking about everything we learned.  It was gorgeous outside and I think it was a good closing to a great semester!!!:)

Week 16

Well it is finals week for us right now, which I can't wait to be over with.  This week we did our eye opener posts by doing each person in our groups' activities.  I thought everyone in my group had really good ideas and I actually learned things that I didn't know before.  That was our last post other than this one and comments, which means we are pretty much done.  

*Good luck to everyone on the rest of your finals and I hope you all have a great summer!*

Share and Voice: Health Care Commercial

Since I did my Advocacy project on health care, I thought this video was quite appropriate!   This video is cartoon and actually funny, but when you listen to the words they are really true.  It is sad that people are making videos like that about health care! It shouldn't be an option to make a commercials like that, because health care shouldn't be like this. Take a look!

Eye Opener: Online Learning Activities

Kathy's Crossword Puzzle Activity

1.Fetal

2.Gasoline

3.Older

4.1978

5.Myth

4. Across 1940

6.Paint

7.Sperm

8.80

9.Dust

During this activity I learned a lot about lead-based paint that I didn't know.  Kathy, I think you did a really great job on educating us and adding a fun activity to it as well.  It makes it a lot easier to learn when you are doing something fun as well.  Good job.  Also, I know we talked about this together, but I don't exactly want to call George to find out about when our house was built, but I think it was post-1950's.

Steve's Learning Activity

Section 1

1.Fear of Lying

2.Fear of Speed

3.Fear of Witches and Witchcraft

4.Fear of being Alone

5.Fear of stairs or steep slopes

6.Fear of speaking in public

7.Fear of clocks

8.Fear of ugliness

9.Fear of the color white

10.Fear of dirt and germs

Section 2

1.Mageirocophobia

2.Ornithophobia

3.Domatophobia

4.Aichmophobia

5.Coulrophobia

6.Elurophobia

7.Heliophobia

8.Obesophobia

9.Xenophobia

10.Megalophobia

Steve, I really liked this activity.  I learned a lot about phobia's in my high school psych class and the ways to treat them.  It is really interesting.

Shar's Learning Activity

This was a fun learning activity and you got a chance to interact.  I was surprised by quite a few things that were considered to cause allergens.  The one that stuck out the most to me was the cleaning products.  I understand tahat they give off some toxic gases, but I never really considered them to be something that could affect your allergies. The solution that it gives is to read the safety information on the label, and manufacturer's instructions when using any chemical cleaning product.  Great job Shar!

Heather's Learning Activity

This was a great site! I couldn't believe some of the costs on here! I don't see my bills, since my dad pays my insurance and bills so I had no idea! I feel bad for the people without insurance, because something as small as an ear infection can cost quite a bit of money.  If you didn't have insurance it would be really hard to pay for all of these things.  Good activity Heather!!

Christen's Learning Activity

I thought this game was fun to watch.  All of it was very true.  It is sad that they just raise prices, so that the top people who are already making more than enough money can just make more.  It makes me think of all the greediness of people in the U.S.  This was good activity and you had a lot of good information as well. Good job Christen! 

Share and Voice: Environmental Cartoons

As I was looking at some comic strip cartoons today on the internet, I came across a website that had comic strips all related to the environment.  I started reading some of them and they were actually pretty good.  I just remember when I was younger and would always read take the comic strip section out of the newspaper.  Reading these comic strips just made me think that if these were put into all newspapers it would increase awareness about environmental issues in a fun way! Kids would be reading the comics for fun, but it would still be getting the message across!  

This was my favorite comic:To view more click here.

Share and Voice: National Drinking Water Week

I just wanted to let everyone know that it is National Drinking Water Week from May 3rd-May 9th. This week is set aside to help educate people about the water cycle and how water can be contaminated. Here is an article that explains why drinking water can be a concern.  I'm sure that we all know many of the harmful elements that can be in our water and the harm they can do to us, but this just reiterates this and also shows some other toxins that I didn't know about.  I got this information from a website called Tox Town.  It is really cool, because you can click on different locations, such as farms, cities, and towns and see some of the health issues that go on in each area, or how these locations contribute to the harmful effects. It even talks about the Swine Flu, which is a hot topic as of right now!! 

Advocacy Project: Guide to Long-Term Care (LTC) Insurance

Title: Your Guide to Long-Term Care Insurance

Purpose: The purpose for this exercise is to educate you on the long-term care options that are currently offered.  Also as you are reading about the options, the costs, and the benefits, I want you to think about whether you would rather have long-term care be at an affordable national price, or be able to choose your own plan.

Reasoning: I believe long-term health care should be available at an equally affordable price to every U.S. citizen.  From the AARPBulletintoday wrote an article expressing the costs and whether or not it is affordable enough for it to be a realistic option for everyone at this point, without being government funded.  After reading this article it hardly seems fair for the government to not do something when it is denying this right to many people, because of the costs.  Health People 2010 has expressed lowering the rates of people who don't have adequate access to long-term care by 2010, which is great that something is being done about it.  It still isn't enough, because there are so many people without any health care coverage, which means even more don't have long-term care coverage, as it is an added expense.  Although the NCCNHR does express some pro's to companies offering long-term care, it always comes back to the number one con of it being too expensive for many people.  Every site that I have looked at always expresses the trouble of it being too expensive!!!

Instructions:

1.Go to Guide to Long-Term Care (LTC) Insurance page

2. Click on each of the links to learn more about each topic. 

(Especially What are the types of long-term care policies? and What do policies cost?)

3. Comment on what you learned about the topics. What you agreed with or didn't agree with.

4. Tell me your opinion on whether you think long-term care should be a nationwide, affordable policy or if you should be able to set-up your own health care policy.

Hey..so I know that I already made a post about places going green, but I actually found this really cool youtube video about Target.  It tells the ways that Target is going green and then gives you a bunch of ways that you can help out while shopping at Target.  I personally LOVE Target and go there often so I thought that this video applied directly to me. Take a look

Reflection: Weeks 13 and 14

HEY!!! I can't believe that we only have 1 more week of class left and then it's finals week!!! This semester just flew right by!!  I will miss all of you next semester!! Anyways..on to the last 2 weeks.

Week 13

We started off week 13 by watching a video called "Story of Stuff."  It explained in detail the cycle of all the goods and services.  Also, it brought up many of the social and environmental issues that we are facing today.  One thing that I really liked is how she compared how economy works today and how it worked in the past when material objects weren't the biggest concern.  The example she used, about one year "thick heels" being in and then the next year "skinny heals" being in, put what is going on in our economy into perspective, because it is so true!!

During this week we also got to go to Bagley Nature Center and do a navigation project.  It was a really nice day out, so it was nice to be able to be outside.  We got to learn how to use a compass, which I preciously didn't know how to use.  It was fun to see how good or bad you were at reaching each tape point.

Week 14

On Tuesday we  had a speaker come in, who is currently working for AmeriCorp .  It was really neat to learn what he is doing to help out in the environment.  I also didn't know very much about AmeriCorp, so it was nice to be able to learn something about it.  I thought he was a very good speaker!

Yesterday we did a SUPER fun activity.  We got into our web groups and Dr.V brought in some "junk" items and we had to come up with ideas of what to do with them.  All the groups were really creative during this and it was fun to see what everyone had come up with.  I have to say that our group was pretty funny when it came to this challenge! Great Job Guys!!:) 

Well lets get through this last week and then we can enjoy summer!!:)