GP Final Term Blog Post

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry that I have not written in two months but I have been busy forgetting that I was supposed to write to you. So to reconcile with his majesty, here is a recap on everything you've missed.

First off we took a field-trip to Pemuteran, which lies along the northwest coast of Bali. But before we went there we got to crash at Kathleen's hotel in Gianyar. We stayed there for a night and got to just relax. Then the next day at six in the morning we departed for the hotel that would become our temporary base of operations for the duration of the journey. There we stayed for only one night, for the time before the weekend was limited, and nobody wanted it to go into the weekend. While situated at the hotel and along the beach we discovered coral and fish upon which we did research for the upcoming assignment. We learned about the BioRock organization whose goal was to regrow the coral and ecosystems lost due to irresponsible fishing. The way the intended to do this, they told us, was through chemical stimulation of the coral whose increased growth speed would be of great help to the surrounding ecosystems. They stimulated the coral by running an electrical current through cables that ran along the ocean floor and into large re-bar structures which reacted with the water and the coral to help them grow their skeletal structures much faster which gave the corals much more time to develop in their entirety. After learning about the project we proceeded to see for ourselves what they had done. So we snorkeled for awhile for a couple times and saw all the pretty coral and fancy fish that scattered the sea floor. We ate, spent the night, and in the morning went snorkeling again and hunted for disrespectful garbage which we placed in bags, we also had rubber gloves. After all this we packed our things and went home, well... school, then home.

After this excursion we began working on a project that would last us the rest of the school year which is a project about GMO's where we are supposed to make some sort of podcast or the like, at least including voice i suppose the requirement is. So my group and I (Kathleen, Ratri, and I) decided we would make a cartoon with voices because that would be really fun. So we did that and now i'm writing this blog to you.

So that is a basic recount of what happened while I was away, I hope you enjoyed it :)

~Sid

PS: This is addressed to the blog, not you Joel

GP - Greenpeace Kit-Kat commercial

Today in class we discussed about the topics of several of the topics that we wrote about in the articles and then watched a short parodic commercial for kit-kat that was made by Greenpeace that graphically depicts how palm oil is used in kit-kat. We then learned about how the company tried to get the video banned and the word that spread from doing this.

yeah,

~Sid

Selling the Seas

Today in Global Perspectives we watched a video about how a new law was passed in Indonesia that will divide up the coastline and put it up for sale. We saw how this affected the people, and how it will supposedly 'help' the community. The government says the industries built will provide jobs for those without and help the economy flourish. It will increase the effectiveness of the fishing and aid the tourism industry. This was all promised, however, what is really happening is the fishermen who lived on the coastline that is now up for sale will lose their livelihood and their ability to feed their families, they will be evicted from their own homes due to the government's carelessness. The industries' concrete buildings that will be built on the coast will cause erosion, destroying the mangrove forests which will lead to more erosion, causing a chain reaction that will surely devastate the landscape.

I think that this law should not be passed and will cause major problems for the economy, and biodiversity of Indonesia.

Yup,

~Sid

GP class March 12

Today in class we watched a TED talk on the computer with Willie Smits, the founder of redapes.org and tapergy, doing a talk about what he has devoted his life to. He talked about revitalizing several areas in and around Indonesia. There was a lot of interesting and valuable information in it. However, i was too tired to process most of it.

Yup,

~Sid

The human impact on biological diversity. Another way to describe what i'm researching. And here's another plausible source of information, however i'm no 100% sure it'll have what i need but it seems alright http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n4/full/7400951.html

~Sid

5th GP Post

Yesterday in Global Perspectives class i did more in depth research into my topic and found one source that is actually exactly what i was looking for: http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n4/full/7400951.html
it describes about how species adapt to urban environments. how natural selection stresses the most adaptable species to adapt. Not only does it describe that, but also how some urban environments have become central to the biodiversity in the region.

I will probably be using this as one of my main sources of information, seeing as how it is so specific to what i was looking for.

Yeah, that's it.

~Sid

4th GP Post

HEY AGAIN!

So, today in class we did some more research and i found out what kind of topic i'm going to make my research plan on. I decided that i would research about how animals adapt to urbanization. Stuff like; bears digging through dumpsters, alligators living in swimming pools, etc. And i found that there is actually a word that describes this. Synurbization - adaptation of animal wildlife to

urban development. On a personal level i could obviously use examples of wild animals interacting in close contact with people. I'm not quite sure what i'll be doing for the local level but for the global level, i could write about the issues concerned with urbanization of natural environments. Like eliminating habitats of creatures to make cities. Because then the animals have to adapt to the new environment and so on.

Yeah.

~Sid

3rd GP post

HELLO

Well, today we looked up information regarding human's relationship with animals. We will eventually use this information to write a research plan. I spent most of the class on this one interesting site that had some interesting information about the history of how we have behaved with animals, and how we now should. I'm not quite sure yet what i want to research about, so i'll keep researching general information until i find something that catches my eye.

~Cid

2nd post

Today we visited the chikin shack in the school parking lot to observe their methods of raising the chikins. In comparison to the larger farm/shacks that we saw in the documentary, this one is much smaller and also has windows. However, the way the shack was set up was quite similar. Scattered food dispensers around a large, flat area where all the chikins were standing. The chikins looked quite healthier and more alert than the ones in the larger shacks in the documentary. They were also less cramped. However, i think this is only due to the fact that this farmer doesn't have access to the resources that the larger shacks have to make them more efficient. In other words, the shack would probably be less healthy and more "efficient" if the farmer had the resources to. Also, i would eat those chikins.

~Sid

1st GP class of term

Yesterday we started watching the documentary Food inc. I think it was a very well made documentary, affecting the audience's emotions quite well. It had many contrraversal facts and information, including videos and interviews that would not normally be released to the public. It has definately struck some of my peers and perhaps has changed their perspective on the food they eat. However, i'm still not sure what my viewpoint is.