Plastic & Pollution!

Water Bottle and Plastic Pollution

1.These three Articles are about the pollution and hazards that are caused by the production and consumption of plastic water bottles.

2. Water pollution occurs when an outside substance is added to a body of water and had an effect on it other than what would happen if it were not added. I is a big problem because it is very difficult to have the water return back to its original state. It affects the marine life in the ocean.

3. Over usage of Fertilizers by Farmers, Damaged underground tanks that store toxic chemicals, Storm drains leading to the Ocean.

4. The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is an area in the Pacific Ocean about the size of Europe. In this 3.45 million square kilometer area there is an estimated 3.5 million tons of trash

5. The Pacific Ocean is home to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, 20 % of Pollution in the Pacific Ocean come from waste off of Cargo Ships. Less than 20% comes from trash from beachgoers; based on a study at UCSD about 9% of fish in the Ocean have plastic in their stomach.

6. Persistent Organic Pollutants are pollutants that the Pacific Ocean currents circulate in the air. There are 12 identified long lasting POP’s in the air; these pollutants can travel all over the world.

7. 13 % of plastic bottles end up recycled. That is a very small amount. The rest ends up in landfill. Some consequences of this are that the bottles that end up in landfill take hundreds of years to decompose. If they are incinerated, the toxic fumes from the plastic bottles are released into the air.

8. A. Think about buying cases of bottle water; think if it is possible to use a re-usable bottle that will provide the same amount of water for you and even more depending on the bottle.

B. Throw away your bottles in the correct bins

C. Attempted to recycle all of your plastic bottles, it is easy and a good way to make money and help the environment.

D. Consider the type of bottle water you use because not all brands are as safe as the tap water you may drink at your house!

E. What ever you do, do not let your bottles at the beach be swept into the ocean.

9. Re-usable bottles are where its at were not Jurassic, Think about the environment and get rid of that plastic.

10. If bottled water was prohibited in the U.S. I would be upset because so many people throughout the country use bottled water. They are cheap and convenient.

I drink at least one bottle of water a day. I know I could get by if I had to use Re-usable bottles but it would take some time to get used to the concept. On the other hand, after reading articles similar to these, I realize that the high percent of bottled water being consumed by Americans is hurting the environment in many ways so I would be relieved if we could end this pattern.

-I think I would give myself a B on this assignment because I could not annotate the article and I did not have much time to read it before. Next time I would make sure to prepare ahead.

Article Group Work

What are the Articles About???

Group 1: Roberto- His article was about a Food Crisis in Yemen. 1/2 of the population goes to bed hungry. 22% of the population can not provide food for there family.
Country's such as US, Britain, Germany, and France has pledges a total of 1.46 billion fo help

Group 2: Bo yen- a man in Pennsylvania shot his younger relative that was dressed up in her Halloween costume and looked like a skunk.

Group 3- Big Businesses ban plastic bags in their store. the bags are banned starting today october 22nd. Small businesses have until 2013.
I thought that this was a cool article because plastic bags are very detrimental to the environment.

Homelessness in the US has continued to remain a focus area of concern of social service providers, government officials in the US. The number of homeless people further grew in the 1980s, as housing and social service cuts increased and the economy deteriorated. The United States government determined that somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 Americans were then homeless.^[2]

 Since 2007, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued an Annual Homeless Assessment Report, which reports to Congress the number of individuals and families who are homeless in the previous year, both sheltered and unsheltered, in order to standardize data and collection processes for government officials and service providers.^[3]

According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 643,067 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide as of January 2009. Additionally, about 1.56 million people used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program during the 12-month period between October 1, 2008 and September 30, 2009. This number suggests that roughly 1 in every 200 persons in the US used the shelter system at some point in that period.^[4]

In 2008 the three most commonly cited causes of homelessness for persons in families were lack of affordable housing, cited by 72 percent of cities, poverty (52 percent), and unemployment (44 percent), and top ideas to stop homelessness were more housing for persons with disabilities (72%), more or better paying employment opportunities (68%), and more mainstream assisted housing (64%). One out of every three people living on the street is a veteran. 

My Father volunteers at the Homeless shelter at our church every wednesday. Every other Wednesday He is the hist and stays over night with them to make sure everything goes alright. He met a man named Doug that he became very clos with. eventually my Dad offered him a room in his house, this was about 8 months ago. Doug is still living with him and my Mom and Dad have helped him get his life together and he is starting to get disability and compensation money that the government owes him. It has been awesome to be a part of his life, his story is amazing! ask me about it;)

Duncan Rains

Eng. 70

Lily Owens- A Fresh Start

One of the most difficult challenges about growing up is discovering your true personality, changing from a child to an adult and realizing whom you are and becoming comfortable with who that is. The “Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd, Is based in the rural south in the 1960’s and follows a character named Lily as she transitions from a lonely child living on her abusive father’s peach farm into an independent beautiful girl living with a black family on their honey bee farm. She is on a journey to unravel the many secrets of her mother. In doing so, Lily learns that life will present you with many obstacles that will make her stronger as she conquers them. Lily has changes in a few different ways throughout the book. Three changes that I noticed were her ability to make friends, her physical appearance, and her attitude.

In the beginning of the book, Lily’s only friend was her housemaid Rosaleen. This is significant because not only was Rosaleen her only friend, she was also a lot older, and colored. This shows us that Lily had a lot of trouble fitting in with kids her age around town and at school. During this time, the coexistence of blacks and whites was not widely accepted by may people. Blacks were seen as inferior to whites in all ways. Not having a mother from a young age caused Rosaleen to be a motherly figure towards Lily, and Lily was very grateful for it. After Lily and Rosaleen got in trouble with the law and decided to leave for Tiburon something wonderful happens to Lily. The two girls find the Boatwright sisters and start to live with them. Lily and Rosaleen fit in well in the house, getting along with the sisters and the rest of the people on the farm with the exception of one of the sisters, June, who makes it very obvious that she is not fond of Lily. Eventually June cannot hold her grudge and becomes friends with Lily. While they are staying at the honey house, Lily makes plenty of new friends, the sisters, Zack, Neil, and the Daughters of Mary. By Lily making these new friends, she feels like she finally has a home and a place where people love and care about her which allows her to be herself and have a normal life.

In the beginning of the book, Lily herself implies that she is unattractive, talking about how none of the boys or girls at school like being around her and constantly make fun of her when she is out n the peach stand. She wants so badly to fit in with the kids at school and believes one of the reasons he doesn’t is because she is unattractive. Lily says, “you can tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair. My hair was constantly going off in eleven different directions”(3). After Lily and Rosaleen settle in at the Boatwright’s, Lily meets Zach, a young black male that goes to a local black high school that has helped August with her business since he was a little boy. I believe that Lily has an internal change when she starts her new life in Tiburon, with Zach and other people that care a lot for her, she is motivated to stay well groomed and strives to become better looking. Throughout the rest of the book people tell Lily how pretty she is. She is not used to this, so it is surprising when she hears it and thoroughly enjoys it. One afternoon when Zach takes Lily to Mr. Forest’s office, his secretary calls for Mr. Forest who then comes out and welcomes them. He says, “ And who would this pretty young lady be?” (157). Lily then answers with her first name only and when Zach and Mr. Forest recede into his office Lily wonders why she could not think of her last name, She says,” I think it was because he referred to me as pretty, which had been a shock to my system. “ When Lily was in Sylvan, she did not have anybody to give her advice on her looks, Rosaleen was there, but was never focused on changing Lily, she thought Lily was fine just the way she was. Lily’s looks change and mature because se can finally begin to think about herself instead of always pleasing T-Ray

When Lily was still living in Sylvan, her Father T-Ray would constantly be on her case about harmless things such as going out into the peach orchard at night just to relax (23). Because T-Ray had this sort of mentality, it caused Lily to be constantly paranoid, shy, and afraid, always worrying about not being worth anything and thinking that nobody cared about her. T-Ray was very abusive towards her, which also contributed towards Lily’s mood as a kid. After settling in at the Boatwright’s, we begin to see a difference in her attitude. Tiburon, the Sisters, Zach, and the Bees reveal parts of her that she did not know existed when she was living on the Peach Farm. She becomes more fun, open hearted, curious, and very respectful. Lily still has times when she is saddened by her past, but being surrounded by all the people in the house helps her recover from it. The family’s effects on Lily are in some ways similar to the Wailing Wall’s effects on May. It is there to comfort her, and for her to have a place to lay her grief to. 

            Lily finally finds the strength inside her to make friends, look nice, and have a more positive attitude. Bees have a secret life in their hive that only they know about as well as the characteristics that they show outside the hives that we humans know about. This is similar to Lily because she hides things in a shell about her past life as well as putting on a mask for the sisters and everyone else she meets after she leaves. Being with a family she is welcomed with allows her to mix these two personalities and show her true colors. She is able to change into what she always wanted to be and embrace her flaws. I think that The Secret Life of Bees shows us that we need to embrace who we are, despite our regrets and imperfections. Also, I believe that it portrays the ability to change your circumstances so you can live happily. Surrounding yourself with love and support is one of the most important things you need to succeed and have peace with yourself.

Questions	Event 1	Event 2	Event 3
What happened?	Zach gets thrown in jail for affiliating with the kids that threw the bottle at the white men.	May tells lily about her mom staying in the honey house.	May commits suicide.
When did it happen and where?	When Lily and Zach go into town together. outside the movie theater.	In the house one afternoon	One night when may answer the phone and finds out that Zach is in jail. she goes out the the river and drowns herself.
Who was involved? What did they say? What did they do?	6 White men Zack Lily Zach Zach's friends	May Lily	-May -She writes a suicide note -Holds a boulder over her chest on the river
Why is this an important event?	Zach gets thrown in jail, this creates a butterfly effect which eventually ends up with may killing herself.	Lily finally finds out that her mom was in tiburn which makes her more curious	May dies! this is very important! it has taken a sister out of the family. not sure what will come from this.

What do you think will happen next?

I think that next Neil and June will get married and Lily and Zach will continue their relationship. June and Lily will grow in their friendship. T-RAY will show up soon.

If Lily did not have hope do you believe that she would have gotten this far?

I think that hope is the whole reason that she has gotten this far. so know, with out it, i believe she would still be back on her peach fa with T-Ray and Rosaleen.

Theme Discussion

In groups of 3, discuss your themes:

1) What do you think is the main theme in this book?

2) Why? Explain your answer using passages, sentences, etc. from the book. Is this theme possible in the book?

3) Record your group answers in a grid like this:

Peer’s Name	Theme	Justification for choosing theme
1.Aubree	Death, Lily trying to find out what happened to her mom, escape	Lily goes to Tiburn to find out about her mom
2.Lai yanting/Marisa	Change	"i liked living in a dream world"
3. Duncan	Black and Whites attempting to coexist peacefully	"until now i didn't think it was even possible for a white to have these feelings towards a black"