PowerPoint Review

Let me know your thoughts!

Indigenous Resistance Synthesis

Michael Marker’s, Indigenous Resistance and Racist Schooling, discusses how the Coast Salish Indians were assimilated. During the 1900s the Coast Salish people were brought into modern culture. The Coast Salish Indians lived on the Washington State and Canadian border. Within the United States’ borders the Salish Indians were placed into boarding schools, however in those in Canada were sent to traditional schools along with other Canadians. Discrimination was not a huge issue in the United States for these people because they were all in boarding schools together, but in Canada, discrimination was fierce due to the Salish being placed in school with the rest of the Canadians.

This article reminded me of when American schools became integrated. Basically what happened in Canada happened here when Whites and Blacks started going to the same schools. American avoided the problem by placing all of the Salish Indians into a boarding school just for them, thus preventing discrimination. 

Factory Farming & Clayton,NC

I grew up in Clayton, NC in Johnston County. Johnston County use to be well known for tobacco farming. Now, not many people farm tobacco due to the government. However, many of these small farms have converted into pig farms or corn/soybean farms. While I understand that the business practices of large corporations are not right when it comes to how they treat their employees, I do think that factory farming is essential to our current lifestyles. Because the United States eats so much meat and corn based products, to have enough, everything must be mass produced. In the end you are just killing the animal anyways. It is sad, but it is the only way to keep our society fed and unless you can change our society’s diet, there is no way factory farming will ever end.

Biotechnology Reading

            I thought the biotechnology reading was a good example persuading with balanced arguments. In the essay the author uses both arguments that support is view point and also uses arguments that go against his view. By using arguments that go against ones views allows him to disprove those arguments which makes his original argument look better.

            The reading itself was about feeding the poor and genetically modified foods. Personally I have to support genetically modified foods. While they might not be as healthy for us, it is better than increasing the amount of people who are starving for food. If we did not genetically modify foods then the amount of people that would go hungry would increase a lot faster than food production. In this day and age, making everything organic or as close to organic as possible is just not feasible. There are seven billion people in the world and continually increasing. We have to find ways to increase food production and if that means genetically modified foods then so be it. 

Fracking Synthesis

Ryan Shumate

Dr. Hill Taylor

ENG 101

March 1^st 2012

Fracking Synthesis

            After reading the article on Natural Gas Fracking linked to Water Contamination, I think that the Environmental Protection Agency needs more accurate data before it can accuse fracking for water contamination. Due to the EPA being a government agency, they should be required to use data from outside sources so that their data is not considered bias. For example, “there was a single detection of 2-BE among all the samples collected in the deep monitoring wells. It was found in one sample by only one of three labs.” Obviously more tests need to be run to find out if it is certain that fracking is the cause for ground water contamination. There are hundreds of other possible causes for ground water contamination and people are using this to fight fracking. Fracking is allowing the United States to actually produce more natural gas. The United States is already far enough behind the way it is with production. Our society runs on fossil fuels and if we do not have them, it will fail. Damaging the environment to withdraw these fossil fuels is sometimes necessary. New water filters can be designed to get rid of contaminates in the ground water. The ground water already has to go through filters before we drink it anyways, so it’s just another filter we will have to use. There are some necessary sacrifices we have to make to continue to live the way we do and the environment is one of them. However, if the EPA can provide sufficient data saying the fracking is a major cause in groundwater contamination, then it needs to be looked at. Until they can provide sufficient data that says otherwise, they should continue fracking.

Powerpoint Thoughts

Creating a Powerpoint is a lot more interesting than writing a paper. Typically papers contain a lot of fluff just so that they meet a page length. Powerpoints give all the same information without the fluff. Plus they are a lot more enjoyable to make than sitting and writing for hours on end. In most papers you do not get to use pictures and charts, where as with powerpoint they add a whole lot to the presentation. Powerpoints also show that you know the information that you are presenting. With a paper, most of the time, you look up the information, write it down and forget about it. With a powerpoint, you have to know what you are talking about when you give the presentation, because if you do not know what you are talking about, people can tell by the way you present. All around, using powerpoint is a much more enjoyable experience than writing a paper.

Environmental History Artifact

Clayton, NC 2005

Clayton, NC 2010

These two photos represent the change over the past few years in the town that I grew up in, Clayton,NC. If you look towards the center what use to be a huge wooded area has now been demolished, and they are building houses. Recently, not pictured on the map, across from the homes they have also demolished the wooded area across from them for a public park. Along the lower left hand corners you will notice where about two years ago they built the Highway 70 Bypass. It is amazing how just after a few years how much we can change the landscape of the Earth.