Archive for month: October, 2015

When I first started reading chapter seven I was having a hard time taking the content seriously. The chapter discussed how Teens were choosing to get pregnant due to shows like Teen Mom and The Secrete Life of the American Teenager. I think if anything these shows depicted the hardships that come along with being a teenage mother and how having sex is an adult activity that can lead to adult consequences. Just like the chapter we read on violence due to media, I do not believe that teenage pregnancy or divorce rates have anything to do with what people are seeing in the media. I think that those type of lifestyle chooses are due to peoples own decisions and that by seeing how glamours it is to be a divorced parent in no way will make someone want to go out and file for divorce. I can understand concerns that parents may have about media  (as shown in the New York Times video) but I believe that just watching a television program or listening to a specific song will not change the values a child holds dear nor will it make a teenager want to go out and have a baby. I think that children learn by example and the best example they have is their parents.

I thought the video Sex, Drugs, and Gore was very interesting. I thought it was funny how one mother said she thought it was not appropriate for her daughter to buy Prince’s Purple Rain album. Then why let your kid buy it?? Whose fault is that? I get that some music can be pretty graphic, but you can control what children listen to. I know my parents did not let me listen to certain songs when I was younger, and once I listened to those songs later, I realized why they did not let me hear them. How about instead of criticizing everything, you talk to your kids about the songs and why they’re inappropriate.You can only control so much of what they listen to, but you can talk to them as much as you want.

As for the sexualization of girls, I thought this website was wonderful. Not only does it provide the evidence for the sexualization of women, but it also provides tips for parents and girls. The most important tip I saw was just talking with them. I am not a parent, but I have a younger sister who just started high school. I always talk to her about appearance, boys, and fitting in. I always tell it like it is because I want her to see that this world is not all pink and pretty, but there are bigger issues going on in society like the sexualization of girls. I also loved the provided websites.

Sternheimer brings up the whole Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant issues, and how these shows idolized the teens pregnancies. I had a public speaking class once, and one time sometime gave a speech about those tv shows. I remember she said that the girls in the show got paid an outrageous amount for each episode, so this can be seen as idolization in a way. I always thought the show was dumb and not exactly a great model for teens. Also, I think there is a movie on Netflix about the whole 17 teens getting pregnant at the same time. I have never seen it, but I did not know that it was a true story from Massachusetts.

Going to the island I feel as though I was served an abundance of ideas. Maybe not for all students but for me I loved all of it I couldn’t get enough and wanted more to learn. Some majors despised the island while others loved it. In some strangely crazy way, every major was incorporated in this trip whether it be the math to see an estimated time frame to see if plants will grow to the art and seeing the beauty in the surroundings.

Being a biology major, there were so many opportunities to choose from when it comes down selecting something to your research liking. While selecting one is hard since there were very few things on the anatomy of the body I am just going to make a sharp left and talk about the second best thing I am good at and that’s botany. This is a very strange field I find myself excelling in due to the fact that I absolutely hate gardening I do not have the patience to keep watering and watching the growth I just want to see the final product as soon as I possibly can.

I think both myself and my lab professor already who spoke out at our roundtable could benefit from looking at the restoration of plants due to the hundreds of species of Bees. We could benefit in more than one way we get to see and discover the various species of bees and their interactions around plants. The second best part is that affiliates with how bees play a major role in not just the United States but on the islands along the coast where there are various endangered plants.

This research question will raise various eyebrows because we’re talking about bees and plants. They are both deadly and boring at the same time to the point where no one really thinks about these situations and just avoid all topics about these two together. However, this will spark the interests of other staff because it will solve a few answers like how plants continue to disperse and maybe even an answer to colony collapse disorder.

“We are all connected. To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically.” Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Symphony of Science: We Are All Connected”

Santa Rosa is apart of the Channel Islands which contains quite a history. When we first arrived on the island we walked through a small portion and discussed the Chumash heritage and when the ranchers settled. This brief history lesson prepared us for our Saturday field trips with the faculty.

My first expedition of the day started with Professor Matt Fermanski his field of study is sculpture making. He began by explaining how science connects to every aspect of education including art. In order to capture the true essence of art one has to look at the history of science first. Professor Matt took us the part of the island where the fresh water creek met the sea salt water of the ocean. I couldn’t help but think what a beautiful thing to see two bodies of water meeting and intertwining. He said it is importance to know why and how something works is truly needed to understand the beauty of what we are seeing. He then told us about on of his pieces he did that he let the ocean waves create the image. He had used booies with LED lights attached and thrown them in the ocean. Than using a camera positioned on the sand he was able to capture pictures to than create larger images. This is when I truly saw that science and art are intertwined. He had used the motion of nature and allowed it to create art.

The next journey was with Professor Allison Alvarado who focused her study’s on the process of speciation. She took us around and showed us a variety of birds that call Santa Rosa their home. She taught us how to look and listen for the different birds and then how to identify them. She reminded us that being on an island requires birds to adapt to their surroundings, it does not happen over night nor years. It takes decades for birds to learn a new skill then to pass it on to their young which we call adaption. Her lesson stuck with me because I learned the birds on islands have very different behavioral traits and characteristics then birds on the main land and over time they learn to live in such environments.

The last lesson or adventure would have to have been my favorite. We did species data with Cos right along side the shoreline. This by far was the highlight of my trip because we were physically doing research and having so much fun while doing so. We were able to use clam guns and collect the different creatures from the sand and enter what we found in data sheets. We started in the dry sand and worked vertically into the water collecting data with clam guns every 10 meters. In doing so we came across blood worms and sand crabs we had to count them all and write our results. At the end of this process the data collected would be used to keep tract of the numbers of habitats on Santa Rosa. This again was a reminder of the life that the land holds and how it can prosper when left untouched by civilization.

The multiple perspectives that we were exposed to over the weekend did help each of us gain a better understanding of Santa Rosa Island, just as how having a wide variety of disciplines within the SURF program itself assists in our ability to see the world out of a variety of lenses and attack problems in unique ways. At first glance, it seems as though it would be extremely strained to search for a relationship between the work of an environmentalist, an artist, a biologist, and an anthropologist; however, this was not the case. Even with such a wide array of potential projects on the island it is still possible to find strong links between each field and to approach the wealth of information that Santa Rosa has to offer in an interdisciplinary fashion.

There are already restoration efforts in process on Santa Rosa, with new plants being grown in the nursery in order to help the island recover from the variety of grazing animals which have been introduced to its ecosystem by humans throughout history. Cause Hanna and the botanists working in the nursery are all involved in this effort, working at replanting seeds that have been collected and sorting acorns to restore the oak trees. This project could easily benefit from the perspectives of all of our guest lecturers. Professor Furmanski could contribute an artistic eye to the project, as well as the interest in engineering that he had mentioned. Perhaps placing key plants or trees in certain locations could contribute to a more stable structure for the rest of the wildlife to grow around or feed off of. Professor Perry, an anthropologist, would be able to analyze areas of historical interest and protect them from being overgrown for the time being. Though this may seem to be more of a detriment to the project at hand, it would be more beneficial for knowing the history of the island and the people who have lived there. Professor Alvorado introduced the concept of varying landscapes in her lecture. She explained how certain birds fare better in an open landscape because they are able to see their prey with a more direct line of vision, while others perform better in environments with heavy foliage, using trees to their advantage by hunting smaller birds which may be hiding or resting there. By giving her opinion to the restoration project, she might be able to predict what kinds of animals might come to live in a certain region if they were to grow certain plants. Professor Alvorado may even be able to share an opinion in a case where growth may be detrimental to the existing life there.

Every lecturer on the SRI trip did have a lot to say in regards to their own fields, but there were subtleties about everything they told us which tied in seamlessly with interdisciplinary studies. As Thoreau states in his quote, it is incredible to have such a wide variety of disciplines that are able to see through one another’s eyes in order to achieve a greater good for the island and all of its inhabitants.