Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Earth Month
It's almost the end of Earth month! Oh no! Help celebrate while you can. Here's three things you can do to help the environment:
One: clean up right. Most light bulbs contain mercury. Because of that fact, we must properly clean up our light bulbs. If we don't, the mercury will get in the air and the water. Lots of fish have mercury in them, in fact, fish, out of all animals, have the most amount of mercury in their bodies. Mercury gets in their water and their food from toxic waste. The larger the fish, the more mercury the fish contains in its body. This is because a larger fish eats more than a smaller fish so it takes in more mercury. At our Earth Day celebration, I learned how to properly clean up a broken CFL light bulb you must:
1) Keep people and pets away from the breakage area - do not step on the area when leaving.
2) Open windows and leave the area for 15 minutes before returning to begin cleanup.
3) Wear rubber gloves and dust mask - put in glass container when finished.
4) Carefully remove large pieces and place them in glass container.
5) Using duct tape pick up all the remaining fine particles and put in glass container.
6) Wipe the area with a damp micro fiber cloth, then put the cloth in glass container but, do not rinse the cloth between uses.
7) Put all waste and cleanup materials in the glass container, seal and label it Toxic Waste Broken Light.
8) Wash your hands and face carefully with soap.
9) Remove glass container from the home.
10) Continue ventilating the room for several hours.
11) Take the glass container with the waste material to a facility that accepts toxic waste.
12) Check http://earth911.com/ for a toxic waste facility near you.
13) If you have throw rugs, remove them and bring them to the toxic waste facility.
14) If the break happened on carpeting, cut the area of carpet were the breakage occurred particularly if the area is requested by infants, small children, pregnant woman, the elderly, pets, or people with compromised immune systems
Never:
Use a vacuum even one with a HEPA filter.
Use a broom.
Pour mercury down a drain in your yard or sewer.
Wash clothing or other items that have come in direct contact with mercury.
Walk around your house or yard if your shoes might be contaminated with mercury.
Two: think before you throw. Our front yard has been totally trashed by litter. We live on the end of our street and people throw everything on our yard. One time we found a bike behind one of our really big bushes. The sad part was at that time we had a rabbit living in another one of our bushes. About a month later he left. All this litter is killing our plants and animals. Throwing our trash away is no better. It's just being put in landfills which also hurt the environment. The best we can do is recycle so we can reuse what we already have. I have a poster on my closet door showing endangered animals of Arizona. There are 18 types of fish, 17 types of plants, six types of birds, six types of mammals, and one type of reptile on this poster. That's 48 types of almost extinct animals! I would think before I throw.
Three: no more oil(!) Recently, there was a large oil spill near the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, it's losing a few thousand gallons a day! Oil spills kill lots of animals and coat their fur in oil. The oil spills are more dangerous than you probably think. The oil pollutes the water that fish breathe, and it kills the fish. Once all the fish are dead, then the animals that eat the fish die. Then all the animals that eat those animals die out and so on until there's nothing else on this planet. It's definitely worse than you think. No more oil!
That's just some of the things you can do to help the planet. There's also one other thing you can do to help the planet without doing labor at all. Start a writing campaign or a series of shows on YouTube or another website that you can show to the public to help the environment. One last thing: remember, every day is Earth Day.
One: clean up right. Most light bulbs contain mercury. Because of that fact, we must properly clean up our light bulbs. If we don't, the mercury will get in the air and the water. Lots of fish have mercury in them, in fact, fish, out of all animals, have the most amount of mercury in their bodies. Mercury gets in their water and their food from toxic waste. The larger the fish, the more mercury the fish contains in its body. This is because a larger fish eats more than a smaller fish so it takes in more mercury. At our Earth Day celebration, I learned how to properly clean up a broken CFL light bulb you must:
1) Keep people and pets away from the breakage area - do not step on the area when leaving.
2) Open windows and leave the area for 15 minutes before returning to begin cleanup.
3) Wear rubber gloves and dust mask - put in glass container when finished.
4) Carefully remove large pieces and place them in glass container.
5) Using duct tape pick up all the remaining fine particles and put in glass container.
6) Wipe the area with a damp micro fiber cloth, then put the cloth in glass container but, do not rinse the cloth between uses.
7) Put all waste and cleanup materials in the glass container, seal and label it Toxic Waste Broken Light.
8) Wash your hands and face carefully with soap.
9) Remove glass container from the home.
10) Continue ventilating the room for several hours.
11) Take the glass container with the waste material to a facility that accepts toxic waste.
12) Check http://earth911.com/ for a toxic waste facility near you.
13) If you have throw rugs, remove them and bring them to the toxic waste facility.
14) If the break happened on carpeting, cut the area of carpet were the breakage occurred particularly if the area is requested by infants, small children, pregnant woman, the elderly, pets, or people with compromised immune systems
Never:
Use a vacuum even one with a HEPA filter.
Use a broom.
Pour mercury down a drain in your yard or sewer.
Wash clothing or other items that have come in direct contact with mercury.
Walk around your house or yard if your shoes might be contaminated with mercury.
Two: think before you throw. Our front yard has been totally trashed by litter. We live on the end of our street and people throw everything on our yard. One time we found a bike behind one of our really big bushes. The sad part was at that time we had a rabbit living in another one of our bushes. About a month later he left. All this litter is killing our plants and animals. Throwing our trash away is no better. It's just being put in landfills which also hurt the environment. The best we can do is recycle so we can reuse what we already have. I have a poster on my closet door showing endangered animals of Arizona. There are 18 types of fish, 17 types of plants, six types of birds, six types of mammals, and one type of reptile on this poster. That's 48 types of almost extinct animals! I would think before I throw.
Three: no more oil(!) Recently, there was a large oil spill near the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, it's losing a few thousand gallons a day! Oil spills kill lots of animals and coat their fur in oil. The oil spills are more dangerous than you probably think. The oil pollutes the water that fish breathe, and it kills the fish. Once all the fish are dead, then the animals that eat the fish die. Then all the animals that eat those animals die out and so on until there's nothing else on this planet. It's definitely worse than you think. No more oil!
That's just some of the things you can do to help the planet. There's also one other thing you can do to help the planet without doing labor at all. Start a writing campaign or a series of shows on YouTube or another website that you can show to the public to help the environment. One last thing: remember, every day is Earth Day.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Journey of Stuff
Since my mom is getting out of the girl scout business, we spent last Thursday with all the girl scout families cleaning out and moving all the girl scout stuff out of our garage. My mom decided that since it was also Earth Day on Thursday, April 22nd, we could also show them a short documentary called The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard. It is about where our stuff comes from, what happens when we throw it away, how it is affecting the environment, and how we are on a dangerous path which is using up all our resources. If you haven't seen this film, and you also have a lot of stuff, you can watch it free on the Internet at : http://www.storyofstuff.com/. We also have her new book, The Story of Stuff, which includes all her research on the subject for 10 years.
The first problem with our ways of making stuff, is the fact that we are running out of natural resources to make the stuff with. Almost one third of the worlds natural resources have already been consumed and thrown away. I would really like to know how long it will take to consume the rest of the world's resources at this rate. It is obvious that our way of making stuff needs to stop. It is even more vital that we stop putting so many chemicals in our stuff.
Some products have been known to have up to one hundred thousand synthetic chemicals in them of which none have been tested with other chemicals we use in day to day life. Pillows, some blankets, and mattresses are good examples of this. They are doused in B.F.Rs (Brominated Flame Retardants), otherwise known as a Neurotoxin, otherwise know as a toxin that kills brain cells. A pleasant thing to rest your head on for eight to ten hours a night! Adding chemicals to products also ruins the environment. Although a lot of the chemicals leave the factories in the form of products, even more chemicals leave as pollution. The United States alone admits to releasing more than 4,000,000,000 lbs. of pollution each year.
The next part of the journey of stuff, is actually buying the stuff. This is often no problem for the average American as they buy stuff all the time, but who said we were really buying the stuff. Part of the documentary was about how we don't really pay for the stuff we buy. One day she was walking to work and wanted to listen to the radio so she went to Radio Shack and bought a radio, for five dollars. As she listened to it, she began to wonder how the radio could cost her five dollars. She learned that the metals were likely mined in South Africa, The Plutonium was drilled in Iraq, the plastics were probably made in China, and the whole thing was probably put together by some fifteen year old in Mexico. Either way, it made me think that I can't even get a bus ticket that would take me to the next city with five dollars let alone across several countries! I wonder how they have enough money to pay the workers.
The final problem with the journey of stuff is how we are getting rid of it. Corporations have long ago mastered the art of scamming customers. Two of their most useful ones are planned obsolescence, and perceived obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is when the corporations try to make an object break, become archaic, or useless as fast as they can. The sad part is, it works. Ninety-nine percent of all the stuff we throw away was purchased less than six weeks ago. Perceived obsolescence is when the corporation tries to convince you to throw away perfectly good stuff by making it look out of fashion. In other words both planned and perceived obsolescence means "designed for the dump." After the corporations have convinced you to throw away an item, it is then dragged out to the curb where it spends the night with all the other junk awaiting its fate. Our unfortunate can of garbage is then taken to a landfill that is just a big hole in the ground. The junk then gets either buried in the landfill, or burned in an incinerator and then buried in the landfill. Although both methods are extremely dangerous to the environment because of the possibility of any water in the landfill becoming leachate (an extremely toxic material made as water trapped in the landfill is blended into the toxic chemicals) and flowing into ground water supplies and poisoning them. Incinerating trash before burial is even more dangerous to the environment. Do you remember all those toxic chemicals that were in all that stuff that was just thrown out: the Neurotoxins and the B.F.Rs in the pillows, mattresses, and blankets? Well, they were just incinerated and the chemicals were changed into the super toxin called Dioxin (deadliest toxin known to science) under the high heat. So just throwing away stuff is not as simple as it seems.
In her new book about the story of stuff, an example of one of the things she does for school presentations is she takes a soda can, places it on the table, and asks the students, "What is it?" If the can is on the table, they say, "It is a soda can." Next, she throws the soda can in the trash can and asks the students, "What is it now?" If the same can is now in the trash can, they say, "It is trash." She pulls it out...it's a can. She puts it back in...its trash. So trash isn't the condition of an object, it is whether or not it is in the trash can. Another way of explaining this theory is that what one person thinks is trash, may not be considered trash by another person. Also in her book, she talks about being in Bangladesh and seeing an old shampoo bottle she threw in the trash later the next day pulled out of the trash and with the addition of wheels it was now a child's toy car. When my mom looks in my room, all she sees is "trash." My favorite Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows poster = trash to her. My dad's slightly battered acoustic guitar = goodwill item or garage sale item or dumpster contents. Plans for a hydraulic engine system that I plan to earn a million dollars with = fire place food. Kirby pinata I made out of paper mache = art box, garage or any other place on earth (or not) where she will never have to look at it again. These are only a few examples. If I were to list all of the stuff she has an urge to give away, throw away, or light fire to, I would have to start a whole other blog.
However, this blog is about what our family is doing in our homeschool "mystery." So what we are doing this month is trying to figure out how we can stop environmental problems. We also went to Earth Day at the Chandler Environmental Education Center and International Migratory Bird Day at the Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area. I think it would be nice if people would celebrate Earth Day past April 22nd.
The first problem with our ways of making stuff, is the fact that we are running out of natural resources to make the stuff with. Almost one third of the worlds natural resources have already been consumed and thrown away. I would really like to know how long it will take to consume the rest of the world's resources at this rate. It is obvious that our way of making stuff needs to stop. It is even more vital that we stop putting so many chemicals in our stuff.
Some products have been known to have up to one hundred thousand synthetic chemicals in them of which none have been tested with other chemicals we use in day to day life. Pillows, some blankets, and mattresses are good examples of this. They are doused in B.F.Rs (Brominated Flame Retardants), otherwise known as a Neurotoxin, otherwise know as a toxin that kills brain cells. A pleasant thing to rest your head on for eight to ten hours a night! Adding chemicals to products also ruins the environment. Although a lot of the chemicals leave the factories in the form of products, even more chemicals leave as pollution. The United States alone admits to releasing more than 4,000,000,000 lbs. of pollution each year.
The next part of the journey of stuff, is actually buying the stuff. This is often no problem for the average American as they buy stuff all the time, but who said we were really buying the stuff. Part of the documentary was about how we don't really pay for the stuff we buy. One day she was walking to work and wanted to listen to the radio so she went to Radio Shack and bought a radio, for five dollars. As she listened to it, she began to wonder how the radio could cost her five dollars. She learned that the metals were likely mined in South Africa, The Plutonium was drilled in Iraq, the plastics were probably made in China, and the whole thing was probably put together by some fifteen year old in Mexico. Either way, it made me think that I can't even get a bus ticket that would take me to the next city with five dollars let alone across several countries! I wonder how they have enough money to pay the workers.
The final problem with the journey of stuff is how we are getting rid of it. Corporations have long ago mastered the art of scamming customers. Two of their most useful ones are planned obsolescence, and perceived obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is when the corporations try to make an object break, become archaic, or useless as fast as they can. The sad part is, it works. Ninety-nine percent of all the stuff we throw away was purchased less than six weeks ago. Perceived obsolescence is when the corporation tries to convince you to throw away perfectly good stuff by making it look out of fashion. In other words both planned and perceived obsolescence means "designed for the dump." After the corporations have convinced you to throw away an item, it is then dragged out to the curb where it spends the night with all the other junk awaiting its fate. Our unfortunate can of garbage is then taken to a landfill that is just a big hole in the ground. The junk then gets either buried in the landfill, or burned in an incinerator and then buried in the landfill. Although both methods are extremely dangerous to the environment because of the possibility of any water in the landfill becoming leachate (an extremely toxic material made as water trapped in the landfill is blended into the toxic chemicals) and flowing into ground water supplies and poisoning them. Incinerating trash before burial is even more dangerous to the environment. Do you remember all those toxic chemicals that were in all that stuff that was just thrown out: the Neurotoxins and the B.F.Rs in the pillows, mattresses, and blankets? Well, they were just incinerated and the chemicals were changed into the super toxin called Dioxin (deadliest toxin known to science) under the high heat. So just throwing away stuff is not as simple as it seems.
In her new book about the story of stuff, an example of one of the things she does for school presentations is she takes a soda can, places it on the table, and asks the students, "What is it?" If the can is on the table, they say, "It is a soda can." Next, she throws the soda can in the trash can and asks the students, "What is it now?" If the same can is now in the trash can, they say, "It is trash." She pulls it out...it's a can. She puts it back in...its trash. So trash isn't the condition of an object, it is whether or not it is in the trash can. Another way of explaining this theory is that what one person thinks is trash, may not be considered trash by another person. Also in her book, she talks about being in Bangladesh and seeing an old shampoo bottle she threw in the trash later the next day pulled out of the trash and with the addition of wheels it was now a child's toy car. When my mom looks in my room, all she sees is "trash." My favorite Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows poster = trash to her. My dad's slightly battered acoustic guitar = goodwill item or garage sale item or dumpster contents. Plans for a hydraulic engine system that I plan to earn a million dollars with = fire place food. Kirby pinata I made out of paper mache = art box, garage or any other place on earth (or not) where she will never have to look at it again. These are only a few examples. If I were to list all of the stuff she has an urge to give away, throw away, or light fire to, I would have to start a whole other blog.
However, this blog is about what our family is doing in our homeschool "mystery." So what we are doing this month is trying to figure out how we can stop environmental problems. We also went to Earth Day at the Chandler Environmental Education Center and International Migratory Bird Day at the Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area. I think it would be nice if people would celebrate Earth Day past April 22nd.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Pistol Packin' Mama
The big day came where we downloaded the "Affidavit of Intent to Home School" form, signed our promise that we would "provide at least the subjects of reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies, and science," got the form notarized, and all piled into the car to file the form at the county courthouse. When we got there, all four of us went in with the magic form. We handed the form over to the woman expecting . . . ? "Are you sure about this?" "We need to take your photos for the FBI." "Here's a list of the testing schedule so we can check if you're doing your job." "You're the worst parents ever." We heard none of that. The lady merely said, "Thanks." No balloons dropped from the ceiling. No judge shook our hand. No family photo was taken.
Now what? My first concern was that we get out and meet some other homeschoolers so my kids wouldn't feel like they were the only ones being homeschooled. After all, my biggest reservation about homeschooling was the worry that my children would not be exposed to diversity. I remember when Amy Carter attended public school during the Carter presidency, and that is the first recollection I have of the importance of mixing socioeconomic classes. Around that time, I began to take note of the segregation within my own southern California community. We had a hispanic housekeeper that we used to drive home at the end of her day of working for us. They were a large family with four or five kids and various other family members all living in a one-bedroom rented mobile home across the street from the railroad tracks in our pricey beach community. We would drive up to find her family's laundry drying on the clothesline after her day of doing our family's laundry. This seemed like injustice to me. My mother did not have a job outside the home, it just seemed like we had a housekeeper because that is what one did. My mother would tell me, "Elena is happy to have the job with us because she just wants to send money home to Mexico." So then I wanted to know what was going on in Mexico! I was pretty sure Elena's family did not have a lot to eat because they were relieving us of our male baby goats left and right. About this time, I became the "president" of our 4-H goat group (hold the applause) so I was learning a lot about dairy goats, and I knew that the females were coveted for the milk and there wasn't a lot of use for the males other than breeding (Elena lived in a trailer without a yard) or meat. I asked why we didn't take Juan the gardener home after his day with us, but that was because Juan didn't have a home. He lived in a cardboard box in a canyon near our house. My friends and I used to play in the canyon during the day, and we saw how Juan lived. So when people ask me, "Why don't you just move to a nicer neighborhood with better schools?" I really don't want to live in the high house on the hill anymore.
So how was I going to expose my kids to different people, such as they would get at school, when most days it was the three of us genetically-linked "diverse" people hanging out together. We started going to homeschool support groups, park days, museum days, art classes, field trips, music classes, etc. Early on, we were probably doing too much as we were gone almost every day for this or that activity for homeschoolers. One of the biggest surprises to homeschooling has been the oddball people we have met since we left the school system. There's the kid who has a seizure disorder so his mom has to stay with him all the time so she figured she'd just start homeschooling him. We've met several dyslexic kids -- totally smart kids, but worksheets and in-class board work were completely wasted time for them. We know kids that were adopted from different countries that are being homeschooled because their ages and their ability level (aka "grade" level) do not match. Also, many kids that, for whatever reason, are either way above or way below grade level; the school system tends to just not know what to do with these kids. We have also learned about different religions because there are lots of people that homeschool so they can infuse religion as part of what their kids learn. I've met parents that are anti-vaccination, anti-medicine, and anti-establishment. My favorite mom: the "pistol packin' mama," always showed up to homeschool park days with a baby in a sling and a gun on her hip. I have lived one block from the "projects" in downtown San Francisco, have frequently walked London parks in the dark of night when I lived there, have traveled through Checkpoint Charlie in East Berlin when that was still in existence, and currently work as a an ER nurse which is consistently rated as one of the top professions for workplace violence. At my job, at any time, we have armed hospital security, armed Sheriff's officers, armed Department of Corrections officers, prisoners, AND gang members, but somehow a group of homeschooling children and moms in a suburban park appeared to be a danger to her. Gotta love homeschoolers!
Now what? My first concern was that we get out and meet some other homeschoolers so my kids wouldn't feel like they were the only ones being homeschooled. After all, my biggest reservation about homeschooling was the worry that my children would not be exposed to diversity. I remember when Amy Carter attended public school during the Carter presidency, and that is the first recollection I have of the importance of mixing socioeconomic classes. Around that time, I began to take note of the segregation within my own southern California community. We had a hispanic housekeeper that we used to drive home at the end of her day of working for us. They were a large family with four or five kids and various other family members all living in a one-bedroom rented mobile home across the street from the railroad tracks in our pricey beach community. We would drive up to find her family's laundry drying on the clothesline after her day of doing our family's laundry. This seemed like injustice to me. My mother did not have a job outside the home, it just seemed like we had a housekeeper because that is what one did. My mother would tell me, "Elena is happy to have the job with us because she just wants to send money home to Mexico." So then I wanted to know what was going on in Mexico! I was pretty sure Elena's family did not have a lot to eat because they were relieving us of our male baby goats left and right. About this time, I became the "president" of our 4-H goat group (hold the applause) so I was learning a lot about dairy goats, and I knew that the females were coveted for the milk and there wasn't a lot of use for the males other than breeding (Elena lived in a trailer without a yard) or meat. I asked why we didn't take Juan the gardener home after his day with us, but that was because Juan didn't have a home. He lived in a cardboard box in a canyon near our house. My friends and I used to play in the canyon during the day, and we saw how Juan lived. So when people ask me, "Why don't you just move to a nicer neighborhood with better schools?" I really don't want to live in the high house on the hill anymore.
So how was I going to expose my kids to different people, such as they would get at school, when most days it was the three of us genetically-linked "diverse" people hanging out together. We started going to homeschool support groups, park days, museum days, art classes, field trips, music classes, etc. Early on, we were probably doing too much as we were gone almost every day for this or that activity for homeschoolers. One of the biggest surprises to homeschooling has been the oddball people we have met since we left the school system. There's the kid who has a seizure disorder so his mom has to stay with him all the time so she figured she'd just start homeschooling him. We've met several dyslexic kids -- totally smart kids, but worksheets and in-class board work were completely wasted time for them. We know kids that were adopted from different countries that are being homeschooled because their ages and their ability level (aka "grade" level) do not match. Also, many kids that, for whatever reason, are either way above or way below grade level; the school system tends to just not know what to do with these kids. We have also learned about different religions because there are lots of people that homeschool so they can infuse religion as part of what their kids learn. I've met parents that are anti-vaccination, anti-medicine, and anti-establishment. My favorite mom: the "pistol packin' mama," always showed up to homeschool park days with a baby in a sling and a gun on her hip. I have lived one block from the "projects" in downtown San Francisco, have frequently walked London parks in the dark of night when I lived there, have traveled through Checkpoint Charlie in East Berlin when that was still in existence, and currently work as a an ER nurse which is consistently rated as one of the top professions for workplace violence. At my job, at any time, we have armed hospital security, armed Sheriff's officers, armed Department of Corrections officers, prisoners, AND gang members, but somehow a group of homeschooling children and moms in a suburban park appeared to be a danger to her. Gotta love homeschoolers!
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