Reflection: Weeks 13 & 14

WEEK 13:
On Tuesday we watched a little video called the story of stuff. It talked about the process that the things we use goes through to get to us and where it goes when we are done with it. It was really interesting I had no idea that there were so many processes that go into making some of the things we use . The video took us through the extraction to sale, when we use it and when we throw it away or dispose of it. It also informed us on what is hidden from our view such as how all the stuff in our lives affects the communities in our towns and abroad. It really opened my eyes up to the process of making things, and how it affects not only where we live but other countries. Some of the terms that were mentioned in the video included:

Extraction: taking the planets resources--wood, minerals, coal, fossil fuel, water, plants, animals, and soil out of the earth and starting their journey through the materials economy.
Production: In the production stage, we use energy to add toxic chemicals to the natural resources to make toxic products.
Distribution: involves transporting and selling all the stuff quickly and cheaply.
Consumption: our choices at the supermarkets, are pre-determined and limited by political and institutional forces beyond the store.
Disposal: Virtually all the resources flowing through the materials economy eventually end up as waste to be disposed somewhere, usually dumped or burned or recovered for recycling. Recycling can solve the growing volume and toxicity that our environment is experiencing.

We also had a Advocacy Project due this day, in which we were to take our issue that we choose and conduct an overview on it. It was interesting to reflect and research all the information that was related to your topic and learn more about it.

On Thursday we took a class field trip and headed over to Bagley Nature Area. While at Bagley we did a navigation activity. We learned how to use compasses (which was very useful for me to learn considering I have a slight problem with directions) and we were to find different flags that took us along a trail. I really enjoyed the activity it was a lot of fun to get out of the classroom and do something outside.

WEEK 14: On Tuesday we had a shorter class. We had a graduate student in UMD's Enviromental Health and Safety Master's Program come talk about his career and what he is currently doing in the environmental field. We also had another advocacy project due. We were to write a letter to our public representative and inform him/her on the bill we choose for our Healthy People/Thomas assignment.

On Thursday we had a "junking" day, we had strange objects that Dr. V collected from different places and we were put into our blogging groups to come up with repurposing ideas for the objects. It was interesting to see all the ideas that people came up with, some were really creative!! It was really fun to interact with out groups and get out of the normal classroom setting. Overall it was a really fun couple of weeks!!! I can't believe its almost over....

Share and Voice: Super One Foods

THANKS SUPER ONE FOODS!!!

Thank you Dr. V and Super one foods for giving us the reusable grocery bags! I am so excited to go and use mine. I dont have to decided on "paper or plastic" now:) Also thanks to Heather and Shar for their brillant idea for the thank you card!! Here are a couple interesting facts I found out about plastic bags and how we are going to help out the environment by using our eco-friendly grocery bags.

• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.
  



• According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.
  



• According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)



• Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade - breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest

facts found on resuablebags.com

Thanks AGAIN

Share and Voice: Whole Foods Co-op

Whole Foods Co-op

Today my community health class went on a field trip and visited the whole foods co-op here in duluth. We went on a tour of the building and I learned that even the building itself is environmentally friendly! The building is made out of recycled materials. For example the art outside of the building is made from glass and hand rails from a school. The carpeting inside the store is used from recycled tires,and some of the wooden beams on the ceilings are from logs found on the bottom of lake superior. It was really interesting to find out how you can take and reuse materials that you just throw away. The building is even more "green" on the inside. It has bike racks to promote biking, and a shower inside in case you want to walk or jog to work. They also have a solar panel outside and on a sunny day it generates enough energy to keep the registers and other things going for 8 hours!!!! I really enjoyed the tour and learned a lot about organic food and how the store is going green! If you haven't been there go and check it out, its pretty cool:)

Advocacy Project: Letter to a public official

April 28, 2009

Jim Oberstar
House of Representatives
Washington D.C. Office
2365 Rayburn HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Mr. Oberstar,

I am writing you this letter to inform you about the current bill H.R. 1031 : To promote a better health information system. I highly recommend your support for this bill. The bill would provide citizens and communities with advanced understanding of the health information system and also provide communities with the opportunity for more sanitary water supply, better hygiene and a cleaner overall healthier environment. The proposed bill will help numerous communities and third world countries become more informed and aware of the significance of a health system. It will help reduce of the number of diseases that are among third world countries and countries who are suffering from poor health systems, unsanitary water, and insufficient health information. This bill would give people information that would help them create a healthier environment and a healthier means of life.

The people and the communities that would be positively affected by this bill would have less chance of disease and sickness which in turn would give them more opportunities to work and provide for their families. If people were constantly sick because of disease or sickness obtained by an unsanitary water supply, or an unhealthy environment it would be harder for them to perform daily tasks such as going to work and providing for their families.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 13 million deaths worldwide could be prevented every year by making environments healthier. In 23 countries worlwide more than 10% of deaths are due to just two environmental risk factors: unsafe water, including poor sanitation and hygiene; and indoor air pollution due to solid fuel use for cooking. If this bill was passed those statistics would go down and the number of deaths would decrease, just by providing more information on health systems and creating a healthier environment for people to live in.

Thank you for anything in the past that you have done to ensure a healthier environment for communites. I hope that you now realize the best course of action to provide healthier environments for our citizens is to vote "YES" to the house bill H.R. 1031 and promote a better health information system.

Thank you for your time,
Jessica

Share and Voice: Happy Earth Day!!

Earth day 2009

As you may know today April 22nd is Earth day. This day was founded by Gaylord Nelson. The idea of earth day came to be evolved in 1962, but we didnt start celebrating it till 1970. Twenty Million people celebrated the first earth day! One of the purposes of earth day was to give the environment a day to be celebrated!!!

There are great crafts and projects to do in honor of earth day here are a few:

~egg carton bug mobile

~tin can herb pots

Crafts from Nature Materials:

~pet rocks

~salt art

There has been quite a bit of environmental progress made since the first earth day! If people continue to celebrate earth day, much more progress can be made to help out the earth and the environment!

SO HAPPY EARTH DAY EVERYONE!!! go out and do something good for the environment:)

Ps sorry for the formatting I dont know what happened!

Advocacy Project: Issue Overview

Issue Overview

Introduction:
What is the issue/problem?

Global Environment-Global burden of disease due to poor water quality, sanitation, and personal and domestic hygiene.

What current legislation has been proposed to address this? (Identify bill # and name)

Related Bill from THOMAS:
Title: H.R.1031 : To promote a better health information system. (#44)
Sponsor: Rep Burgess, Michael C. [TX-26] (introduced 2/12/2009) Cosponsors (None) Committees: House Energy and Commerce; House Ways and Means

Who is affected by the issue?
Who is affected the most?
People from developing countries are affected the most. Countries/communities that don't have access to clean water, sanitation tools and resources needed for good hygiene.

Who loses, and what do they lose?
Companies, tax payers, local businesses

Its involves a lot of money to get proper sanitation, clean water, etc. Into a commuity and someone has to pay for all of the maintence and usuallythe majority of that burden falls on companies/businesses and tax payers.

Who gains, and what do they gain?
The community,the citizens, families

They gain access to the services/materials they need to improve their health and prevent from contracting a disease or any other sickness due to the lack of available water (clean), materials needed for good hygiene, etc.

What are the consequences of the issue?
For the individuals mostly affected?

The costs for individuals would go up. It costs a lot of money to maintain a clean water supply, and hygiene products aren't all that cheap. The familiesmight have to sacrifice some things in order to pay for the water supply,the hygiene products and the sanitation costs of the community. I think that most of the outcome of this bill would be beneficial and not so much consequential. The individuals, families, and society as a whole would become healthier, they would live in cleanier environments and their overall health would benefit a great deal. So i dont see many consequences for this bill to be passed other than the cost of some of the projects such as cleaning the water, etc.

What is the economic impact of the issue?
Some of the economic costs of this issue would be cleaning the water supply, maintaining the water supply, the cost for hygenic materials such as soap, etc. Also costs towards promoting a better health system such as flyers, speakers, materials,etc. The costs would fall mostly on the community and businesses. The economic benefits would include a healthier community, less health care problems, people wouldnt need to visit the doctors, hospitals as much. The people in the community would benefit the most (women, children, men).

What is the social impact of the issue?
What are the social costs of the issue, and who bears these costs?
A lot of people become sick and develop diseases from poor water sanitation and poor hygiene, so people tend to miss work or school. Companies, organizations, businesses all bear the costs of sickness and disease. The people who are sick also pay the price because they have to miss work and school and they can easily fall behind on the bills, or fall behind in school. The social benefits would include: more people becoming healthy and staying healthy, the community can become more knowledgeable on health and how to stay healthy which would in turn benefit the companies, organizations and businesses instead of hurting them.

What are the barriers?
What are the barriers to addressing this issue?

The taxpayers who may already be healthy and not want to pay more money to promote a healthier lifestyle may not agree with the bill and try to fight it. Another barrier that may occur reguarding this bill is not following through with it. It is one thing to inform a community on ways to become healthier and maintain a healthier lifestyle but it is another to follow through with it and change the environment of the community. These barriers can be overcome by getting the majority of the community to support this bill. To inform them on the benefits of promoting a healthier lifestyle and giving them facts on clean water, good hygiene etc.

What are the resources?
What resources will we need to address this issue?

There are two main resources that will be needed to address this issue. One would be money, which will be needed to supply the personel to inform the community about better health, it will also be needed to make flyers, posters, brochures to promote a better helath system and to follow through with the bill and provide clean water for the community,families and individuals. Information will be needed to inform the community on what a "good health system" is, what is considered good water quality and good sanitation, etc.

What is the history of this issue?
This issue was addressed in the house in on Feb. 12, 2009. There were no cosponsors and the commities involved included: House Energy and Commerce and House Ways and Means.

I dont believe anything has happened since this issue has been addressed

Allies & Opponents
Who would support this issue?

I think that the majority of the community members would support this bill. Also I think that any health organization would support this bill.

Who would oppose this issue?

I think that the only people who may oppose this issue would be businesses, doctors, companies anyone who may lose buisness or who might have to pay more money to support this bill.

Your Recommendation
I want our policy makers to vote YES to this bill!

I had trouble finding the history of the issue, so any comments reguarding that question would be greatly appreciated!

Reflection: Weeks 11 & 12

WEEK 11:

During week 11 we watched the documentary "Unnatural Causes". I thought that this documentary was one of the best ones we have watched so far. It talked about how money influences a persons health. I knew that poverty and health were connected, but it was really eye opening to see the people and how much their lives differ depending on their job, income and the money they have. We were also introduced to the Healthy People 2010 this week. Healthy people is basically a set of objectives which can be used by different people such as States, communities, professional organizations, and others to help them develop programs to improve health.

WEEK 12:

This week our advocacy project was due for Healthy People/Thomas. We were to pick a health objective and build off of that and do some background research on it. It was interesting going through all the national goals/objectives and seeing which ones are moving towards their target and which ones still have a long ways to go. We also had to read chapter 20 in our text books which talked about the Ozone layer. It said that in the next year its expected to repair itself, which is a good thing to hear! It was nice to think that we as humans are helping the environment in some way, and not always harming it.

Well that pretty much sums up the last couple of weeks! hope everyone has a good weekend!

The Big Ten's Environmental Impact

Impact of Schools on the Environment

I recently found this environmental journal called EJ, there was an article in it that talked about the environmental impact that some of the big ten schools have. I thought it was really interesting so I wanted to make a share and voice with some of the statistics found on the universities. The journal is from 2007 so its a little dated but I still think it gives you an idea of how much of an impact these schools can have on the environment.

The schools that were included in this article was: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin.

Electricity:

School, Electricity (Killowatts-hrs) per GSF (Gross Square Foot), Electricity (kilowatts- hrs) per student

Illinos No report No report

Indiana 17.73 6,672
Iowa 20.28 8,436
Michigan 20.63 7,738
Michigan State 12.61 5,387
Minnesota 18.50 7,614
Northwestern No report No report
Ohio State 24.10 9,400
Penn State 16.74 7,166
Purdue 16.67 6,623
Wisconsin 19.04 10,087
Average 18.47 7,680

Energy Terminology: (found in the journal)

Kilowatt- hours are the common curency among power producers

A killowatt is defined as the amount of energy needed to heat one pound of wter one degree Fahrenheit.

~The rate at which energy flows (electrical current) is the kilowatt-hour, which measures the amount of energy flowing from producres to consumers in any given system One kilowatt hour is the energy required to keep a standard ligth bulb lit for approximately 10 hours.

Recycle:

Illinois

waste recycled (tons/yr): 4,885

paper recycled (tons/yr): 2,062

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 698

Indiana:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 1,900

paper recycled (tons/yr): 1,150

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 155

Iowa:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 1,273

paper recycled (tons/yr): 1,272

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 1

Michigan:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 3,458.45

paper recycled (tons/yr): 2,279

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 234

Michigan State:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 2,000

paper recycled (tons/yr): 1,658

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 342

Minnesota:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 3,306

paper recycled (tons/yr): 1,854

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 544

Northwestern:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 1,200

paper recycled (tons/yr): 628

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 231

Ohio State:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 1,446

paper recycled (tons/yr): 791

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 95

Penn State:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 4,868

paper recycled (tons/yr): 1,670

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 366

Purdue:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 1,592

paper recycled (tons/yr): 1,065

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 295

Wisconsin:

waste recycled (tons/yr): 1,755

paper recycled (tons/yr): 1,179

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 576

Average:

waste recycled: 2,517

paper recycled: 1,419

plastic, glass, metal and aluminum recycled (tons/yr): 321

From this data you can see how a school can effect the environment in a harmful way and how they can help out the environment! Its interesting to see what kind of an impact a major community such as a university has on the environment compared to a household or an individual.

Healthy People/THOMAS

Healthy People 2010

Goal: Promote health for all through a healthy environment.

8-29 Global Environmental Health
Reduce the global burden of disease due to poor water quality, sanitation, and personal and domestic hygiene.

Target: 2,135,000 deaths.

Baseline: 2,668,200 deaths worldwide were attributable to these factors in 1990.

Target setting method: 20 percent improvement.

Data source: World Health Report 2003, World Health Organization.

According to the Progress Quotient Chart, the global burden of disease has been reduced. It has been moved 161% to elimating disease and it has passed the 100% of improvement they were hoping for.

Progress: Progress has been made from Global Deaths from poor sanitation. It exceeded the target, achieving 161 percent of its targeted change.

Disparities: Data was unavailable or not applicable.

Opportunites and Challenges:

• The Health House program is an example of a national education program intended to raise standards for better indoor environments



• EPA is using education and nonregulatory approaches to address indoor air pollution.



• The HUD Healthy Homes Initiative supports:

~Activities that focus on researching and demonstrating low-cost, effective home hazard assessment and intervention methods.

~Public education that emphasizes ways in which communities can mitigate housing-related hazards.

Emerging Issues: (General-loosely related to my topic of Global Environmental Health)~Water supply- more people will face water quality and quantity problems because of worldwide water shortages, especially in developing countries.

~Increased international travel and improvements in telecommunications and computer technology are making the world a smaller place.

~Allergens/ Toxins in the Household

Related Bill from THOMAS:

Title: H.R.1031 : To promote a better health information system. (#44)

Sponsor: Rep Burgess, Michael C. [TX-26] (introduced 2/12/2009) Cosponsors (None) Committees: House Energy and Commerce; House Ways and Means

Latest Major Action: 2/12/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

Recommendation: I would recommend that we start by informing people on health information so that they can protect themselves and better there environment.

Vote: Yes
My Political Representative:

Jim Oberstar

Democratic/Farmer/Labor

Washington D.C. Office

2365 Rayburn HOB Washington, D.C. 20515

Phone: (202) 225-6211 Duluth Office 231

Federal BuildingDuluth, MN 55802

Phone: (218) 727-7474

Reflections: Weeks 9 and 10

Week 9:

During week 9 we started to talk about our advocacy projects. We learned and discussed what advocacy is and the truths and misconceptions about it. We also talked about our photo essays and covered the ethics of photo taking. This week we also did our first advocacy project, on our political/local representatives. For this project we had to research our local political representatives and find their contact information. I really enjoyed this project because I know very little about politics and I only knew a couple of my representatives here in Duluth. So I enjoyed learning who represents me and I found it very useful.

Week 10:

Dr. V was gone this week at the AAHPERD convention so our job was to blog and complete our photo essays. I choose to do my photo essay on the Duluth roads. I always drive around and notice how bad the roads are here and I thought it would be interesting to do my photo essay on that topic. I wasnt really sure what I had to do for this project, but I took some pictures of our local streets and talked about how Major Don Ness plans to fix and restore over 100 miles of the cities roads. I enjoyed this project although I missed a day during week 9 so I wasnt sure if I completed it correctly.

That pretty much sums up the last couple of weeks! thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend:)