Significant Passage

“In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time. Even Grandma often says that, but she and Steppa don't have jobs, so I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well. In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit…Also everywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.”

Donoghue, Emma. Room: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown and, 2010. Print.

The novel “Room” by Emma Donoghue tells the story of an innocent college student who gets abducted by a male stranger.  She is forced to live the next seven years of her life in an eleven by eleven foot shed in his backyard.  During that time she gets pregnant with a son she names Jack, and he lives the first five years of his life with her in what they call “room”.  All Jack knew from the time he was born to the time when the narration of the book takes place was that “room” was all there was, everything else he had heard of as being real was just T.V. and fictional.  The role of environment and setting in this book helps to show how environment/setting can affect a person’s mindset and understanding of everything in the world. Throughout the first part of the book, Jack learns that there is more in the world than just himself, his mother, Old Nick, and “room”, that there is a whole outside world full of amazing things, yet Jack has no indication that there is an outside world that could hold a bigger and better life for both him and his mother.  When Jack and his mom finally decide to do an escape attempt, Jack is the hero and gets both of them away from “room”, which was supposed to be a good thing until Jack realizes it wasn’t everything he wanted.  Jack gets used to it though, and he begins to warm up to his new life in the real world.  He starts to understand the bigger things in life and himself as a person. Being away from the restrictions of room had allowed Jack to explore a whole new setting with all new things.

I think Emma Donoghue did an exceptional job writing this novel. She picked out all of the key ideas that a five year old would have done in the situation and she really knew how to show his reaction to the whole situation.  She also did a great job incorporating how Jack’s environment/setting in both “room” and the real world affected his understanding of himself and how the world functions as a whole.  When Jack was restricted to “room” he wasn’t able to understand everything because he couldn’t physically come in contact with it, all he could understand and view as real was what occurred and lived inside “room”.  Jack’s mindset was set in “room” and only “room” because that was all he ever knew and it allowed Jack to have a very simple life.  Once Jack entered the outside world, Emma Donoghue describes very well how Jack feels uncomfortable and unstable because of such a drastic change in his lifestyle.  Jack has to learn how the world works and how it’s different from his lifestyle in “room”.  My significant quote above describes how Jack reacts to the new things in his life, how he feels like there is less time in the outside world because he always had so much time in “room”. The significance of environment/setting in this quote is shown clearly by how Jack reacts while in “room” and while in the real world.  The environment that an individual grows up in has huge impacts on their understanding and view of the world.              

Throughout our model capstone project we have been analyzing how environment and setting play a role in one’s life.  Environment can be seen on a large and broader scale as the entire world, an ecosystem, or even just a city, analyzing how these broad differences in setting can affect a person’s life.  But the effects of environment and setting can also be analyzed on a much smaller, microscopic scale, like how it affects one’s health and wellbeing.  The whole idea of the capstone project is to start with a broad topic and link in narrower, yet still very significant topics that relate to the broad topic through articles and novels.  I think doing the model capstone project was affective in helping me understand how to piece different aspects of one broad topic together.  Starting out with the broad topic of environment/setting and gradually building in more narrow topics that connect with the broad topic was a perfect way to analyze and understand all of the things that really make environment/setting what it is.  This model capstone project also helped me to understand how to build in the narrower topics.  For example, I would have never thought of utilizing a text that talked about all of the chemicals in our bodies, because that doesn’t really mean environment and setting to me.  Now, after analyzing the topic of harmful chemicals on our bodies it makes sense that it is a much narrower topic under environment and setting and I understand now that it fits the broader topic perfectly.  Overall, I believe that this project was effective in my understanding of how to put together my own capstone project and putting all of the pieces of the broader topic together. 

 

Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things

After reading passages from the book “Slow Death by Rubber Duck” by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, I realized that there are numerous, and potentially life threatening chemicals in our everyday lives to which most of us pay no attention or try to avoid.  I believe most of us can pick out the more widely talked about chemicals in our everyday lives but there are also numerous chemicals hiding in our clothes, cosmetics, and furniture all around us.  I thought it was very interesting to learn about the many things that most people believe to be “safe” when in reality those things could be causing severe damage to our bodies and health when we have no indication that it’s occurring.  My overall reaction to the passages of the book was that it was interesting and put out a powerful message to the world about the impact that these chemicals could have on everyone’s lives.  There are a lot of chemicals in household appliances, cleaners and furniture that I never realized existed and now knowing what they are capable of causing brings up concern but it really doesn’t make me want to change anything about my lifestyle.  I really don’t think there is any way to avoid most of the chemicals that are in furniture and clothing, and avoiding them would mean changing a lot about one’s lifestyle. When it comes to air and water pollution, there are ways to overcome those issues.  They might not be able to be fixed perfectly but there is a way to lessen the amount of air and water pollution we apply on the environment. 

From what I have found from many other people’s review on the book, you either like it or you don’t.  Some people gave the book five stars and others one.  From one book review off of Amazon.com, the individual gave the book two stars because he believed that the book was poorly put together.  He believed that the authors made excellent points about the products that potentially contain these harmful chemicals and that we come in contact with them on a regular basis, but that they failed to show that information in a more scientific way.  On the other side, one individual gave it five stars and said that it had very insightful information, was put together well and that all of the information was backed up by reliable research.  Another five star review stated that the authors put the book together in a way that showed how many companies tell us that these chemicals are safe and won’t do any harm to our bodies whatsoever.  This individual also explained how companies make this issue all about profit and not about safety, how they promote these products as safe even when the chemicals that they enclose could have long lasting effects on our bodies.  They also say that they agree that the increase in cancer in children and adults is linked to these chemicals that are in our everyday lifestyles.  Overall, some people enjoyed the book and others thought it was a complete waste of time.  This book has many important aspects that reflect on the harmful effects of these chemicals on our bodies but if you don’t believe what these chemicals are capable of, you might disagree and despise this book. 

Chemicals in personal care products-- phthalates--may increase risk of diabetes in women

Brigham and Women's Hospital. "Chemicals in personal care products -- phthalates -- may increase risk of diabetes in women." ScienceDaily, 13 Jul. 2012. Web. 3 Mar. 2013. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120713083103.htm

In this article, the author explains how women with higher levels of the chemical Phthalate in their bodies could potentially lead to a higher risk of getting diabetes. Phthalates are chemicals that once in the body will disrupt the function of the endocrine system.  These phthalates are found in many personal care products that many women use on a daily basis, including nail polish, moisturizers, soaps, hairsprays, and perfumes.  The researchers conducted an experiment on many women, and found that the women with the higher levels of phthalate in their body were at a much higher risk of getting diabetes later in life.  It was determined that certain phthalates were linked to how big of a risk a woman was to have diabetes.  For example, women with mono-benzyl and mono-isobutyl phthalates in their body had a doubled risk of getting diabetes to those women who didn’t have those chemicals present in their body.  This research doesn’t directly link women with these phthalates in their body to diabetes but having those chemicals put them at a higher risk of getting diabetes.

I think this article was really eye opening to some of the possible diseases these types of chemicals can lead to.  It really shows that some of the things that we think are completely harmless and are said to “help our bodies”, such as moisturizers, are really not that helpful at all. This study didn’t directly link this chemical to getting diabetes but an increase in the risk of getting diabetes, so I don’t really think they know for sure if this will cause diabetes in women but it definitely brings up a concern.  If this chemical can increase the risk of diabetes it’s scary to think about what this chemical and others could possibly be capable of. 

Clues to climate cycles dug from South Pole snow pit

University of California - San Diego. "Clues to climate cycles dug from South Pole snow pit." ScienceDaily, 25 Feb. 2013. Web. 27 Feb. 2013 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130225153126.htm.

In this article, the author discusses how chemical traces in Antarctic snow are linked to global meteorological events an climate changes.  A research team from the University of California has linked chemical signatures with well-known global events by researching certain chemicals that are contained within Antarctic snow.  They conducted their research near the South Pole where the snow isn’t as compacted as it is in polar ice caps, this would give them better results of the atmospheric chemistry that has occurred.  They had found that the highest levels of sulfates trapped in the Antarctic snow occurred during strong ENSO seasons (El Nino).  ENSO or the El Nino Southern Oscillation is a global event when the trade winds change allowing water from the tropical western Pacific to move towards South America.  (This event affects marine life and leaves some areas of the world with little rainfall).  The warm air above the sea surface lifts the sulfur dioxide high into the atmosphere where it gets carried in the snow and lands on Antarctica.  The sulfur dioxide gets trapped in various layers of this snowfall and the scientists could determine when these meteorological events occurred in past years. 

I thought that this article was very interesting and was really relatable to the article I wrote about before on the Siberian Permafrost.  Both articles explained how different parts of the world can hold certain key secrets in the future and past events of our global environment.  I think that this article helps us better understand past events that have occurred in our environment but cannot really help us determine what might occur in the future.  To me, reading the first article made me think more about changing the actions I make that affect the environment.  The first article made me think more about how our actions now could raise more concern about global warming in the future.  This article just talks about how findings in the Antarctic snow can tell us when certain events in our environment in the past have occurred so its not as scary as the global warming article.