Earth Day

Honestly, this Earth Day, I'm sad to say that I did not think about the environment at all, because I was at rehearsal for Cinderella from 12:30 until late at night. I didn't really have much time for contemplation. However, in my daily life, I do try to put in an effort to do my part to help the environment. I try to not be wasteful with things such as water, and recycle as much as I can.

However, I know there are a lot more things I could do to try and leave less of a carbon footprint and promote a green lifestyle. One thing I definitely want to do is join Environmental Club at my school. I have wanted to go to meetings all year, but because of a tutoring program I'm involved in, I have not been able to. However, I plan to join next year for sure, and hopefully attend some meetings this year if I can.

To me, Earth Day (at least in high school) is pretty underrated. We didn't have school that day, but because of PSAE's, not the holiday or for awareness, and we did not talk about it in any of my classes. In fact, I think this blog is the only mention of it at all that I noticed. That's sad, and I really think it would have been good to show these "green" ideas more, and promote environmental protection year round.

Motivation

What motivates me to learn chemistry? I'm sorry to say that the most influential cause is my extrinsic motivation of simply graduating high school. However, the reason I'm in Honors Chemistry is because I like to learn. (or at least, I don't mind learning) I also like a challenge and our class is very fun and engaging. I'm also extremely influenced by my intrinsic motivation for a good grade and overall GPA. I really try to excel academically in all of my classes, especially this one.

Throughout the year, I've really come to enjoy our class; it has reached a very happy medium of education and freedom. I like the material we are learning this year more than Bio; I think last year was more about memorizing parts of plants and cells, and this year has more to do with applying concepts. I don't know if I will use my appreciation for chem in the future, because I still have no idea what I want to do in my life. However, I still feel more extrinsic pressure because, my parents, both doctors, have always encouraged me to succeed in math and science, so there's still a chance I could choose that path and put my chemistry knowledge to good use.

Science & Politics

Science and politics have always overlapped into each other, especially in the case of science related problems. One issue that is very important currently is stem-cell research, which deals with special stem cells that can be grown into specialized human cells and can be used for cloning and treatment of diseases including as leukemia, other types of cancer, Parkinson's Disease, and muscle damage. However, this research become very controversial because, when dealing with embryonic stem cells, sometimes the embryo must be destroyed. This has been protested extremely by pro-life supporters, and is now a common debate among politicians. One of the first political interventions was in 1995, when Congress passed a bill in which there was an amendment that prohibited federal funds to be used for research where human embryos would be either created or destroyed. Even recently, President Obama lifted the restrictions placed on federal funding of stem cell research in the US.



Another common science-related topic in politics has been global warming. One example is how Al Gore, former vice-president-turned-environmental-activist, raised awareness through the very popular documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth", and he was actually pushed to run for president multiple times once more; there was also speculation about him joining Obama's administration. "An Inconvenient Truth" won the Academy Award for best documentary, and in 2007, he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his efforts to build up and spread more knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract that change. Politics seems to have intervened in science mostly when it can get politicians more support.

Quantum Mechanics

I'm honestly pretty confused by quantum mechanics, or at least what we have seen of it so far. It's really hard to believe that something (such as light) can actually choose the state it's in when measured. From what it seems, it's all about probability and you can never be sure what something is unless you are not observing it, which is impossible. According to the How Stuff Works video, Heisenberg said, "We may never know what is real." Many of the ideas mentioned, such as Schrodinger's cat and true reality almost seem philosophical.

In a book I am reading currently in English, I'm learning about philosophy and I just noticed a distinct parallel between what we learned and Plato's philosophy of an "eternal form" or "idea". To apply his philosophy, he would think that there is a perfect model of an atom somewhere, but it is impossible for a person to actually find, so we must get the idea of the perfect model by looking at imperfect examples. If this is kind of what is going on, that definitely helps me grasp the idea a little more.

Did you know?

Wow, that was an incredible video. I definitely think it accomplishes a number of things with it's information, inducing awe, realization and even fear. Some of the information makes me think, wow, look at how far we've come, such as the fact about the New York Times and the one about the future jobs kids are preparing for that don't exist yet. How great the human race must be, to have uncovered so much information about the world around us, and to be on a track to discover even more! We must really be awesome.

However, the video also asks the question, how much of this information and technology is being put to good use? Yes, the Internet can be an informational "super highway", but as you can see, it is commonly used for things like social networking websites, texting, and dating sites. Facebook and MySpace are ridiculously popular, and connect over 200 million people; unfortunately, most of those "connections" are through "heyyy bAbe!!!"'s and "jk-lol-rofl"'s and not intellectual advancement or knowledge. Even criminal activity can occur online, in the case of illegal downloading, which has brought a huge decrease in album profits for recording artists. We have so much technology, and for most people, it's put to aWeSomeee! use in our social lives and iPods.

Finally, the video actually strikes me with fear and worry for our future. First of all, the problem of overpopulation stood out to me, and the sheer magnitude of the global population really hit me in the quotes about being "one in a million" in China, the kids in India, and the babies born while the video was watched. Also, the facts about the online-dating-induced marriages and the number of internet devices show how much the internet has infiltrated our daily lives. Also, I am genuinely terrified by the idea of a supercomputer that exceeds the computational abilities of the entire human species; it sounds like the premise of a sci-fi horror movie. This was a really amazing video, even though it brought me through a spectrum of emotion and did not really make me think of any of my classes at GBN in particular.

Oh boy! this is my new blog. yay chemistry!