A social justice issue is an issue that deals for instance with certain rights of people in a society. The idea is to create a fair playing field between the rich, middle class, and poor. In order to deal with social justice issues, certain rules should exist that allow that everybody in the society gets fair treatment. There would be taxation especially on those who are rich and the money would go to programs that would create more equality and life quality for all. Anti-discrimination laws that would keep conflict from arising in a community would be among those issues that a society would have to deal with.
- Biodiversity expands the growth of an ecosystem where all living and non-living organisms play an important role in it.
- Greater variety of plant species gives us a greater variety of crops.
- Healthier ecosystems can withstand natural disasters better.
- While we dominate this planet, it is essential for us to help the environment in our own way.
- Many fear that humans are causing mass extinction.
- Preserving species and the habitat is important for wildlife to self-sustain itself.
- Conserving species is a struggle because of hunting, logging, and pollution.
- The World Resource Institute states that pollution does affect biodiversity.
- Global warming can affect an ecosystem to live naturally.
- Coral reefs are one of the most bio diverse of the ecosystems and are also one of the most neglected.
C: Can you see this becoming your exit project topic? Why/why not?
I can see this becoming my exit project topic because biodiversity is a topic I can write a good deal about. Each of the facts that I have listed in part B can make up its own page of writing. Many arguments that could be of use can be squeezed out and written down. I can include past research into this topic and I can also include my own knowledge.
D: What is a question you have after doing your reading?
One of my questions is how does our greed for power and land affect an ecosystem's survival?
Next topic:
A: Which topic did you choose to research? Why is this the one that interests you?
I chose the cause of poverty because poverty is a sign of what type of economical situation a certain country is in. Our country for instance could be used as an example because of our current economical situation. One of the reasons why we have poverty is because we have certain laws that keep some people from having certain opportunities like health care.
B: What are ten different interesting facts or ideas that you learned? You must put it all into your own words.
- Over half the world's population, 3 billion people, struggle to live on $2.50 a day.
- Nearly a billion people entered the 21st Century unable to read or write.
- Less than one percent of what the world spent on weapons was needed to provide an education for all of our kids and yet that didn't happen.
- About 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS and three million have died in 2004.
- About 72 million children that were primary school age were not in school in 2005, 53% of them were girls.
- About 1.1 billion people living in developing countries have an inadequate source of water.
- 2.6 billion people don't have basic sanitation.
- 1.8 million children dye each year because of diarrhea.
- Close to half of the people that are suffering from health problems at any given time are suffering because of water and sanitation.
- Millions of women spend hours every day collecting water.
C: Can you see this becoming your exit project topic? Why/Why not?
I can see this becoming my exit project topic because there is so much existing information about poverty. There is even a current crisis going on in Afghanistan. I can see myself writing a good deal of useful and interesting information for my project as well as adding creativity. I have a lot of confidence that I will do well.
D: What is a question you have after you did your reading?
One of my questions is why isn't one of our major conflicts about eliminating poverty? We would save many more lives than fighting the wars that we are currently engaged in supposedly to save lives.
3. Browsing headlines
Article 1, title: "Southern Researchers Fill Gap on Neglected Diseases"
Could this be an interesting exit project topic? Why/Why not?
This could be an interesting topic because even smaller companies are successful in finding vaccines for large diseases like AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis. It seems like an interesting topic, but I can't really see myself writing about it because of the lack of information there is.
What did you learn about this topic that you didn't know before, after reading the article?
I learned that countries emerging from new economies are finding affordable treatments for diseases. I thought that it was usually the richer companies that would find vaccines and cures, but this article proves that smaller companies have successfully found treatments.
What questions do you still have?
Why don't countries notice how successful smaller companies are? If a smaller company finds a cure to something shouldn't they get a lot of credit?
Article 2, title: "Pakistan: Polio Vaccination: One Hurdle Down, one more to go"
Could this be an interesting exit project topic? Why/Why not?
This could be an interesting topic because it shows how religion can affect people's decisions. For example in this article the Taliban prevented children from getting polio vaccines.
What did you learn about this topic that you didn't know before?
I learned that the Taliban had prevented children from receiving a Polio vaccine because they "rendered its recipients impotent and sterile".
What questions do you still have?
Why would other countries think that the United States would use the polio vaccine as a tool?
Article 3: "Health: Vaccines, Antibiotics Could slash Pneumonia Deaths"
Could this be an interesting exit project topic? Why/why not?
This could be an interesting topic because with antibiotics we could save many children's lives. I could write a lot about this topic and I could relate it to other diseases like Malaria and AIDS.
What did you learn about this topic that you didn't know before?
I didn't know that pneumonia kills more children than Measles, Malaria, and AIDS combined.
