Thanksgiving Break

Personally, I am thankful that I have the privledge to live in this great land known as America. I can't even express in words how special I feel that I can have the freedom that so little people have. It's a gift that I shouldn't take for granted because rather than deserving it,it was given.

1. Testing the water for our project during Thanksgiving Break
2.Finish the Report card as well as the rough draft article for Humanities
3.Make report layout

The H2O Project

So far I'm discovering that I need to make my calendar clearer than it is. Before our first critique, I felt like I was just going day by day doing busy work rather than doing work that will actually be useful for my end product. Because I am doing a report card of six different beaches, and I haven't tested any of them, it is sort of hard to get a real rough draft of my article on paper, but since I am going to start that this week I am actually going to get somewhere with this project. Starting today, my next step is to test the waters of Coronado, Mission Beach, Shelter Island, San Diego Beach, and Ocean Beach and from those results write my article.

This link, I think, sums up the rights of different groups. It shows me that through this last presidential election groups such as African Americans, young people, women groups, and whites have risen up and voted more through a black president running for president. A recent article by Wall Street states that "blacks are no longer disfranchised -- by any definition. Through Obama, I think that blacks aren't going to be looked at as low as they were before.

Two examples of Products

My group members and my question is: "How do we as humans affect the beach and how does that effect us in return?"

Two examples of the products we'll be using include-
First Product
Second Product

OUR GRADING PROCESS:
Grading Beaches
• Bacteria Level
• Trash Level Environment around the beach
• Runoff

Talk to Brandon
• Possible if we could go w/ people testing waters
• Maybe meet over the weekend so we could test waters

Grading Methodology
• Out of 100 points
o Bacteria Level
• 55 points
• A-45-55
• B-35-44
• C-25-34
• D-15-24
• F-0-14
• Trash, Environment, Runoff
o 45 points
o A- 13-15
o B- 10-12
o C- 7-9
o D- 4-6
o F- 0-3

Dream Goal- Getting beach reviews in Peninsula Beacon

Beaches
Coronado
Mission Beach
Ocean Beach
PB
SD Bay
La Jolla

Election Reflection/H2O Project

The results of the recent 2008 Presidential Elections had me feeling ecstactic. It seemed too good to be true. I didn't know I would live to see the day where an African American man would be President of the United States of America. Although I don't consider myself a democrat, I am ready to see things governed differently than they were before. Through our new President, Barack Obama, my hope for this country over the next few years is to see people happier than they were with Bush as well as have willing hearts to help the economy change rather than sitting back and not doing anything. I hope to see black and white folks become better friends with eachother. Instead of bashing eachother I hope that they will build eachother up. I hope that another Great Depression will not take place through our mistakes. As well as Obama keeping his promises as he leads this country. On the otherhand, my concerns for America are that things aren't going to change as fast as some people want it to. We are an impatient nation, so if things aren't moving as quickly as some people want it to, then people will get anxious and have a bad view of President Obama. It's time that we learn patience and not be so quick to want what we want when we want. It's time to be thankful that we even have a leader that can help us stay on track rather than live in a land of chaos.

In this class these past few months, we've done well staying focused on the election and watching the debates. I feel that what I learn in this class will definitely benefit me in the future as it is now. I have never in my life been so focused on politics and actually know what's going on. I think that we could do better attempting to understand current events by relating them to different topics so that I could get a clearer picture of what different topics mean. Through talking about the elections with different people, I felt like people thought they were better than me just because their views "sounded" better. It was as if they were shoving it into my face. For example,when I talked about different propositions and talked about where I stood on them, they would say something totally off topic and when I said something, they would just nod their head in confusion. So I feel like what I'm learning in school causes me to think deeper through different issues as well as having evidence backing up my points.

Part 2
Calendar:
Nov. 7th-Talk to my group about meeting on Nov. 8th
Nov. 8th-Possibly meet up at our 3 locations
Nov.9th-Write a detailed outline for my article
Nov.10-Start rough draft
Nov.11th-Edit rough draft
Nov.12th-Have it peer critiqued
Nov.13th-Have Randy look at it and write my final draft
Nov. 14th-Have my final done!

The Group's Outline
Grade the beaches Rubric:
1. Bacteria level
2. PH level
3. Trash level
4. Environment around the beach
5. RunoffA= 50 points, 10 points per thing
Beaches:
1. Coronado beach
2. La Jolla beach
3. Mission bay
Products:
• Actual report card that would be sent to city officials
• Also would be put up around shops near the beach
• Dream Goal.
Publish in newspaper
Article How do humans affect the bacteria level in our local beaches?
Ideas:
1. Writing about the concepts in the report card
2. Beach reviews
3. Comparing beaches Beaches:
1. Coronado beach
2. La Jolla beach
3. Mission bay
Products:
• Article (magazine/web)

Research Questions

Two Questions that I am considering researching for the H2O project are, "How can we as humans change our actions to make marine life such as various fish and seal, live longer? and, "Which beach in San Diego has the worst death rate of marine life due to ocean pollution? How can we stop the death rate from elevating?" Here are some facts: The ocean buffers the weather and helps regulate global temperature, manages vast amounts of our pollutants, contains all kinds of amazing creatures, and supports all life on our planet. But—the ocean is just now beginning to be understood and with that understanding comes the increasing realization that the ocean is in deep trouble. Marine conservation efforts are simply overwhelmed by the number and scale of the problems the ocean faces. Meaning that marine life death doesn't just have to do with humans, it has a lot to do with the weather as well.


Citing:
Marine Biology