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Hello everyone,

My name is Katherine Martinez and I am 20 years old. I am a business major who just transfered to FIU but am taking this class at MDC. I was raised by my Colombian parents who came to America for opportunities and we go every couple of years to visit family. My favorite colors are yellow or blue. I also have a weird obsession with Giraffes lol where I like to go feed them when i can and collect stuffed animals. Sunflowers are my favorite type of flower. They radiate the sun and just to me signify standing tall.

When Covid first started, we were all stuck indoors and I focused on music a little more picking up the ukulele and piano and making songs, recording covers, and more. Music has been a part of my life every since i was little with my dad being a performer, it was something that was attracted to. I played violin in middle school and was part of the vocal program in high school. I also started painting and selling them as well. I see myself in the future hopefully making a business that has to do with music and kids with disabilities. I was inspired by a camp i used to go to and figured it was a great plan. I am hoping that opportunities open up as the years go by. I am excited for this semester and cant wait to learn and make new friends.

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https://www.ted.com/talks/emma_bryce_what_really_happens_to_the_plastic_you_throw_away

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What really happens to the plastic you throw away?

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We’ve all been told that we should recycle plastic bottles and containers. But what actually happens to the plastic if we just throw it away? Emma Bryce traces the life cycles of three different plastic bottles, shedding light on the dangers these disposables present to our world. [Directed by Sharon Colman, narrated by Addison Anderson, music by Peter Gosling].

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First Ted Talk : What really happens to the plastic you throw away?

In this Ted Talk, I learned what really happens to plastic when we throw it away. A good chunk of the plastic ends up in the landfill and over time, it compresses and rain water goes into the waste. The combination of rain water with plastic that has been there for so long turns into Leachate which is a harmful stew that can make its way into streams and rivers. This can really harm the enviroment and those habitats that belong to animals. The other part of plastic goes through the stream that goes to the ocean. It ends up in a place called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch where plastic is stuck there and the pollutants turn the water into cloudy soup.

CITATION: https://www.ted.com/talks/emma_bryce_what_really_happens_to_the_plastic_you_throw_away

Second Ted Talk : Are we running out of clean water?

This Ted Talk talks about how our water is running out even though Earth is known to be 75% of water. There is a prediciton that by 2040, there will be countries running out of water. Our planet can not really "run" out of water due to the water cycle. Its a question on whether we can drink and use that water. 97% is salt water which contains too many minerals that we can not take in. The other 2% is frozen, which leaves the population of Earth to depend on 1% of water for everyone.

Citation: https://www.ted.com/talks/balsher_singh_sidhu_are_we_running_out_of_clean_water

Reflection:

What I got from these ted talks is that our plastic goes to two places. These places are known as the garbage dump or the ocean. These two places that plastic goes to hurt the enviroment. They both are harmful to the bodies of water we have which affects the homes of many animals. I learned that there are about 7 of the Great Pacific Garbage Patches which size up to 1.6 million square kilometers. In the other Ted Talk, I was about to be informed about our water shortage problem. It is extremely crazy that the whole population will be depending on 1% of water and that it is not secured that by 2040 we will have anymore. These videos inform us all that we need to do better when it comes to taking care of the enviroment to be able to live in a mor ehealthier planet.

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The Story of Bottled Water” https://www.storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-bottled-water/

The Story of Bottled Water gives us information on how bottled water is actually a lie and misleads us as consumers. Bottled water is less regulated than tap water and costs about 2000 times the price of tap. This is something that makes us believe that because tap water is coming from the tap, its dirty. In reality, the bottled water is the one that is dirty but since the bottled water industry did not want us as consumers to go to tap. Bottled water companies scared consumers using advertisements and manipulated us into thinking that with a wrapping around the bottle being full of a nice forest or mountain, it was safe. Zephyrhills has a logo like this where you see trees and a lake. Instead of giving the bottled water companies the hype they want, we can just drink tap water.

“The Story of Cosmetics” https://www.storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-cosmetics/

This video on the Story of Cosmetics really goes into the toxic chemicals that are used in our bathroom products that go from shampoo, conditioner, lipstick, body gel, etc. Most of the chemicals in our everyday use, can cause cancer or other health risks. In the video, it is explained that anything with the words “Herbal, Organic, and Natural” is not really natural. In fact, it is said in the video that anyone can really put those words and call it natural. The cosmetics industry has not taken into consideration the health of their consumers especially where it is something that is put all over our bodies, so it goes inside of us directly. It is a broken system in which makes these toxic chemicals go inside our products. People are demanding laws be passed but it takes time for these things to happen.

Reflection:

The way that big companies have been able to sell us anything and we do not do any research towards it because it advertised in a way that just convinces us otherwise. I am also part of this group of people that does not do research when needed. Usually, the art of convincing is so good, that I just go based on those facts. For example, the water bottle is something I personally thought was way healthier than tap mostly for the taste like mentioned in the video. As a consumer, it’s important to be on the lookout for any weird ingredients used in anything we might eat or put on our bodies.

After watching “The Story of Bottled Water” really opened my eyes. I personally prefer bottled water because of the taste. Now after realizing that tap water is healthier, I will have to make an effort for change. In my family we have started using a water filter that we fill up using tap water. It’s a small change but in the end, it is one. We haven’t bought a pack of water bottles in over a month. After watching “The Story of Cosmetics”, its crazy to think that all our lives, we have been putting random toxins in our bodies, hair, mouth, etc. To make a change, I will make more an effort to really do research on ingredients used in my personal cosmetics. We just need to be more aware of the things that surround us and be a solution to the problem.

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What really happens to our plastic?

COLLAPSE

Video - The recycling myth: What actually happens to our plastic?

Reflection-

We say that recycling is a way for us to svae our planet from plastic pollution, but not even recycling is being done right. This video shows how the recycling is done in Germany to prove it being the "champion recycling country". They sort all their trash and plastic in different bins. The reporter goes out in the morning with a professional to pick up the plastics and is surprised to see how much pladtic there is in so little time. When they find things that do not belong in the plastics, they reject the bag and leave it there. There are about 40-60% of misthrows in the plastic bags and bins according to industry association. They found a bunch of household items in one of the plastic bins that had a stroller, a tent and more and did not pick it up. Instead they put a red sticker that was labeled as missorted. At the end of the shift, they collected 5.3 tons of plastic, metal and more in eight hours of work.  After sorting the plastic, it is sorted by size and weight. In this video, I learned that we have to be careful with what we put as plastic because not everything is consisdered plastic so it does not get recycled and still causes pollution.

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What research tool, idea, or methodology was known to you but was good to listen to again?What topic did you select to research? Why did you pick this topic?

COLLAPSE

A research tool that that was known to be but great to hear about are citations. Citations are something that growing up I have learned about in school. Learning from the grade of 6th grade, citations are a way for us to read about a topic, write about it and put details on where we were given this information. As we grew older, there were different types of citations depending on the writing that we were doing in class. I was always citing manually but in my time at MDC, I have been given new resources to cite and save time.

One of the topics that we spoke about in the training was Air Pollution. Air Pollution in Florida is considered to be anything that’s not oxygen, water vapor, nitrogen or carbon dioxide. Anything else is the gas coming from our vehicles, factories, home heating units or powerplants. According to the article, a lot of the air pollution found in the air of Florida is from the open dumps which I have seen many in Doral and poorly operated incinerators. Air pollution can cause many health hazards because its air that we are takin in our bodies. Risks include lung cancer, bronchitis, and emphysema. It can make our eyes water and usually we do not notice it but most of the time, it smells, so it is noticeable.

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1. Guest Blogger Author, Blogger, G., Author, Victoria, F. E., Giskes, I., Frey, M., & Hogge, K. (2021, August 25). Tackling single-use plastic in Miami Beach. Ocean Conservancy. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2021/08/27/tackling-single-use-plastic-miami-beach/

This article is about how plastic has affected our oceans. There is a group of people called Big Blue Crew’s “Plastic Free MVPs” who have come together in order to tackle this plastic pollution situation that has been on going for so long. Their goal is to gradually reduce Miami Beach businesses’ plastic practices and prove that sustainability can be beneficial to business owners’ wallets and improve the health of the local environment. They have put together about 10 business in so little time.

2. Rise above plastics. Miami Chapter - Surfrider Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://miami.surfrider.org/rise-above-plastics/

This article is about how the plastic pollution that we see in our beaches comes from none other than littering on the beaches. When people litter in the sand, they dont realize that the waves being so strong bring the plastic back with them and causes it to be stuck in the ocean. Because of this, as the plasdtic goes into the ocean, it gets torn apart and turns into tiny chunks which animals often mistaken for food which then kills them.

3. Rise above plastics. Surfrider Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://www.surfrider.org/programs/entry/rise-above-plastics%20

This article is similar to the one above but explains more in dept how big the issue of plastic pollution is. According to National Geographic, there is currently a total of 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic swirling in the ocean, some of which gets washed up along shorelines or sinks to the seafloor. This causes big chunks of garbage to form all throughout the ocean called gyres.

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Burning Sugar Cane Pollutes Communities of Color in Florida. Brazil Shows There’s Another Way.

Although here in Florida harvesting sugar cane helps produce more than half of the country’s sugar cane, it sends too much smoke and ash into the air especially in low-income areas. Brazil has a really huge sugar cane industry, and they produce raw sugar, ethanol and even electricity. Back in the 1990’s, residents of the Brazil area near the factory would complain about their air being affected. This was voiced and brought upon the officials in Sai Paulo where they later passed a law which allowed producers to cut the sugar cane without having to burn it. Results were noticed later on and instead of burning the dry sugar cane leaves, they were used as protective blankets to enrich the soil. There has been little research to see how Florida can transition into the new method but it’s an ongoing process.

Climate Change-Ready Rice Keeps Farmers’ Fields Fertile

The climate change happening is affected farmland in Bangladesh. Farmers cannot grow rice as they normally would because of the salty soil. When farming their rice, it is noticed to grow across the distance looking green and bright, but sometimes the rice grows uneven where the leaves are now dry and brown. The salty soil causes some of the rice to grow like this. A potential fix to this situation would be to plant a variety of rice that is naturally resistant to the salty soil but it’s a process. About 180,000 farmers have received rice grains that can resist the salty soils and now they are training on how to grow them. Bangladesh is one of the world’s most dense country and also is very vulnerable to storms and floods.  Agriculture is something that needs to be mastered but when climate change hits, it can all change in a second and become a threat.

Reflection

Climate change is something that has been happening since the beginning of time. It is a long-term change in weather patterns that have come to define the earths local, regional and global climate.  I learned in the first article that sugar cane was one of the causes for pollution being in the air. Personally, I did not know about this but the more you know. I learned about the solutions that Brazil had with the same sugar cane industry and how they are giving tips to the factories in Florida to avoid more smoke and ash in the air. In the second article, it was incredible to learn about Bangladesh and how they are one of the top country’s in the world to produce rice. I never knew about salty soil and this has had a great impact on their agriculture. It is great that their solution is in process and the farmers are training on how to farm the rice in this new soil. The subject is portrayed in a manner that really informs the audience about what is going on and the different solutions that each situation has. Both articles highlight on how Climate change has been affecting the people around them for example the low-income communities and the farmers.

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The CAS assignments allowed me to gain more knowledge in the topics I chose to write about. My assignments ranged from plastic pollution to climate change. Before I began these assignments, I knew that whatever I chose, I was going to gain some new information. Before doing the first CAS assignment I was wondering how plastic bottles could be misleading. To me it was the best thing in the world but ever since I saw that video, I changed it up and have not been buying plastic water bottles. Same with cosmetics, I make sure to read the stuff put inside and then choose.

Doing the CAS1 assignment, I was able to learn more about the story of bottled water and cosmetics. These short videos were very informative because it educated me on bottled water and how it is misleading. The same with the story of cosmetics where, as someone who uses cosmetics every now and then, I was able to learn about the different chemicals and toxins that go into the making of said cosmetics. I was expecting to know more about bottled water and cosmetics. I knew that cosmetics carried chemicals in their products, but I did not know how severe it was because I do not normally buy this on a daily basis. Plastic water bottles are something store sells to make it easier to carry water from one destination to the other, but I was never expecting this video to inform me that drinking bottled water is actually bad water and that I should stick to the tap.

For the CAS2 assignment, I wrote about the way burning sugar cane has polluted communities in Florida. While listening to this video, I was in shock because firstly, I did not know that burning sugar cane was a thing and that it was part of pollution. Later in the video, they talked about how Brazil had something similar done but they found an effective way to make sure the pollution is not severe that it affects the surrounding communities. Agriculture is something that needs to be mastered and climate change can cause it to downfall in one second and it suddenly becomes a threat. My experience during this activity was different than what I expected because to be honest I was not expecting to learn so much about agriculture and how it affects our climate.

The TED talk assignment was really eye opening because in any TED talk, you know that you will gain new information and the way it is explained, makes it clearer. The CAS3 assignment TED talks I chose involved plastic and water. The first one was about the journey of plastic and what really happens to it. Half of the plastic that we throw in the recycling bin does not even get recycled. It stays in a landfill that with all the environmental changes that happen, it turns into a harmful stew that eventually makes its way towards streams and also to rivers. The other half of the plastic is thrown randomly into a stream which is connected to the ocean. This is terrible because of the number of animals getting hurt with the ocean pollution that is happening around them. The second video was explaining how the Earth is running out of clean water. Now it does not necessarily mean that the Earth will run out of water because the water cycle does exist, but instead it emphasizes that there will be water that runs out which is sued for drinking and other uses such as bathing, washing clothes and more. This activity changed me as a person because now I pay more attention to where our plastic goes and what is used of it.

In conclusion, throughout the semester, these CAS assignments have been very useful for me. Each assignment was directed differently than the other and since it was free to our own liking, I am glad I continued with the water pollution, plastic pollution and climate change in order to inform myself more.