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American schools – no learning allowed!
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Char at Weary Parent says that “teachers no longer teach kids to think” and that her kids are “bored to tears”. She says they spend most of their school time studying for ‘Standards of Learning’ exams. According to commenters too – the tests are really easy.
What is happening to eduction in the U. S. and what can parents do about it? It seems the schools and teachers are only concerned about the kids passing the tests and not about teaching them anything new.
And how to think critically is the most important thing kids can learn. If the schools won’t do it, parents will have to. The best advice I can think of is to look for opportunities in daily life to help make up for what the schools aren’t doing. And instilling a love of learning by example. If parents don’t do it, who will?
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April 29, 2008
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Smoking and Addiction
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A recent article in Scientific American: Hooked from the First Cigarette discussed new research concerning cigarette addiction. Joseph R. DiFranza of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester has evidence that symptoms of addiction can occur after only smoking for a few weeks. Even in adolescents who were only smoking 2 cigarettes a week. According to his theory:
“nicotine is addictive not because it produces pleasure but simply because it suppresses craving”.
According to the American Lung Association:
“Cigarette smoking was rare among women in the early 20th century and became prevalent among women after it did among men. In 2005, 20.3 million (18.1 percent) of women smoked in the United States.
Smoking is directly responsible for 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths in America each year. In 1987, lung cancer surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the U.S.
Annually, cigarette smoking kills an estimated 178,408 women in the United States.
In 2005, 23.0 percent of high school girls were current smokers, meaning they smoked at least once in the 30 days preceding the survey.
Cigarette smoking during pregnancy can cause serious health problems for both mother and child, such as pregnancy complications, premature birth, low-birth-weight infants, stillbirth and infant death.”
Given how seriously smoking affects women’s health (men’s too!) , how addictive it is and how many teenage girls are smokers – it seems that programs targeted at young girls – before they smoke even one cigarette are needed.
According to tobaccofreekids.org: “only three states – Maine, Delaware and Colorado – currently fund prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels“. The state I live in only “allocates $200,000 for tobacco prevention” even though 21.3% high school students in the state smoke.
It’s really scary that the federal and state governments are not taking teenage smoking more seriously. I don’t know if the teenage prevention programs really work, but we need to put more effort in it and find something that will work.
What do you think? Does your kid’s school have any smoking prevention program? If so, do you think it is very effective? What else should be done?
More information about women and smoking:
CDC Fact Sheet – Women and Tobacco
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Related Posts:
- Smoking Part 2: What should be done?
- Smoking Part 1: Pregnancy and young children
- Smoking and other pregnancy perils
April 28, 2008
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Women’s Health Weekly Review – April 19-25
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Breast Cancer Screening
A report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology shows that mammography is useful for women over 80 years old. “It’s estimated that approximately 17 percent of breast cancers are diagnosed in women older than 80, and only about one-fifth of women in this age group have routine mammograms.”
Potential New Targets Found
A study in the American Journal of Pathology has found the the four proteins: FAP, SFRP2, JAK3 and SMPD3 might be good potential targets for treating breast and other cancer. The researchers suspect that these proteins might induce angiogenesis. Angiogenesis is, of course, the creation of new blood vessels which allows tumors to grow.
Breast Reconstruction Advances
American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports that many advances have been made in breast reconstruction surgery following lumpectomys, biopsys, partial mastectomys, wedge resections, etc.
Potential New Detection Test
Researchers a the University of Nottingham spin-out company Oncimmune are working on ‘developing a blood test that may diagnose breast cancer up to four years earlier than a mammogram‘. The test will measure auto-antibodies that form in reaction to the tumor.
New Role for Human Papilloma Virus
Human papilloma virus (HPV) may also play a role in lung cancer, although in relevant study the patients were also all smokers.
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April 25, 2008
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One Last Earth Day E – Educate!
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Previously in my 4 part Earth Day Environmental E’s! series, I covered the following topics:
Effect the area around you in a positive way
Extend the use of the items you use and buy
Energize your life in an environmentally positive way
Eat in a more environmentally sustainable, responsible and healthy manner
Now, I want to add one more ‘E’ to that list: Educate. Educate yourself and those around you so you can learn all you can about environmental issues. Learn what really makes sense to do and what doesn’t. Ask yourself:
- is this based on reason and logic?
- it this based on real science?
- Will it make a significant difference?
You might be surprised!
Here are some more Earth Day post written by other bloggers, please visit them and say ‘Hello!':
Earth Day Checklist
by Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation
The Sunday Sidebar…Green Health. by Liz from Healthbolt
Earth Day – Mother Nature is waiting ….by Elaine of Genetics and Health
Birds in the News 127 — Earth Day Edition from GrrlScientist
What Is Green Technology? by Tracy from Demystifying Digital
Today Is Earth Day! by Laura Spencer from WorkFromHomeMomma
Happy Earth Day – Alternative & Reusable Menstrual Products by Rachel of Women’s Health News
Earth Day-Enjoy the Flowers! from Healthy Internet Users
Happy Earth Day!
by Brian Switek of Laelaps
Sustainability starts with sustainable habits. by Janet D. Stemwedel of Adventures in Ethics and Science
Green WAHMs by Kelly McCausey of WAHM 2.0
Odd Observation On Earth Day by Derek Semmler of The Man Page
Happy Earth Day! (everyday) from Ojibway Migisi Bineshii
Earth Day: Green Your Office by Brandie Kajino from The Home Office Organizer
Our Special Announcement to Honor Earth Day! from Itsabelly Baby Concierge
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Eat in a more environmentally sustainable, responsible and healthy manner
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Eating is a very personal thing. I don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate to tell others what to eat. Some people just have foods they can’t stand, get sick from and some they just really like and will eat no matter what. That’s ok. The following are just suggestions and ideas that maybe many people are not aware of or gave any thought of until now.
And of course eating is not just an environmental issue – it’s a health issue. Personally, I believe that the health issues are more important, but that’s my opinion.
Overfishing
“Overfishing occurs when fishing activities reduce fish stocks below an acceptable level. This can occur in any body of water from a pond to the oceans” (source).
Tuna and salmon populations are of special concern. To find salmon from a sustainable source I recommend going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium site to this page – and scroll down to the section titled: “Where can I find sustainable sources for salmon?”.
The bluefin tuna is commonly used in sushi and sashimi and due to its popularity is in danger of becoming extinct (Scientific American, March 2008, p.71). Some other tunas are also overfished, skipjack however is considered ok to eat (source) and is commonly found in canned tuna. More information about tuna can be found at the Bay Aquarium site – scroll down to the bottom of the page to: ‘Where can I find sustainable sources for tuna?’.
Additional information about good and bad seafood choices can be found at the Environmental Defense Fund site.
Eat less meat
Eating less meat is considered by many to be better for the environment because it takes more land and water use to raise animals for food than to grow plant food for people to eat.
From Wikipedia: “According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contributes on a “massive scale” to air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change, and loss of biodiversity.”
For additional information see: Consequences of Increased Global Meat Consumption on the Global Environment — Trade in Virtual Water and Nutrients.
A recent study in Environmental Science & Technology and reported by National Geographic shows that eating only locally grown foods does not have that much of an environmental impact. Instead what you are eating is likely to be more significant. All the transportation of food is only 11% of foods’ climate impact “compared with the impact from producing the food itself”. Beef production contributes a larger percent to warming from greenhouse gases.
There is also some evidence to suggest that eating meat is not that healthy. For example in many groups of long lived people, they eat very little if any meat.
Support Biotechnology
That might seem surprising to many, but the use of biotechnology and genetically modified crops reduces the amount of herbicides and pesticides used and can allow no-till farming. When farm land is tilled it releases carbon from the soil and into the atmosphere, among other things.
Teosinte and Corn
For millennia people have been breeding plants to increase or introduce the desirable traits they wanted. A well known example is that of teosinte. Teosinte is a wild grass that humans started cultivating over 6000 years ago. They selected for the traits they wanted and eventually teosinte developed into what today is called ‘corn’. Corn is ‘a human invention, a plant that does not exist naturally in the wild. It can only survive if planted and protected by humans’.(source). See some cool pictures of the original teosinte and modern corn from NSF.gov and Berkeley.
Today
In more recent times, since we now have the knowledge of genes and the proteins they express, we can modify our crops in a much more systematic way. With traditional breeding methods like that used in developing teosinte to corn, it wasn’t possible to know or control exactly which genes would be passed on in each round of breeding. Today, since we have a very good understanding of different genes, their proteins, etc. we can choose exactly which genes we want to be present in a plant.
We can now grow crops with increased yields, that are more nutritious and have a reduced environmental impact. For one example:
Built-in insecticides
Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) is a naturally occurring soil bacterium. It makes a protein that kills some insect larvae, in particular, the European corn borer. Before modern insecticides were available the European corn borer resulted in large reductions of corn production. Now, people have been able to take the gene for the BT protein that kills the corn borer and put it in the corn itself. Consequently, when the larvae eat the corn, they die. Very little, if any, insecticide needs to be sprayed on the corn. And it doesn’t hurt beneficial insects like honey bees, lady bugs, spiders, etc. (source)
Organic foods
Its also worth noting that organic food is not necessarily ‘pesticide-free and pathogen-free’ (source). And in fact many organic farmers also use BT – the difference being that they put in on the plants in the form of a liquid or powder. Problems with this method include rain washing it away, requiring repeated applications. The powder can also cause lung problems for farm workers who might breathe it in and in those with weakened immune systems it could lead to lung infections. See:
Bt Is Number One in Organic Survey
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) (organic gardening product)
Organic Farming
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Related Posts:
- Energize your life in an environmentally positive way
- Eating healthy to stay healthy
- Longevity around the world
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