This past week we got a chance to listen Maru Garcia and listen to her talk on the contamination in East Los Angeles and how so many people were not aware of the dangerous toxins that are present near us. Of the 10,000 properties in East LA that include school and residential areas , only 700 have been treated for lead contamination.

I wasn’t able to attend class last week because I was out of town. But from the images I’ve seen and how my classmates have described the project, Maura’s Vacuoles Exhibition seems really interesting and intelligent. Environmental pollution is a major issue in industrial areas like LA.

I was not able to participate in last week’s class, but from the blogs of peer students in this class I got to know that Maru talked about her project exhibited in the DMA Final Exhibition “An Unreal Unity”.

Maru's "Vacuoles" was truly eye-opening. I have never before been so moved by an art piece. What made her exhibit all the more compelling was the story behind the art and how she went about creating her work. The lead contamination from battery plants right here in LA is an issue I was completely unaware was even a possibility.

Maru García- “Vacuoles”:

In our last class meeting, we spent the time brainstorming for our final project. This project was to write a textbook for the CNSI summer program in respect to the plastic epidemic that plagues our planet and how these issues relate to our class. I will be discussing how plastic pollution effects the ocean, how countries export trash to other countries who dump into the ocean, and ways that we can use science and art to fix these issues. The outline of my final will first introduce the process by which plastic goes from your consumption and follow it to the ocean.

During our last day of class, we brainstormed for our final class project. We are going to collectively write and publish a textbook for the students of the CNSI summer program regarding the plastic epidemic, or as we know it, the plastidemic. According to the UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis’ study, every year, 8 million metric tons of plastic are thought to accumulate in the ocean.

During the last class meeting, we brainstormed ideas about the contents of our plastic book and came up with a list of topics to write out. Out of the various topics, one that I am very interested in writing about and further exploring is the topic of plastic packaging. In class and over email, Professor Vesna mentioned that the book will be used as a textbook and that we are invited to give talks to students.

As this is our final blog entry for this course, I would like to share how much I have enjoyed this course. One of my favourite parts of the course, was the supportive and welcoming learning environment that we were able to create. It is a great change of pace from other courses that I have taken where large class sizes and grading policies (grade curving) created a competitive and stressful atmosphere that was often counterproductive to learning. Lastly, I would like everyone for making this course so great!

Medical waste and Medical advancements to reduce plastic

Last week we had the chance to start brainstorming ideas for our book. I personally believe that participating in writing this book is a wonderful idea and I am supportive of our goals of trying to raise awareness within high schoolers about this plastic epidemic. 

Global climate change (GCC) is the observed rise of the Earth’s average temperature and its related consequences. As early as the 1800s, scientist began to examine the possible effects of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that collect in the Earth’s atmosphere. Joseph Fourier, a French mathematician, first proposed that Earth’s atmosphere modeled a glass greenhouse and traps energy in the form of heat, providing an insulation layer. GCC is the effect of greenhouse gas emissions from human use on global climate. Today, GCC is one of the most discussed issues.

Last week during our final meeting, we discussed and brainstormed about the plastic book. Initially I was thinking about “Infinity War against Plastics” as the working title, because I think this title might appeal to the kids in high school who are interested in pop culture. But the finalized working title “Plastidemic ; Recovering from plastic plague” just catches my eyes.

In this week’s class, we finally finished midterm presentations and started brainstorming how we wanted to write our class book on plastics.

In the past few weeks we have talked about pollutions from plastics and decide to make a book from our discussion. I personally feel that this will be fantastic and decide to continue my paper topic within the region of food, because that seems to be the most reasonable thing to talk about.