CT Mayhem `07 - `08

Values

What is the most precious item in your life?  The one thing that you cannot do without. The thing in life you value the most.
The most precious item in my life isn’t an item.  It’s a person.  My sister is the person who helps me through everything and will always have my back.  She’s my best friend, and I have no idea where I would be without her.  I think I value her life more than my own.  I love her, we do everything together from watching out favorite TV shows to getting ready for concerts.

Hawkesdale College Questions

1. What is the best thing about living where you do?

The best thing about living where we do is I like having four seasons.  Not all places experience winter or summer or even fall and spring.  The weather varies so well that sometimes you never even know what the next day will be like.  After a few months the weather becomes completely different.  It makes sports seasons clearer and more designated.  Sports are a huge part of my life so it benefits me well.

2. Tell us why your school is unique?

Our school is unique because we are very technology-oriented.  As sixthe graders we take a computer class and as you experience new teachers you experience new projects.  In some classes we make videos and in Social Studies we have basically everything on computers.  We are learning the Classroom 2.0 tools and different ways of communication.  I like being able to talk to people from other states and countries.  It makes learning interesting and fun.

Growing Up; Technology Style

I believe that we use technology in our classrooms to define one purpose; the future.  We all know that the future is coming quickly.  Technology is rapidly advancing everyday and new things are created constantly, whether it is for recreational purposes or for the future in scientific advancements.  All that we know is that the future is coming and there is most definitely no stopping it.  The future is so important because it’s where our fate lies.  It’s where we’re headed no matter what.  If we want to go to the past, our first destination is the future.

So why is the future of technology being taught in modern day schools through modern day products?  Well, because that’s where it starts.  You have to start somewhere before getting on that rocket ship and flying to the moon.  Communication is the key.  Most future predictions are based around computers.  That’s how we’ll learn, go to school, and communicate with the rest of the world.  Students need to learn how to use computers and become familiar and comfortable with them; using them; and communicating with them.  Our generation is the generation.  We are the ones who will be most knowledgeable of technology.  We were born along with it.  The scientists and technical educators who are teaching us have only just learned.  Technology hasn’t been around that long.  We’ll be so advanced in the future, because our generation grew up with technology.

We learned how to play computer games at such an early age, we learned how to type in elementary school, and we were even given specific computer education classes before we made it to middle school.  And in middle school, we have Tech Ed classes.  We’re being taught how to build and program simple robots.  In high school you can sign up for advanced Tech Ed classes to learn exactly what they’re preparing us for.

Everyone is listening.  Everyone is watching.  Everyone is waiting to see our mistakes and ways to solve them.  We are the guinea pig generation.  The next generation will run smooth and flawlessly because we were the ones to test drive the road to the future.  People all around the world are excited, possibly jumping out of their desk chairs to see what will happen.  The people who have given us the leg-up, the boost, the head start are the ones watching.  They are the ones most excited to see where their creations will go.  They want to see how we react with their creations and how our reactions will create a better, more advanced future.

There’s no stopping it.  It’s coming no matter what.  It can either be good or bad.  It can be the catalyst for our success or the Doomsday we hear so much about.  It’s called the Future.  It’s being taught around the world whether you recognize it or not.  It becomes the past with every passing second but we’re all eagerly awaiting the next moment in time.  People are waiting, people are watching and people are judging.

Blogging Buddies - “United States”

Hi, I’m —. I’m from Connecticut in the US. I was just wondering what you think when you hear someone say something about the United States.

Comment your answer on my blog. (”

That was what I put on Peter’s blog, from Canada. Click here to view his blog.

 I have yet to receive a response. But when I do, it will most definitely be up here.

 What do you think of when you here the United States mentioned in conversations?

VoiceThread

Interview With Mayor Canidate James Vumbaco

This is a live blog, I’m listening to three classmates interview James Vumbaco.  We are posting follow up questions to a main computer in the center where one girl is refreshing a page to ask those questions.

 ”Pick a way to go, and go for it.”

He believes the future is in technology and that college is important, but if you want to just go straight off to technical school, that is perfectly okay.

“We learn a lot outside of text books and that content learning is important and it builds structure, but as you go forward you need to pick or choose a way to go and learn the world outside of textbooks.”

Mr. Vumbaco thinks technology definately helps with routine things but it can also take away from learning experiences.  We are a lot more educated then we have been in the past but we aren’t as agressive as we need to be as far as our learning is concerned.  He believes we take too much for granted.

James Vumbaco says that we need to learn how to communicate verbally and stop depending on e-mail.  If you send four people the same e-mail they can all interpret it differently.  They can’t understand expressions and emotion through technology such as e-mail or intstant messaging.

Disney World

 I’ve been to Walt Disney World three times within the past 365 days.  Honestly, it gets old so we bring friends and do more in Florida than just Disney, but I still love it so I decided to e-mail them as my company.  I’m going back two more times in 2008.  Sad, I know.  I e-mailed them from the contact info on their webpage.

In February, my family and a family that’s friends with mine are coming to Disney for a week or so.  Everyone has been so busy getting reservations and such.  Every year my family comes and it’s always so much fun!  We just came in September and got to see the new Nemo ride in Epcot.  I absolutely adore Nemo, he’s my favorite newest Disney Character.  My favorite character of all time is Winnie the Pooh.  I just wanted to let you know how much I love this place and I’m ecstatic to come back!

Thanks So Much!

PS: I’m coming back in July for a softball tournament at The Wide World of Sports!!!!

The Liger

Something that I know nothing about, would be the Liger.

And yes, it is a real animal.

The Liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion and female tiger.  A Liger represents a lion with diffused stripes and less thick mane.  They are the largest cat breed in the world even thought the Siberian Tiger is the largest pure breed.  Like tigers but unlike lions, the liger is an excellent swimmer.  There is a similar hybrid called the Tigon that is the offspring of a female lion and male tiger.  It’s intresting how scienctists can now breed different species and create a whole new type of animal!

Documentation of the first liger was reported in the early 19th century of Europe.   In 1837, two liger cubs were born and exhibited in a zoo.  In 1935, four ligers were born.  Three of them, a male and two females, were still living in 1953. The male weighed 750 lb. and stood a foot and a half taller than a full grown male lion at the shoulder.  You would think these creatures would be recent, like 21st century–recent.  They’re new enough to be not be around as long as reptiles and such, but they have been around long enough.

Jungle Island in Miami is home to a liger named Hercules, the largest non-obese liger weighing in at over 900 pounds, over twice the size of a male lion.  The liger is the largest animal in the cat family  and Hercules was in the Book of World Records as the largest cat. Hercules is completely healthy and will live a long life.  The species this cat was, is said to be a complete accident.   I think it’s so cool how large these cats are.  Can you imagine a regualr house cat enlarged to be taller than your waist?

Ligers have a tiger-like striping pattern on a lion-like sandy background.  These markings may be black, dark brown or sandy. The background color may be tawny, sandy or golden. The actual pattern and color depends on which subspecies the parents were and on the way in which the genes interact in the offspring.

White tigers have been crossed with lions to produce “white” (actually pale golden) ligers. In theory white tigers could be crossed with white lions to produce white, very pale or even stripeless ligers. A black liger would require both a dark tiger and a dark lion as parents. Very few black tigers and lions have ever been recorded.  No reports of black lions have ever been substantiated. A hypothetical procedure to breed black ligers is explained here. The blue or Maltese Tiger is now unlikely to exist, making grey or blue ligers an impossibility. It is not impossible for a liger to be white, but it is very rare.  If there were blue or black tigers/lions, I can see them being beautiful.  They would probably be on the endangered species list very quickly. =[

In the 2004 film Napolean Dynamite, Napolean draws a picture of a liger.  He says the animal is bred for its magical skill.  Of course, that is false.  Even though it’s a good movie, the information isn’t accurate.

For more information on the Liger, please click here.  Explore the idea of a Tigon, too.

Blog Action Day

Assignment: The best way to participate is to post on your blog something that relates to the environment. Your post can be about anything to do with the environment. So you could write a post which is offtopic for your blog OR relate the environment back to your topic in some way.

To write about the environment, I’m going to write about how simple things can affect global warming.  Simple things such as shorter showers, turning the faucet off while brushing your teeth, and unplugging things when you’re not using them.  Small things like that can have such a great impact on global warming.

Most people take 15 minutes showers or longer.  By shortening the time to 8 minutes, you can save hundreds of gallons of water.  The standard fixture in a shower releases 5-10 gallons of water per minute.  A running faucet uses approximately 4 gallons of water per minute.  If you take a 15 minute shower and your shower uses at least 5 gallons of water per minute, you’re using over 75 gallons of water.  If you spend two minutes brushing your teeth and leave the sink running, you use over 8 gallons of water.  That’s a lot considering millions of Americans contribute.

When you leave lamps, alarm clocks, radios, or phones plugged in even when you’re not using them, they still absorb energy.  When you’re not using something, unplug it.  Unplug seldom used items such as mini-fridges and chargers.  Cell phone, PDA, camera and cordless tool chargers are located in almost every household.  Keep them unplugged until you need them.

Turn off the lights.  Flick off the switches when you leave the room.  Its as simple as that.

Little things can save so much.  Think about it.

Global Warming Podcast

I spent a little while searching iTunes for podcasts I might be interested in listening to and I decided I wanted to listen to something that had to do with the environment.  I searched the program for podcasts that would fall under that category and considered listening to the following:

• Today’s Environment Show
• One Environment
• The Green Alternative
• Environment Report
• Environment Yale

I chose to listen to Environment Yale’s “Global Warming and Species Distribution.”  Professor Schmitz talks about how global warming affects the predator-prey relationships between different species.

I learned that animals are flexible creatures and they can adapt to their surroundings but the plant species can’t.  The temperature and amount of soil are affected, making the plants migrate to more appropriate places.  People are worried that these plants won’t be able to adapt quickly enough for the animals that feed on them.  The beneficiaries from these plants may go extinct along with the plants themselves.  Its impossible to tell if an entire species can become extinct but predictions about how species adjust to global warming have been made.

•  Bats will do fine because they can fly and the warmer climate will enable them to live more spread out throughout the United States.
• Mice species will not do great because they cannot migrate as easily.
• Larger mammals, hoofed mammals such as deer and antelope species will be able to migrate.

If animals lose they’re cultural role, agriculture may be negatively effected.  For example, spiders and grasshoppers develop at the same rate and around the same time so spiders can keep up with the grasshoppers as they’re prey but with climate change happening, the development rate might go out of sync.  If plants died in a highly populated moose area, all of the moose would die and so would the wolves preying on the moose.  You can come up with cost-effective ways to manage a forest that are not harmful to the economy.

I e-mailed Professor Schmitz, commenting on how much I loved his podcast.

“As a class assignment, we were all to choose a podcast that would teach us something and write a blog post about what we heard.  I decided to listen to your “Global Warming and Species Distribution” podcast from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.  I have always been interested in the environment and that’s what drew me in to listen to it.

I thoroughly enjoyed your podcast.  It was very informative and I had never realized the impact global warming had on so many species.  It was good to hear that some people actually do care.  After listening to your podcast, I learned so many new things that I can now share with my classmates.”

  My iTunes didn’t want to play it for me so I had to go to Yale’s website to listen to the podcast.

Click on the picture to go to the Podcast Page.  If the picture link does not work, click here.