PLN 31

I just read the article by the Associated Press, “Newton's apple tree bound for gravity-free orbit,” A piece of the Newton’s apple tree is being taken up into space on the Atlantis shuttle. An astronaut took this piece of the tree into space as an ironic joke but it is now turning into a major experiment. The astronaut just thought it would be funny to have a piece of the tree that helped discover gravity, in a zero gravity environment. But it has led scientist to begin testing what happens to plants in outer space. The thinking is that if plants can still grow without gravity, then it might make it possible to have colonies in space. Obviously the plant would have to be provided with necessary water and light, but otherwise hope is good for the survival of the zero gravity photosynthesizes. This matters to the world because we could be transported to large space stations, or even bases on another planet to live there. This effects education because of all the opportunities it will present. This will create jobs as well as new information and new engineering that needs to be figured out. With space farms, longer periods of time could be spent in orbit with out having restock flights. I think this is just amazing. In my US history class we are talking about all the decades up to the 2000’s and how technology has changed so rapidly in the last 10 to 20 years. Now colonization in outer space is a possibility? Wow!

PLN 30

“No charges against man with rifle at Summit County High School,” from the Denver Post, tells of a man who picked up his daughter from school with an unloaded .22 caliber rifle in the trunk of his car. This is scary to me because I wouldn’t feel safe if people had weapons in their car at school. Someone saw the rifle in the trunk and reported it. After investigating the issue the Summit County Sheriff’s Office is droping charges due to the fact that it was and accident and he had no hostile intentions. I don’t think this is worthy of jail time or anything like that but I think he should at least be fined. Having a weapon on school ground should be a big deal. I believe that this ruling just shows that it is okay to have weapons and threaten the safety of the students and teachers. This issue should be a bigger deal than the police made it even though there weren’t any cruel intentions. No one should have weapons on school property, accidentally or on purpose.

PLN 29

The article, 2txt? Or Nt 2txt by Garrison Keillor talks about how young men have lost social skills because of texting and e-mail. Keilor also states that girls have somehow maintained their personal relationship abilities through these tough technological times. This is because even though girls text as much as boys they also do a lot more talking, all girls do. In spite of that, I disagree with Mr. Keillor, I personally still have the ability to talk to people interact. In my own experiences I have found that I am still very capable of holding conversations with adults or even people my age. I text everyday, for the majority of the day, and yet I believe my social skills are fine. I can talk to my teachers, friends, girls, adults and anybody else you can think of without having much of a problem. The case might not be the same for other guys my age, but I know that I have no problem, and my friends don’t seem to have much of a problem either. Thus I am forced to disagree with Mr. Keillor, and say that I am just as capable as any girl, of maintaining good people skills while texting constantly.

PLN 28

In the article, “Our boys are falling behind in education” by Dottie Lamm, states that boys are falling behind girls academically because of a verbal differences. First, they explained how the girl’s brain is able to become verbally faster. They believe that boys verbal skills don’t grow until fourth of fifth grade. Though these are the average years, a school in Aurora separated kindergarteners into gender classes and the boys were just as successful as the girls, my feeling is that the verbal difference is not the problem but instead things like motivation. It seems, also being in a gender class myself, I have gained motivation to do well for some reason. Then, they say that the world will have a role switch and the women will be in charge based on what is happening in education; however I don’t feel this is true. There are plenty of guys that do well and try hard in school. Boys just need to step up and take education seriously. Obviously, the struggle that guys are said to have can be fixed and just because guys may struggle in school that doesn’t mean that they will fail in life outside of school too.

PLN 27

“DA: Officers who killed two bank robbers justified” by the Denver Post talks about two officers that fired more than a hundred rounds into two bank robbers. Someone did a PLN presentation on this article and I thought it was very interesting. His question for discussion was if these two officers were justified or not, and I believe they are. Their job is to keep themselves and everyone around them safe, no matter what it takes. If these two robbers were dangerous, which they were because they were firing back, then the police did a good thing. Other than the two robbers no one was killed or injured, so the officers did their job and did it well. A point was brought up that the officers weren’t the only ones that were firing; they were being shot at so they fired back. Both officers were hit, one in the leg and one in the arm, so they had to stop these two dangerous robbers. These two officers are justified in their actions because they were only doing their job and did it to the best of their abilities.

PLN 26

"Suspect arrested in iPad theft” by the Denver Post talks about a man that robbed an iPad from a 59 year old man. As he was taking it from him, the skin on the man’s pinky was stripped to the bone so he couldn’t run after the robber. The man had just bought the iPad and was walking out to his car as it was ripped out of hands. Why do people steal? I don’t understand it. There are plenty of other legal ways to get money. Get a job! If you need money fast they talk to someone, take a loan from someone, anything but steal from someone. This man wasn’t doing anything wrong and paid for his merchandise and still was robbed and injured. Bad things happen to good people, this situation is a great example of that. When I buy something I don’t worry about someone stealing it from me but it does happen which is incredibly sad. I wonder how messed up people’s morals are when things like this happen. How deep are you that stealing is the only way out? Sometimes that’s not even why people steal, they steal because they want to, they don’t have the self control to stop themselves.

PLN 25

“New York-to-Denver flight makes emergency landing” by the Denver Post talks about a United Airlines plane that had to make an emergency landing because of the smell of smoke in the cockpit. The plane landed safely and the 140 passengers were all put onto another plane. I wrote about this because it proves that technology isn’t perfect. We talked about the pros and cons to technology all first semester and a lot this semester. Here is one of the cons. Airplane crashes are very rare, but they do happen, and every time they do happen lots of people die. Luckily this plane landed safely. I don’t know what exactly was wrong with the plane, if anything, but they shouldn’t even have to worry about that. This kind of technology, the kind that can kill a hundred people with one mistake, needs to be perfected so that mistakes never happen. I look forward to knowing 100% that there is no chance that the plane I am in will crash. Right now when I get on a plane there is always that little bit of doubt, because there is a chance. It is a tiny percentage but there still is a percentage. Technology like that should be perfect, 100% success rate.