Sunday, September 21, 2014

Collaborative Project Introductory Assignment

My choice of assignments in order are:

Politics and Social Movements: After taking AP Gov in high school I became interested in politics and the way government is run in our country. While we have arguably one of the best systems in the world, there are still massive amounts of problems and inefficiencies with everything from election rules to congressional voting procedures that could be fixed if work was done to implement solutions.

This article recounts the Climate March that occurred this past weekend in New York City. It was a grassroots movement in hopes of inspiring political leaders who will be attending the United Nations Climate Summit to work towards stricter standards on climate issues. This showcases how grassroots movements have become a major part of modern day American government. I found it interesting how the movement combines all walks of life: young, old, politicians, celebrities, and religious leaders.

Nature: I have always been very interested in nature and making sure that the environment is protected and taken care of for future generations. I think many people grossly underestimate that role that nature plays in our lives and take for granted the many benefits we receive from it. This ties in with my major, environmental engineering, and I would like to look more into the ethical issues within this topic.

This article discusses the opposition that the Dublin Zoo has faced after a baby zebra was recently born there. The zoo claims that it is part of a captive breeding program and that the baby will live a happy life and be able to bond with its mother. On the other hand PETA believes that the zoo is using the baby as a money maker, accusing the zoo of incarceration of animals. This touches on the larger ethical issues of zoos which is something I find very interesting.

Genetics: I have always found it fascinating how a basic code could program so much of who we in everything from our personalities to what diseases we will get throughout our lives. I love hearing about new discoveries that are made on innovative ways genetic technology will benefit or could potentially harm our lives.


This article is about how a new type of gene therapy RNA interference that was thought would never work, but has recently made a massive breakthrough. RNA was always thought to have promise but once testing was started there were many problems with getting it to actually work. The article tells how researches have now found a way to get the RNA into the liver. The work could help cure things such as cancer, high cholesterol, and many others. This breakthrough could be the start of a whole new type of treatment for a huge variety of diseases.

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