Fear Factor

This morning while reading the newspaper, I came across an article about fear.  Since Halloween falls on a Friday this year, I thought it was a perfect occasion to make a list of our fears.

What are you really afraid of?  Joey, my youngest, is dressing up as Indiana Jones this year for Halloween.  Does that mean that Joey will become terrified of snakes on Friday?  I just asked him what he is afraid of and he told me casually, "nothing."  Dominic, on the other hand, is afraid of dying.  When I was their age, I was afraid of taking out the garbage at night.  My parents lived in a wooded area and I was afraid of the long shadows and creepy noises at night when I had to take out the garbage.  Currently, I am afraid of the Ebola virus.  Will it spread?  Will it mutate?  Are my kids and students safe?

What really scares us?  What causes fear?  Has fear changed over the past century?  Will fear change in the future?  Read one of the two articles about fear below.  First state which article that you read and write a response to that article.  One article is from Scientific America and is about the science behind fear.  The other article is from the USA Weekend magazine.  Write a scholarly paragraph about fear.  You can pick any aspect of fear as long as you include what you are afraid of and why.


http://www.usatoday.com/experience/weekend/lifestyle/what-really-scares-us/17604159/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/factoring-fear-what-scares/

Fight for Your Right to....Be Educated

Do you know that there are still 168 million child labourers around the world?

Last Friday, October 10, 2014, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay for their ongoing struggle against the "suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

Malaya Yousafzay is the youngest person ever to be awarded a Nobel Prize.  As a young child born in Pakistan, she was an advocate for girls' education.  The Taliban first issued a death threat against her and then on October 9, 2012, a gunman attempted to assassinate her on her way home from school.  Yes...you read that right and she is only seventeen years old.

Malala shares the Nobel Prize with Kailash Satyarthi.  Satyarthi is a human rights activist from India who gave up a lucrative career as an Electrical Engineer to initiate a crusade to end child slavery and exploitative child labor.  Satyarthi has led to the rescue of over 78,500 child slaves and helped create a model for their education and rehabilitation.

This week I want you to go on the official website of the Nobel Prize and pick one former or current Nobel Prize winner to write about.  Ideally, I would love for there to be no repeats.  Use the website to pick a winner and then give a brief synopsis of that person's life and contribution to society.  The winner does not have to be a Peace Prize winner as there are also awards for Physics, Medicine, Chemistry, Literature, and Economic Sciences.  In a scholarly paragraph, (at the very least five sentences long with proper spelling, capitalization and punctuation) present a biography and a reason why they won the award.

http://www.nobelprize.org/

Marius the Giraffe

At the conclusion of our ecology unit, we discussed the importance of biodiversity.  Back in February of this year, TIME magazine published an article about how European Zoos are using euthanasia as a "regular tool for biodiversity and population management in many European Zoos."

http://time.com/5793/marius-the-giraffe-not-the-only-animal-zoos-have-culled/

Read the article above.  In a scholarly response, provide your response to this article.  What do you think?  Would you have signed a petition to save the giraffe's life?  What are other alternatives to euthanasia in over-crowded zoos?  Are zoos really helping to protect these animals?  Is euthanasia really a result of human impact?  In seventh hour we started discussing how animals in zoos do not seem happy.  What do you think about that?  Why?  Do you have any evidence to support your opinion?  What zoos are doing a good job of simulation the animal's natural habitat?  What can we do to increase biodiversity and improve the welfare of animals in zoos?