The Effects of Toxic Gardens
The urban family is proud of their immaculate garden and neatly manicured and pristine backyard. They feel proud when guests visit and comment on the vibrant, green grass, the weed free flowerbeds and garden and the lust tomatoes on the vine. It is delightful to watch the children roll around and play on the lawn without worry of them being bitten by ants, fleas or other distasteful insects. Best of all, is the delight of the children when they can pick the vegetables right out of the garden for dinner. The entire family loves the fresh vegetables and prides themselves on having raised the carrots, beans, and tomatoes themselves. Sounds ideal, eh? Alas, reality is the pristine backyard is a veritable toxic wasteland since pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are routinely dumped on the lawn in an effort to maintain the weed and pest free yard. Additionally, the garden vegetables are loaded with the most recent "bug spray" application that has been absorbed into the vegetables. These toxins have been found to cause cancer, infertility, birth defects, etc. Therefore upon reflection, the above-mentioned scene is more of a nightmare than a dream. The Institute of Medicine has conclusive evidence linking herbicide use to cancer (Turner-Lowe 1). The exposure may be minor in the produce that we grow and eat from our chemically treated garden; the cumulative effects are significant. The effect of continually ingesting foods with toxins within is what may eventually create some forms of cancer. Many fungicides and herbicides contain orgaanochlorines, which collect and remain in the fatty tissues of human for long periods of time.
Pesticides are toxic and can poison humans. Children are especially vulne...
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Like La Relacion, in "The Generall Historie of Virginia,” John Smith narrates about his own experience in the New World, but as a settler to grab the attention of readers in England during the early 1600s. In this adventure, he describes the difficulties
US Enviromental Protection Agency. (2010, December 13). Retrieved January 20, 2011, from US EPA Human Health: http://cfpub.epa.gov/eroe/index.cfm?fuseaction=list.listByChapter&ch=49
During recent years, numerous newspaper and magazine articles have suggested that humans may be at risk because small amounts of well known environmental contaminants, such as dioxin, PCBs and DDT, can affect hormone levels. Hormones are produced by the endocrine system as regulators of biological function in target organs. Because hormones play a critical role in early development, toxicological effects on the endocrine system often have an impact on the reproductive system. The term endocrine disruptor is used to describe chemicals that can mimic hormones and may either enhance or counteract their effects. It has been suggested that these hormone changes can, in turn, lead to a variety of health problems including cancer, decreased fertility, and abnormalities in newborns.
There are many factors that are integrated into the successful development of a child from Prenatal growth into toddlerhood. Teratogens (outside factors) have a great impact on the babies’ inutero development. Some outside factors like second-hand smoke, smog, or fumes from cleaning chemicals can cause negative effects on the child inside the womb. A few major affects from teratogens could result in low birth weight, head circumference, slow physical growth as well as an effect on mental, behavioral and motor skills (Berk, 2003). The environment around the mother provides many of these outside factors affecting the baby’s growth. But the main link to teratogens during the gestation period is most likely the mother. Daniel S. Messinger and the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that 2.8% of pregnant women admitted to using illicit drugs during their pregnancy (1996). Through illicit drug use, tobacco use and alcohol use, the mother disrupts her baby’s growth with possibly permanent damage.
There have been a lot of controversy over the years with this particular debate, but in my opinion I think intelligence is shaped by both! Just because one family has a long line of geniuses and has a kid and expects them to be the same doesn’t mean he or she will be. Even though it does say in the book, “The significant differences in intelligence among various racial and ethnic groups, they said (Herrnstein and Murray), must in part be explained in terms of heredity.” It also says in the book, “The relationships between race and intelligence is also best explained by social rather biological causes, according to the Berkeley sociologist. All societies have oppressed ethnic groups. Low status, often coupled with discrimination and mistreatment,
Haas, R. (2011, May 11). Will the Angle of a Football Affect the Distance it Goes?. In livestrong.com. Retrieved March 20, 2014
...al, but the overall idea is to help others in the community, an important concept for children to learn. Most television shows for preschool aged children have a focus on helping others, but this show specifically focuses on math, and the segment of the episode “The Aquarium Fix-It” that focuses on measurement and helping others is fairly consistent with the sociocultural theory of learning. Knowing how well the sociocultural theory applies to education television shows is important because we need to strive to help children learn better and more efficiently. Figuring out what can be done to increase the effectiveness of television will improve our society as a whole.
Hunt, E., Carlson, J. (2007). Considerations relating to the study of group differences in intelligence.
Every culture has its own set of virtues, and each culture values different behaviors. So, this means that not every culture has the same concept of intelligence and values the same mental abilities. An IQ score of a student in the United States and the IQ score of a child in a West African tribe would differ because these two cultures vary greatly. Subcultures have to also be considered in this scenario. A subculture is a group of people in a culture that separate themselves from their culture by practicing their own values. Different types of subcultures would be those who live in poor communities, those who live in rural areas, and ethnic families. Because these groups have different situations and different values, their intelligence would vary. The differences in culture have so greatly affected IQ scores, that psychologists have tried to develop a culture-fair test. This is an intelligence test that minimizes the significance of skills and knowledge that may be more common in some cultures than others. However,there has yet been a test that has been created that has no cultural influences. Another problem with the culture theory is that there are many successful and smart people who come from different cultures. They say this is because it really depends on the person’s environment. While many psychologists argue over the concept of intelligence, many will agree that culture has an effect on levels of
With this in mind, it is important to comprehend the role of an individual's environment while determining the source of intelligence. Gifted programs have incredible inequality, with 8% of white children being considered gifted, on the other hand only 3.6% of black and 4.2% of hispanic students are deemed gifted according to the Department of Education’s report (Guo, 2015). Poorer children are also presented with fewer advantages than their wealthier counterparts, critics will say that gifted programs put more effort into enrolling wealthier children (Guo, 2015). Interestingly, at the age of two, poorer children are likely six months behind on their language development skills (Guo, 2015). Not to mention that children brought up in safe, inspiring environments have a higher average IQ score than neglected children (Le Page, 2017). One stellar example of the role of environment while determining intelligence is the case of Edith Stern. Edith was raised from birth to be intelligent, only listening to classical music as a babe and being spoken to as if she were an adult while still an infant (Cohen, 1977). This process was dubbed by her father “total educational immersion”, as he believed in something akin to a growth mindset (Cohen, 1977). Edith now has an IQ of 200, taught math at a college level by age 15 and holds a PhD, proving that intelligence can be learned (Cohen,
The very concept of intelligence has been shown to vary across cultures, as seen in the works by Sternberg (2002) and Mpofu, Ntinda, and Oakland (2012). The conclusions drawn in these two articles could be very useful in our American society, especially in schools across the nation. They also give important insight on just how perceptions can differ between cultures, therefore giving us a basis to use when trying to explain or avoid ethnocentricity.
Every woman when pregnant has a 3-5% chance of having a baby born with a birth defect, and these chances increase when the developing fetus/ embryos are exposed to teratogens, whether it’s intentional or unintentional (Bethesda (MD), 2006). Teratogens can cause severe birth defects, malformations, or terminate the pregnancy altogether (Jancárková, & Gregor, 2000). The placenta is known as an effective barrier from any detrimental pathogen that can potentially hurt the fetus. The timing of exposure of any teratogen is critical to the impact of prenatal development (Bethesda (MD), 2006). The most vulnerable time of the fetus for severe damage is during early pregnancy when all the major organ and central nervous system (CNS) are developing. Miscarriages have an important role in keeping a pregnancy from evolving when there is something serious going on with the developing fetus/embryo. Miscarriages are more common than we think and are the most familiar type of pregnancy loss (Bethesda (MD), 2006).
The results of the study found that there was a consistent decline in IQ scores from first to last borns amongst multiple families. They reported that older siblings had a higher IQ than their younger siblings 60 percent of the time (6 out of 10 cases on average). These findings suggest that birth order has a significant effect in regards to intelligence which also plays an important role in the child’s personality and development. However, other scientists have conducted the same kinds of research and concluded that there is no relationship between birth order and intelligence (Rodgers, 2001). They argue that the research showing a significant effect between birth order and intelligence are generalizations based off of a small sample size, and as such require further
Since before 1900’s intelligence was the single most important aspect to achieving success and determining future ambitions. This is shown through Intellectual Quotient test commonly known as IQ tests. Tanner (2015) explains that the IQ test was developed by English and French psychologists during the start of World War One. IQ testing was established to decided potential officers from a vast amount of recruits. However, in recent history the theory of intelligence has been challenged due to an article written by William James which question why do some people achieve more than others with matched intelligence? (Duckworth et al. 2007). These sources identify whether character such as perseverance or intellectual ability are important for accomplishing
Although there are two parts to this type of curriculum, both outdoor sports and adventure education overlap a great deal. Outdoor sports mainly focus on sports that are mainly done outside and in it's normal state use the outside world. Although, it also means that any sport that is played outdoors is considered an outdoor sport. Adventure education is more specific. Adventure education is defined as “an experimental process that takes place in challenging outdoor settings where the primary purpose is to build and strengthen inter- and intra-personal relationships, personal health, leadership skills, and environmental understandings” (“Adventure Education”). This includes such activities such as ropes courses and team challenges. They are smaller games that require students to think but at the same time they are making students be physically...