WritingI usually like to write fiction stories that probably couldn't have ever occurred. But, like right now, I am working on a historical story that probably didn't happen but the time period that it takes place in did happen, and so did a couple of the main facts and ideas.
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My Stories |
This is a story that I wrote in class for an assignment. My favorite part is, '“Just so you know, I love you,” Murad whispered so quietly, I could barely hear him.
“Me too,” I said with a dreamy look in my eyes.' I like this part because it shows how the main character is falling in love. I believe I did very well on this story because I think it is an intriguing theme. I am very proud of this story, so I hope that you enjoy it!
“Me too,” I said with a dreamy look in my eyes.' I like this part because it shows how the main character is falling in love. I believe I did very well on this story because I think it is an intriguing theme. I am very proud of this story, so I hope that you enjoy it!
This is my Utopian Society Project description. The project was explained in the Utopian Society project under Projects, but the writing goes into a lot more detail then the picture. This document explains how the Utopians live, what they eat, and what they do all day long. This was a really fun and creative project which I really enjoyed doing. I hope that after reading this Utopian Society description you can understand more about our imaginary society.
Supercreature Newsarticle
I like how I described the Signoix Steinius very well. My favorite line while describing it is, "Dangerous flames surround its head making the appearance of the head even more like a Phoenix." I like this because it really shows what I have in the picture/drawing. I hope you enjoy my Supercreature Newsarticle!
Part of My Journal - Create Your Own Chapter of Seedfolks
I wish I would have finished this journal because I had made a pretty good start to it. This piece exemplifies how I like to write short stories. I believe I did well in illustrating a scene his actions, but read and see if you think the same!
Jonah
I remember playing with those toy cars of my father’s on the sidewalk. It started to rain that day, creating a tremendous flood of water, sweeping away those toy cars. I watched as they drifted with such speed towards the rain gutter that I thought they had been caught in river rapids. I remember diving down to catch the last of them before they disappeared, but all I accomplished was to penetrate my pants with water. When I had looked up, my eyes full of tears, I caught a glimpse of green in the otherwise dark and gloomy Cleveland. I also watched as many people found their way through the crowded sidewalks, making their way to overhangs in stores. I knew where they had come from, so I made my way to the garden. Back then, I didn’t know what to expect.
That was when I was seven. After that unexpected trip, I never found my way back to the Gibb Street Garden. I’ve heard about it, though.
One day, late in fall, I was walking down our street, my mother and father were fighting, and I didn’t want to get into their business. I looked at the red brick apartments, not sure I remembered where Rick lived.
Exhausted from searching, I sat down clumsily on Rick’s bed. He and I looked out the window, noticing there was a lot of commotion going on in the once vacant lot down below.
Suddenly Rick asked me, “Do you wanna go down to the garden? My mom is workin’ down there, she said she would love if we came down there and helped.”
“I guess,” I answered.
I remember playing with those toy cars of my father’s on the sidewalk. It started to rain that day, creating a tremendous flood of water, sweeping away those toy cars. I watched as they drifted with such speed towards the rain gutter that I thought they had been caught in river rapids. I remember diving down to catch the last of them before they disappeared, but all I accomplished was to penetrate my pants with water. When I had looked up, my eyes full of tears, I caught a glimpse of green in the otherwise dark and gloomy Cleveland. I also watched as many people found their way through the crowded sidewalks, making their way to overhangs in stores. I knew where they had come from, so I made my way to the garden. Back then, I didn’t know what to expect.
That was when I was seven. After that unexpected trip, I never found my way back to the Gibb Street Garden. I’ve heard about it, though.
One day, late in fall, I was walking down our street, my mother and father were fighting, and I didn’t want to get into their business. I looked at the red brick apartments, not sure I remembered where Rick lived.
Exhausted from searching, I sat down clumsily on Rick’s bed. He and I looked out the window, noticing there was a lot of commotion going on in the once vacant lot down below.
Suddenly Rick asked me, “Do you wanna go down to the garden? My mom is workin’ down there, she said she would love if we came down there and helped.”
“I guess,” I answered.
Preparing for the GMO debate
These are a few questions we had to answer before starting our debate about whether GMOs are good or bad with the class. The debate questions are stated below before I answer them. I enjoyed writing about both views on GMOs because they really can be both detrimental and beneficial to our society. My goal is to continue writing long paragraphs like this because I feel I added a lot of detail. I hope you enjoy!
Answer each question in a detailed paragraph(s) using the directions on page 1:
If I were arguing in a debate about GMOs, I would argue more on the benefits side of GMOs. Using GMOs gives you a wide variety of options in engineering food that you never had access to before. For example, crops can be genetically modified to be life-saving to people in need. What would you decide if you were faced with this choice: Your country’s farmers have an expertise in the growth of rice. However, this rice that they grow does not have enough Vitamin A to nourish your people, so they go blind and die. 3,100,000 children under the age of 5 die each year from being malnourished in Vitamin A, so if you knew there was a way to help them with GMO foods, would you do so? The article Should the U.S. Support… says that it is feasible, “For example, engineers are able to create rice that has vitamin A and iron.” By creating this rice, poor countries will be able to feed their people so that they live.
Another benefit GMOs have on earth is making plants able to thrive in all sorts of environments. According to the University of Utah, “A biotechnology company has genetically modified a rice plant that can thrive in salt water, providing your nation with the opportunity to feed its citizens while bolstering its economy.” Using this technology of genetically modifying, we could create plants that usually cannot grow in a certain area, so that they can. For example, if papayas didn’t grow in Utah, only in Hawaii, we could genetically modify them do that they could. I think that this would be a helpful benefit of GMOs for our societies today.
Some people believe that GMOs are bad, and I think that they have some disadvantages too. One of the concerns of GMO foods are that they can cause allergic reactions in some people. If you were allergic to peanuts, and you ate a pineapple that used a beneficial gene from peanuts, that could cause an allergic reaction within you. The article Should the U.S. Support… explains another one of those situations, “For example, if a banana gene is added to corn, then it could cause an allergic reaction in people with rare banana allergies.”
Another thing that people consider a concern about GMOs is that you could accidentally cross-pollinate the wrong plant. For example, if you added a certain gene to corn, and the pollen from the corn cross-pollinated the Milky Weed and destroy it which would eventually kill the harmless caterpillars and butterflies. This would also affect the food chain as a whole and may kill off entire species.
Overall, I believe that the benefits of GMOs outweigh the concerns because there are many more benefits that GMOs can make than the concerns.
If I were the president of the United States that had a struggling economy, high obesity and overpopulation rate, I would ban GMOs. A lot of the time, foods are genetically modified to taste better, which means that if you fed already obese people good tasting, genetically modified foods, they would eat more of those unhealthy genetically modified foods and get even more obese. Scientific American’s GM Tomato Tastes Better article, they state, “In a blind taste test, 60 percent of 37 testers preferred the flavor of the GM tomato, according to a study published online this week in Nature Biotechnology.” However, if the U.S. was overpopulated, I would consider GMOs because with GM foods, you can grow regular crops in a faster time period resulting in an increase of food productivity. Therefore, I could feed all of my people because I could increase the rate of growth of my food products. If the U.S. had a struggling economy, I would ban GMOs because GMO testing is very expensive, and if you have a struggling economy, you don’t want to spend extra money on something that people may not even prefer.
I think that the most beneficial GMO is genetically modified golden rice because it has the potential to help save millions of people’s lives. In poorer countries, there are places where regular rice is grown. People who live there have meals that mainly consist of this rice, but unfortunately, it does not contain enough Vitamin A, concluding in 3.1 million deaths and cases of blindness of children under 5 years of age per year. This is due to lack of Vitamin A, however, there is a cure to this. Genetically Modifying this rice they eat to Golden Rice, we can increase the amount of Vitamin A in their diets and saving millions of people’s lives. The article Should the U.S. Support states, “For example, engineers are able to create rice that has vitamin A and iron.”
I think that the genetically modified corn is the most detrimental of all the genetically modified foods because it is proven to cause many tremendous health issues. Most genetically modified foods have only been tested for a little while which means that they could cause a lot of long-term health issues. As the website 10 Worst GMO Foods says, “...has been tied to numerous health issues, including weight gain and organ disruption.” On another note, I think that the worst thing used in genetically modifying foods to have pesticides inside them is Roundup. Roundup has caused thousands of deaths. Glyphosate, an ingredient used in Roundup is very toxic and is causing these deaths.
- Considering both points of view (Benefits & Concerns of GMOs), how does each side’s argument outweigh the others?
If I were arguing in a debate about GMOs, I would argue more on the benefits side of GMOs. Using GMOs gives you a wide variety of options in engineering food that you never had access to before. For example, crops can be genetically modified to be life-saving to people in need. What would you decide if you were faced with this choice: Your country’s farmers have an expertise in the growth of rice. However, this rice that they grow does not have enough Vitamin A to nourish your people, so they go blind and die. 3,100,000 children under the age of 5 die each year from being malnourished in Vitamin A, so if you knew there was a way to help them with GMO foods, would you do so? The article Should the U.S. Support… says that it is feasible, “For example, engineers are able to create rice that has vitamin A and iron.” By creating this rice, poor countries will be able to feed their people so that they live.
Another benefit GMOs have on earth is making plants able to thrive in all sorts of environments. According to the University of Utah, “A biotechnology company has genetically modified a rice plant that can thrive in salt water, providing your nation with the opportunity to feed its citizens while bolstering its economy.” Using this technology of genetically modifying, we could create plants that usually cannot grow in a certain area, so that they can. For example, if papayas didn’t grow in Utah, only in Hawaii, we could genetically modify them do that they could. I think that this would be a helpful benefit of GMOs for our societies today.
Some people believe that GMOs are bad, and I think that they have some disadvantages too. One of the concerns of GMO foods are that they can cause allergic reactions in some people. If you were allergic to peanuts, and you ate a pineapple that used a beneficial gene from peanuts, that could cause an allergic reaction within you. The article Should the U.S. Support… explains another one of those situations, “For example, if a banana gene is added to corn, then it could cause an allergic reaction in people with rare banana allergies.”
Another thing that people consider a concern about GMOs is that you could accidentally cross-pollinate the wrong plant. For example, if you added a certain gene to corn, and the pollen from the corn cross-pollinated the Milky Weed and destroy it which would eventually kill the harmless caterpillars and butterflies. This would also affect the food chain as a whole and may kill off entire species.
Overall, I believe that the benefits of GMOs outweigh the concerns because there are many more benefits that GMOs can make than the concerns.
- If you were the President of the United States with a struggling economy, high obesity, and overpopulation, would you encourage more GMO production or restrict it?
If I were the president of the United States that had a struggling economy, high obesity and overpopulation rate, I would ban GMOs. A lot of the time, foods are genetically modified to taste better, which means that if you fed already obese people good tasting, genetically modified foods, they would eat more of those unhealthy genetically modified foods and get even more obese. Scientific American’s GM Tomato Tastes Better article, they state, “In a blind taste test, 60 percent of 37 testers preferred the flavor of the GM tomato, according to a study published online this week in Nature Biotechnology.” However, if the U.S. was overpopulated, I would consider GMOs because with GM foods, you can grow regular crops in a faster time period resulting in an increase of food productivity. Therefore, I could feed all of my people because I could increase the rate of growth of my food products. If the U.S. had a struggling economy, I would ban GMOs because GMO testing is very expensive, and if you have a struggling economy, you don’t want to spend extra money on something that people may not even prefer.
- Considering GMO foods you have researched, which do you believe is most beneficial (helpful) to a civilization and why?
I think that the most beneficial GMO is genetically modified golden rice because it has the potential to help save millions of people’s lives. In poorer countries, there are places where regular rice is grown. People who live there have meals that mainly consist of this rice, but unfortunately, it does not contain enough Vitamin A, concluding in 3.1 million deaths and cases of blindness of children under 5 years of age per year. This is due to lack of Vitamin A, however, there is a cure to this. Genetically Modifying this rice they eat to Golden Rice, we can increase the amount of Vitamin A in their diets and saving millions of people’s lives. The article Should the U.S. Support states, “For example, engineers are able to create rice that has vitamin A and iron.”
- Which GMO foods do you believe is most detrimental (harmful) to a civilization and why?
I think that the genetically modified corn is the most detrimental of all the genetically modified foods because it is proven to cause many tremendous health issues. Most genetically modified foods have only been tested for a little while which means that they could cause a lot of long-term health issues. As the website 10 Worst GMO Foods says, “...has been tied to numerous health issues, including weight gain and organ disruption.” On another note, I think that the worst thing used in genetically modifying foods to have pesticides inside them is Roundup. Roundup has caused thousands of deaths. Glyphosate, an ingredient used in Roundup is very toxic and is causing these deaths.
Warm Ups - Quarter 4
This is a slideshow of all of the Warm Ups we have done so far in Miss Lukin's class for Quarter 4. These warm ups help us practice whatever we have been learning for the last couple of days, or introduce a new topic to us. I am most proud of the warm up 4/25/16 because of the descriptive language I used to portray how influential Johannes Kepler was and still is today. My favorite line is, "Today, Johannes Kepler is most known for his shocking mathematical and astronomical abilities, maybe for identifying the Laws of Planetary Motion, however, we don’t know much about the impacts that he made on our modern world with his discoveries." This is because it emphasizes what I will be talking about for the rest of the article. Hope you enjoy reading the warm ups we do every morning in class!