Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts

October 9, 2021

Chip Shortages, Surging Raw Material Prices, Transportation Bottlenecks... and Christmas Trees

You might have heard on the news recently about the global supply chain and production shortages occurring throughout many nations. Some industries are having difficultly finding workers while other industry's workers are retiring or opting out due to the risk of Covid illness. While the world struggles to cope with the pandemic recovery, these bottlenecks cause rippling effects in other industries that rely on the chain of products and supplies.

Even once a loaded container ship makes the journey into a congested port there are still issues with the offloading process due to the ongoing Covid pandemic: many transportation container ships and their crew are having to wait in port and are not allowed to disembark to unload their products. Some countries are requiring the crews to quarantine for a week or more on their ship, forcing these large vessels to anchor offshore while they await clearance to dock.

The world anxiously awaits computer chips from Malaysia and electronics, clothes, and toys from China. No computer semiconductor chips equals no new vehicles, new computers, or PS5s for the rest of the consuming world. Surely you have seen the jump in new vehicle prices and the low inventory being kept by many vehicle dealers.

There even continues to be a shortage of liquor and alcohol products right now. Some manufacturers pivoted during the Covid pandemic to begin producing hand sanitizer instead of alcohols, while other producers are simply experiencing extreme supply chain shortages for the materials they need to make their products: raw material precursors, bottling, and packaging supply lines are all squeezed right now.

America is recovering from the pandemic but the rest of the world is not recovering as fast. As we recover and open up again, the demand for many products is beginning to go up. Other countries that supply the US with their manufactured products are not having as great of success yet in fighting the Covid pandemic. Lock downs are still present in several parts of the world, with many countries closing commerce production and slowing global distribution as the virus surges locally.

On a related side note – did you see that the US Postal Service will intentionally be slowing their mail services to save money in addition to the regular holiday slow down experienced each winter? Covid has already slowed all regular mail in the last couple of years: The US Postal Service might be crafting its own demise.

For another year, expect Christmas to be quite different. I’ll be making many of my gifts this year by hand or ordering special gifts NOW. For my parents, I’m planning to make a farmers gift basket for their Christmas gift, including a hand-knit scarf, fresh eggs from my chickens, a fresh loaf of homemade bread, a small tray of live baby greens, a handmade card, and whatever else I can grow, craft, or find for free before December.

Amber's "Christmas Tree Farm"

Christmas trees are rumored to be the hot item of 2021 - so buy a tree now if you need a new one. Prices are already rising quickly on Amazon due to the shipping bottlenecks and the manufacturing slowdown.


Below are some recommended Christmas trees that won't break the bank and are highly rated on Amazon - but you'll have to move fast, since prices are quickly rising for the holiday rush and stores are expected to sell out.

7ft Artificial Colorful Rainbow Full Fir Christmas Tree

7.5ft Premium Spruce Artificial Holiday Christmas Tree

 

Buy 7.5ft Premium Spruce Artificial Holiday Christmas Tree

6ft Pre-Lit Snow Flocked Artificial Holiday Christmas Pine Tree

Pre-lit Artificial Mini Christmas Tree, Includes Small Lights and Cloth Bag Base, Burlap-4 ft



Check out my other sites for Christmas gifts if you’re looking for unique Viking jewelry treasures at Viking Merchant or value-priced outdoor/ survival prepping supplies at Gritty Duck Supply Shop.

#amberclee #CommissionsEarned #Ad

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September 29, 2021

First Carbon Net Zero Soccer Game: Tottenham Hotspurs vs Chelsea 9.19.2021

Sports bring us together. They give us entertainment and they allow us to settle our political differences in ways other than wars. In almost every American household there is at least one sport regularly playing on the television. In our house that sport is football -- or "soccer" as us Americans know this sport by.

Popular all around the world and huge in every country other than the United States, soccer has been a catalyst for youth in some of the poorest places of the world. It’s popular in these poor places because of tradition but also because it only takes a simple ball and a small target to use as a goal, whereas other sports usually take much more gear or need more people on the team to be a good game.

One of the largest and most well-funded soccer leagues, with some of the best players in the world, is the English Premier League in the United Kingdom. The Premier League and Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club recently made an exciting sustainable leadership choice: to hold the first ever carbon net zero soccer game between teams Tottenham and Chelsea on September 19, 2021. Tottenham Hotspurs partnered with Sky news and the UK government to tackle this monumental reduction in carbon footprint and to bring attention to the climate emergency we're all currently fighting.


Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club Stadium


Carbon net zero status for events and buildings means that the emissions of carbon produced by that venue has been calculated and that sustainability strategies have been put in place to reduce the carbon being generated to zero, with nothing harmful being emitted into our planet's environment.

Calculations for carbon emissions for the soccer game would have captured everything from how the stadium is powered, how far the food travels to get to the stadium and how it is grown; emissions created by how players and attendees travel to the game; and impacts of the water used throughout the stadium. Greenhouse gas emissions calculations are a very complex data gathering and analysis process with many different indicators weighing in on the carbon emissions calculation.

Sustainability efforts are also incomplete without social justice as a key component. The Premier League, its players, and staff are already well known for their progressive support of human equality.

Carbon zero status was achieved through many different methods for the Tottenham-Chelsea soccer game, including the purchasing and planting of carbon offsets. Offsets will unfortunately always need to be used for large scale events and structures to reach carbon net zero status no matter the reduction techniques used, so this isn’t something we’re going to change soon.

Some of the techniques that Tottenham Football Club used to make this a sustainable soccer game were reducing the overall energy usage to power the game and using sustainable sources for energy; encouraging proper waste management and recycling; and making dietary choices at the stadium that reduced travel distance of food and encouraged meatless or meat-alternative options. The club also encouraged their fans to make sustainable choices, such as taking transportation to the games in a way other than driving and to consider water conservation at home and at the stadium.

What’s really exciting is that the Premier League even chose to promote sustainability in this way. With millions of viewers across the world watching their games they can really make a statement about issues essential to human kind.

Remember that even really big things begin with really small steps: How can you positively affect our resources and our planet? Can you be a little more conscious about water or energy use throughout your day? As Gandhi once said, change begins with me. Changing our own behavior is the only effective route to saving our planet.

If you want to change the world, start with yourself.
Mohandas Gandhi


Tottenham Hotspurs soccer players and staff are passionate about their climate goals for the planet, calling themselves the Premier league‘s greenest club. Great job, Tottenham Hotspurs, for setting the new standard for soccer games around the world!

#amberclee #gamezero

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October 15, 2018

From Behaviorism to Constructivism: People are more than Numbers

Enjoy my module 2 synthesis post:

Articles assigned:





  • A. Watters, Educational Technology & Skinner's Box
  • I. Illich, Deschooling Society, Ch. 6
  • S. Papert, The Children's Machine, Ch. 7
  • L. Cuban, [OTA] Public School Teachers Using Machines…


Instructor suggested questions [bolded]:
Where else do we see behaviorism picked up throughout the history of ed. Tech?

What is behaviorism is my first question:
“Behaviorism refers to a psychological approach which emphasizes scientific and objective methods
of investigation. The approach is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviors, and 
states all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment.” Further it states:
  • “All behavior is learned from the environment”
  • “Psychology should be seen as a science”
  • “Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal events like
     thinking and emotion”
  • “There is little difference between the learning that takes place in humans and that in other animals”
  • “Behavior is the result of stimulus-response”

Who was Seymour Papert?
“Papert has been considered the world's foremost expert on how technology can provide new ways to 
learn and teach mathematics, thinking in general, and other subjects.”
Wikipedia: Seymour Aubrey Papert was a South African-born American mathematician, computer 
scientist, and educator, who spent most of his career teaching and researching at MIT. He was one of
the pioneers of artificial intelligence, and of the constructionist movement in education.”

Why was Larry Cuban writing for the OTA, whatever that was?
Photo illustration by Derek Brahney. Source image of painting: Bridgeman Images.
Image is from the blog post “Personalized Learning”: The Difference between a Policy and a Strategy”:

The “OTA” is the Office of Technology Assessment for the United States government that was in action
from 1972 to 1995 when it was defunded (OTA Archive at http://ota.fas.org/). When searching further
into this website archive, I was amazed at the number of publications produced by this team on a
broad range of technology applications.

Larry Cuban is professor emeritus in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford. He studies the
area of technology integration and assessment; and school reform through technology integration. He
keeps a blog which appears very active. He was writing for the OTA because the OTA if a facilitating
body of the US Government and they needed his expertise in the area of educational technology
integration and assessment.


How can we link these readings back to those in Module 1?

In module 1, our readings centered on how “things,” such as technology and educational innovations,
have implications both intended and unintended from how the designers create the product. Innovations
have politics and many early innovations were directly related to increasing efficiency of the system.
People and things were pieces to these systems that could be controlled, adjusted, and modified.
Sometimes human differences and emotions were not considered, and most certainly minority or
special populations needing accommodations and differences were not accounted for. As we move
into Module 2, we can see that the “politics” of artifacts is expanded and researchers begin to account
for people as more than just numbers and for production. People began to become the focus in many
systems. While efficiency is important, researchers realized that there are many factors that can
impact a system and some things cannot be measured by numbers and in a “neat little box”. The
underlying principles of behaviorism is still ever present as a backbone to our field, but we can begin
to see constructivist principles emerging, and we can most definitely see its emergence in the follow
up posts on Cuban and Papert’s personal websites.

As we move away from behaviorism and integrate more constructivist thoughts on learning and
technology integration, we see the following changes in the researchers approaches:

From:
To:
“All behavior is learned from the environment”
Behavior is a combination of environmental factors
and personal human factors
“Psychology should be seen as a science”
Psychology is a science and an art; there is room
for multiple “truths” to a situation
“Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable
behavior, as opposed to internal events like thinking
and emotion”
We are concerned with observable behavior and
internal events like emotion, more equally
“There is little difference between the learning that
takes place in humans and that in other animals”
Humans learn in ways more complex than animals
do and there are many differences in our learning
“Behavior is the result of stimulus-response”
Behaviour is the result of choice, stimulus, emotions,
and many other internal and external factors
combined for that precise situation (and could
change for a number of factors, at a different moment
in time, or in a different environment)


How have the authors of these pieces reflected on what they wrote, now decades later (I assure you, they have).
They each have websites and have written reflective pieces comparing the past to the present methods
of teaching; they are continually updating their theory and applying it to current issues in education.
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