July 29-August 4

Organizational Skills

            What I did this week was work some more on my Personal Project timeline. I also read some newspaper articles (more about that below) that I stored carefully in plastic sleeves in my Personal Project binder.

Communication

            My dad helped me once again with my process by looking through the newspaper with me each day to find articles that may be relevant to my topics. We have found four articles so far, about a nature photographer in the Tetons (the place I visited earlier this summer with the big, snowcapped mountains), Indonesia losing its coral reefs, a geothermal plant in Bogor, and how Baluran (in Java) is as beautiful as Africa. I later asked my mom about which ones would be helpful for my process. She read through them all and told me that all of them would help, but some would help more than others.

Information Literacy

            The first newspaper article I read that was relevant was the one about the photographer in the Tetons. There the National Geographic photographer wrote down some tips in taking nature shots, such as shooting from different angles so as to get the best photograph possible, using motion sensors that trigger the camera to take a picture, and that persistence is quite important. The next article was about Indonesia’s coral reefs, and said that 90 percent of them are in danger because of overfishing. Also, quite a bit of Indonesia’s income (about 2 billion dollars) relies on the reefs because of tourism and fisheries; something must be done. Indonesia has taken measures to prevent the destruction of the coral reefs, such as increase environmental awareness (like what I will do with my calendar), and create regulations for people to follow. A few days afterward, my dad found the article about the Mount Salak geothermal plant in Bogor. It stated that there were many projects to utilize the geothermal potential of the land, launched before and after the 2003 Geothermal Law was put into action. Now most of the projects are stuck at certain stages, and people are planning to invest in finishing what these projects have started. The last article I found was a very short one about Baluran, Java, and how its savannahs and ecosystems are similar to Africa’s. It consisted mostly of exceptional photographs of the various animals in Baluran. I analyzed the photographs to see what made them good (the subject matter being on one side of the picture rather than in the middle, the lighting, etc.) and hopefully I can use this information in taking the pictures for each calendar month.

July 22-28

Organizational Skills

            I worked mostly on the Plan phase this week: the Personal Project timeline and the research. For the timeline, I put it all into one document on my computer so that it will not be messy and unorganized. As for the research, I made a list of possible websites I could use as sources of information about the various environmental issues I will address in my calendar. This list is in my notebook, but when I bookmarked the websites I made a folder so that the websites will not be strewn about, making the list of bookmarks disorderly.

Communication

            I talked to a few of my friends to see how they are doing, Personal Project-wise, and to see if I am doing things the right way or not. I also asked some friends about setting up an interview with their family members or family friends that would know about environmental issues and is trying to minimize the problems. I did not communicate with my dad much regarding the Personal Project this week because he had to work a bit harder than usual and this took up a lot of his spare time. Then again, I did not need to talk to many people since this week’s work was mostly comprised of research and working on the timeline.

Information Literacy

            I realized when working on my timeline this week that this year, for my Personal Project, I will have to do a lot more work this coming school year than I thought I would have to do. Also, (my dad suggested that I visit the website of CIFOR, Center for International Forestry Research, to glean information about the topic of plant conservation for my calendar. I was unable to find any data that was relevant to the topic) I learned that not every website I look at will yield useful information that I can use for my calendar. Similarly, a lot of websites will yield useful information as long as one types the right keyword(s) into the search engine. Plus, after reading through the Reliability of Sources Grid in the Personal Project Guide, I learned about the significance of reliable sources. Before this, I considered most things people told me or things that I read on the internet to be true. I never checked who wrote it, where it came from, or the quality of the data. Now I know to check the dependability of the information I learn before I believe it.

July 15-21

Organizational Skills

            As I usually do, I spread out my work over this week so that I would have more than enough time to do the work I wanted to get done without feeling stressed. Due to the fact that I was back home in Indonesia, I had more freedom to do as I pleased, so I made sure that my PP folder was organized, and bought some plastic sleeves so I would not lose any of the papers I would accumulate over the school year.

Communication

            I got a lot of feedback from my dad this week about which environmental issue I should address on each page of my calendar and how to get information about that particular topic, be it a person he knew, a place he had heard about, or a website. We made a document with a list of possible topics I could use; a partial screen shot is below. In addition, my dad took me to a place near where he works in which people can plant mangrove trees. This would be quite beneficial to me for my “Tree Planting” calendar page, even though we were hoping that we could actually plant a mangrove tree (the supervisor had not arrived yet). We spoke with a worker there who showed us around and gave us some information about the mangroves and how they were good for the environment and the animals that live around there. My notes are in my notebook. A picture of me with the man we spoke with is under the screen clipping of the calendar ideas.

Information Literacy

            I learned that feedback from others is quite valuable in thinking of ideas for my calendar, and that good concepts for each topic require a lot of exertion to pursue and make into great ideas. I also learned that knowing and interacting with the right people with the right contacts can help greatly in the search for people to interview about certain environmental issues. In addition, going to various companies, organizations, or other places in which people could volunteer relevant information has proven to be quite helpful for my project as I will need to gather as much information as possible to be able to write a paragraph or two about each topic in my calendar. Furthermore, because I remembered someone saying something about The Body Shop being environmentally friendly, I found their website and read some things about how they are protecting the planet. What they are doing gave me some ideas about what I should write in the calendar about conserving the earth’s resources, minimizing waste, and more. Likewise, I learned from my mistakes.