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.