September 9-15

Organization

            This week I organized my Personal Project binder so that I 

could find things like the various newspaper articles I cut out, my 

Resources/Materials List, Product Design Specifications, and more. I was told about a few more newspaper articles that support my cause, so I cut them out and carefully stored them in my binder as well.

Communication

            My parents and I talked this week about my Personal Project, and I asked them to be on the lookout for newspaper articles and websites that I could maybe glean some information from. They did not fail me; they found three articles that I could use: one about rare fish in Indonesia, littering in Jakarta, and Biak (a small island in Indonesia). My dad also found an article on CNN about a building in Sweden called the Turning Torso, which is powered only by renewable energy. Mrs. Grace, my Personal Project supervisor, helped me as well by reminding me about the deadline on Monday, September 16^th, for which I had to have my Product Specifications and research information.

Information Literacy

            I learned a lot from the newspaper articles and the article 

about the Turning Torso. For the newspaper article about the rare 

fish species, I learned about a beautiful fish called the Sepat 

Mutiara (pearl gourami) that is about to go extinct. It says that 

“unless breeding is undertaken, the fish and some other species in 

the same environment will be extinct”, and talks about a laboratory 

specialized for breeding the pearl gourami so as to delay or even 

prevent extinction. In addition, while reading about litter, I 

came across a horrifying picture of so much litter on the road and 

sidewalks on one of the Car-Free days in Jakarta. I believe this is 

quite paradoxical because the main point of Car-Free days is to 

lessen pollution in the area, but if people are littering so much then 

it kind of defeats the purpose of the Car-Free day because litter 

everywhere could be counted as a form of pollution as well. The 

good thing about the article, however, was that the picture was 

quite effective in proving its point that litter is not a good thing and 

makes places look very messy and unorganized. Also, the actual 

text stated that there will be a new bylaw that litterers will be fined 

Rp. 500,000 (around US$45) by the police, and that houses will be 

required to start separating their organic and non-organic waste so 

that it is easier for the country to manage. The third article, 

called “Biak, the Hidden Paradise” declared that the coral reefs 

were beautiful, and had the pictures to show it. They were indeed 

beautiful, and I used them as examples of good picture composition 

and color scheme. There are quite a few dive spots on the island. 

The beauty of these coral reefs and the money they obtain from 

tourists is the reason that they should be saved and not destroyed. 

Lastly, the Turning Torso. As stated before, it is a very tall 

skyscraper in Sweden (the tallest in Scandinavia) that is powered 

by renewable energy alone. Its name is derived from its shape: as 

one’s eyes travel up the building, it actually looks like it is turning. 

The renewable energy is made by the town itself. It did not state 

what kind of renewable energy, but it is good that some people are 

taking the initiative to live in a more environmentally friendly way.