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5 min of Science: Sharks, Snakes, and Spiders

For my 5 minutes of science presentation I decided to focus on the fear we have of certain animals, why we have them, and how they negatively impact our society. I came up with this topic after thinking about when we learned why people think babies are cute. Humans are programmed to think certain traits like big eyes, small noses, and mouths are cute compared to the opposite of those traits. If we know why humans think certain things are cute then when do they think certain things are scary?

I specifically focused on sharks, spiders, and snakes which are three animals that many people fear and even have phobias of. Many species of sharks, for example, are top of the food chain predators with razor sharp teeth and a lust for blood. It’s pretty easy to imagine why someone would be scared of an animal like this because of how dangerous they appear, but they really aren’t at all. Sharks on Average kill 10 people per year and statistically people have a 1 in 3,748,067 chance of getting bitten by a shark according to the University of Florida's Museum of Natural History. Compare this to an estimated 100 million sharks who are killed annually by humans due to overfishing, and bycatch according to the World Wildlife Organization. Snakes are another commonly feared animal which have a 1 in 35,700 chance of biting a person in the U.S. and a 1 in 50 million chance of killing them. Although they do kill and injure more people than sharks, snakes are still apart of a billion dollar snakeskin industry because of humans. Lastly, spiders are one of people's biggest phobias, but on average only kill 6.5 people per year. As you can see these animals kill few too many people for us to be afraid of them.

According to David Ropeik of Harvard University, the reason people are afraid of sharks isn’t because of how many people die, but because of how terrible a death it would be to get eaten alive by a shark. Movies and media like Jaws, Sharknado, and Shark week all base their entertainment off of the grizzly deaths of humans which show sharks as evil killing machines. When we see these depictions of sharks everywhere we actually think this is how we could die if we ran into one even though it is very unlikely. Ropeik also says that humans are hardwired to feel first and think second which is why they are scared of sharks. We also use mental shortcuts like the availability heuristic which uses recent information to make a decision. People jump to conclusions before figuring out a situation, so if something brushes up against your leg in the water you will assume the worst.

When it comes to snakes and spiders we fear them because we are programmed to. Like babies and puppies have features that we think are cute, snakes and spiders have features that we think are the opposite. For example, the number of legs an animal legs is a feature people judge. Spiders have 8 legs while snakes have none and as a result both are thought of as both scary and disgusting. Another reason we are afraid of snakes is because we as a humans have evolved to fear snacks in order to survive and reproduce. Researchers from The Academy of Natural Sciences have found that some neurons in the brain only respond to legless animals. This means people are easily able to spot a snakes compared to other objects surrounding them. This results in a fear and paranoia of snakes because we are more aware of them compared to other animals/objects.

The reason our fear of certain animals matters to our society is because of the result it may have on us. Unfortunately, many animals are becoming endangered and even extinct because of climate change, poaching, deforestation, and overall killing of animals. As I said before sharks are being killed by the millions every year. We do not know how many are left because of the little information we have on the ocean, but they could possibly be endangered. It’s easy not to care about a predator like shark, but the fact is that they are very important to our ecosystem. Since some of them are top of the food chain predators they are able to keep the ecosystem in balance by eating both prey and smaller predators. If enough sharks die the ocean’s ecosystem will suffer due to overpopulation of other animals. Snakes are also being killed by the snakeskin industry which us them for purses, bags, shoes, belts, etc. The killing of these animals and misconceptions we teach others will contribute to poor ecosystem, and will ruin our environment even more. We need to stop fearing creatures that should really be afraid of us.

Sharks are one my favorite animals so this topic was very important to me because I think it’s unfair how we label them as dangerous. Some of them, like the whale shark, don’t even eat meat and even the ones that do are still not a threat to humans. I can still understand why someone would be scared of a shark, especially someone who has been attacked before. Spiders on the other hand I am very scared of, especially for their legs. Despite my fear, I still think they shouldn’t be labeled as dangerous because of the low number of people they kill and the good they do for the ecosystem. All animals and organisms are an important part of our ecosystem and play a part in keeping it in balance, so I think it’s a bad idea to teach people certain ones are “dangerous”.

Sources

Andrew, E. (2016). Why Are We Afraid Of Spiders? Retrieved November 09, 2016, from http://www.iflscience.com/brain/why-are-we-afraid-spiders/

Shark. (n.d.). Retrieved November 09, 2016, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/shark

Moskowitz, C. (n.d.). Why We Fear Snakes - Live Science. Retrieved November 9, 2016, from http://www.livescience.com/2348-fear-snakes.html

Zimmer, C. (2013, October 31). Afraid of Snakes? Your Pulvinar May Be to Blame - The New ... Retrieved November 9, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/science/afraid-of-snakes-your-pulvinar-may-be-to-blame.html

Palermo, E. (2015, July 16). Why Are People So Afraid of Sharks? - Live Science. Retrieved November 9, 2016, from http://www.livescience.com/51579-fear-of-sharks-psychology.html

5 Reasons to Revere, Not Fear, the Shark. (2016). Retrieved November 09, 2016, from http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/5-reasons-revere-not-fear-shark

(n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2016, from http://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/venomous_snake_faqs.shtml

As an inquiry-based school, SLA believes in asking questions, challenging assumptions, and working together to better understand each other and the world.

We are a diverse group, and we embrace every member of our community, regardless of their identity.

We also refuse to insult, threaten, exclude, disempower, or vilify others based on who they are or what they think.

Instead, we listen before we speak. We see each other as complex individuals, not stereotypes. We protect and defend each other when needed. And when we disagree, we treat each other with decency.

To us, that is the ethic of care. We will continue to work and act in this way, each and every day that we walk through these doors.

Most importantly, we believe in you, our students -- your ideas, your passion, and your ability to make the world a better place. Today, like every day, we hold out our hope that you strive to do just that.

Love,

The educators of Science Leadership Academy

As a writer this helped me reralize that everyone learns different and the self set goals we make for others and ourselves.

“Proficient literacy”

In the warm brown fluorescently lit dining room, with stacks of textbooks and papers. My brother was across from me getting really frustrated doing his english homework after flying through math, while I was kind of the opposite. The three lined cinnamon apple candles flickered in the middle of the table covered with green lining; their smell was masked by the smell of arroz y gandules and pastellios, not to mention the delicious smell of the sofrito my mom had made to use in these things, freshly cut cilantro and peppers, among many other ingredients. I was trying to finish my shape, multiplication and identifying rays and lines so I can go in the kitchen and help because i love the smell of the “classic Puerto Rican food” that most people thing we eat everyday, while i glanced towards the kitchen to make sure she wasn’t done I noticed my brother enticed by the flickering of the candle as he held his paper closer and closer until it caught fire. He threw it on the table and my mom came rushing over smacking with her cooking mitts.

“I am sick of this bull shit she stated, Tati go get the children's

Dictionary”. “Okay” I responded not knowing why her anger was directed to me. She took the book and flopped it on the now charred table-cloth and paper. “Flip and point to anyone” she said, I flipped a few paged and pointed to car. “Matt say that word”, struggling I saw his mouth reform over and again, “fars” he said. Frustrated, but trying to calm she said “Okay, it takes practice you can’t try to hide or destroy your homework every time it get’s too hard, c makes the ka sound” At that moment, I realize my mom wasn’t going to let my brothers disability get in the way of him learning. It was weird to see her have to teach him different and that he didn’t learn the way most people did, I didn’t know why I even assumed he was supposed to learn like me.

People often define for themselves what is proficient literacy, but what is to one, isn’t the same to another. In most cases, figures of authority determine the definition of proficient literacy and hold every person learning from them to that specific standard. As, Mark Rose said, in ‘I just want to be average’,  “Students will float to the mark you set” which is true, like in the class he was mistakenly in the standard’s were set low, but if you set them high you’ll get someone willing to work. Setting individual goals of learning is more important than setting a set in stone mark for everyone, to reach at a certain time. My mothers definition of proficiency was different for my brother and I.  She knew the difference and she knew we couldn't learn the same.  My brother had set a low mark for himself, however my Mom set one way above what he thought was capable of, helping him float to the mark realizing a mark set was temporary and changeable.

Again, when the ‘students’ are expected to do the minimum by the ‘edler’, ‘wiser’ person people can become discouraged and Like in How to Tame a Wild Tongue. Gloria Anzaldua said “when not copping out we know that we are more than nothing.” Which took me back to the look on my brothers face a month after my mom pulled out that dictionary and word slipped and skidded off his tongue with ease, no fighting with the letters and vowels and I saw confidence. In this moment my brother knew what he was capable of more on literacy, he knew he could advance and understand if he tried. Self exploration with a push is important of the beginnings of literacy.

Sometimes, when we let the learner, reader, the student find and indulge in literacy themselves, we  allow for, that ‘proficiency’. Like in How Changing Your Reading Habits Can Transform Your Health stated, "We use challenges a lot in our work, because they give you something tangible to aim for and a sense of achievement once you’ve completed them. It can help you develop your skills, or help you discover something new," says Wilkinson; this goal setting system is an idea that can be in ones thoughts. However this is a self defined achievement, which has nothing to do with cultural capital, but every indivisual persons ambition and self defining proficient literacy.

Although figures of authority often decide on, what is the ‘standard’ for proficient literacy, it is important that once one begins to explore literacy in the simplest form. With time comes the understanding of code-switching and the belief of ‘cultural capital’ however with the fundamentals of literacy it is just a person testing the limits and floating to the marks the authoritative teaching figures set for the  learning students. As long as students can meet the glorious feeling of  being literate  they will crave full literacy and raise their previously sets of proficient literacy.

This quarter, I made this ceiling tile. It’s based off of a “spray” from Overwatch, a video game. It’s of my favourite character, and the one i play the most, Junkrat. It’s kind of a grenade, I think? And it’s my favourite spray of his, so I thought it’d be really cool to remake it and be able to leave it behind in the school once I’d left. I really think people should play/appreciate Overwatch, and I think this is a good start.

Intro

My goal for this essay was to express how language plays a big part in the division of our country.  If we could cut down on the judgement of the way people speak, we could learn a lot more from each other and establish better relationships.

Where you live or where you are from plays a big part in literacy or language in general.  Traveling to different places and meeting people from different places can make one realize that there is different forms of language that live inside one language itself.

“The mission statements of major publishers are littered with intentions, with their commitments to diversity, to imagination, to multiculturalism, ostensibly to create opportunities for children to learn about and understand their importance in their respective worlds.”

This quote from “The Apartheid of Children’s Literature” to me is saying how writer try to pick up different forms of literacy or different forms of language to make their writing more interesting.  It’s crazy how people will read a book or poem or an article that has language in it that they don’t understand but they try their hardest to because it is a good read.  Or, a movie that has different forms of language in it that they don’t understand but they try to understand because they heard it is a good movie.  But in person or in reality when it comes to hearing these different forms of a language that we know very well the will to understand or learn is nonexistent.  

I go to Ocean City MAryland every summer with my family.  It is a vacatio city and people come there from Philly, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, etc, so you are bound to meet some people from different areas of the east coast.  This year when I was there.  I would play basketball everyday no matter if it was in the morning, afternoon, or under the lights I would play either by myself or with the people I was on vacation with.  On rare occasions I would have the court to myself but most of the time there would be people on the court so I would only have half of the court.  One day i went to play and there were people on one half of the court so I went to the other half just to shoot around.  Maybe like 10 or 15 minutes after I get to the court I hear “Aye what it is dummy?” I turned around confused because I thought he was talking to me but I didn’t respond.  He say “you wanna run a game?” I say “yeah let's get it”.  But I was still confused so I asked him what he said before to get my attention and he said “I said aye what it is dummy”.  I never heard anyone say that before so I had to ask him where he was from.  It turns out that he was from Baltimore and “what it is dummy” is a way to get someone’s attention in Baltimore slang.  He was confused with the word “jawn” when I used it and I explain to him the “jawn” is basically a noun… It can represent anything.  What I’m saying is we can learn from each other and slang is one of those things that the people that are not used to it will not understand understand.  So instead of staying in the blue and being fine with not understanding, ask questions and live up to the saying “learn something new everyday” it has its benefits.