The change in language environment affects our speaking language. This is especially obvious for those who immigrated from a eastern country to a western country. It is often difficult to adapt to a new language; it may take years for a person to adopt a new language completely. Since language is key to communication, a new language is advantageous for us. When I first arrived at Canada five years ago, I had trouble communicating because of language barrier. After a few years, my conquered the language barrier, and started accumulating experiences in the new society. More importantly, my views were widen. I met people for different culture backgrounds, and started adopting the western culture.

The change in cultural environment affects our way of living. Different cultures have different customs and living style. Sometimes we are forced to adopt a new living style because of its convenience. Keeping up an old living style requires much efforts and cost. For example, a family that comes from Russia would have a hard time looking for a Russian restaurant in Vancouver. Therefore by adopting a new living style, our life is easier to manage.

The change in our community will affect our socialization. We tend to make friend with people who are similar to us in background, language, ethnicity. More often than not, our local community in another country is full of people who are different from us. In this case, we tend to isolate ourselves from the rest of the community. This is a problem because having a broader socialization is the main way for us to enrich our views. Therefore it is necessary to meet people with different backgrounds; we can learn about ourselves and others.

In conclusion, the environments we live in have a major impact on our life. By adopting the new culture, we can learn more about ourselves and others.

 ¢How To Save Water:

¢1) Only run your laundry or dish washer with full loads

¢2)  Turn off the tap when washing your face, brushing you teeth, or shaving.

¢3) Switch off you shower when you lather.

¢4) a leaky toilet may go unnoticed, as will the extra cash absorbed by your water bill to check for leaks,  add enough food coloring  to your toilet  tank to really brighten the water then wait to see if any dye leaks into the bowl ¢

¢5)An estimated  30% of house hold water usage is flushed down the toilet.  If your toilet is more than 30 years old, upgrading to a low-consumption  toilet can  save you up to  4 gallons per flush.

¢6) keep a cover on your swimming pool when it’s not in use. This will decrease water loss due to evaporation by 90%

¢7) use the water  you’ve boiled  your veggies  in to make stocks, soups or, pour it into your garden when it cooled.

¢How To Save Energy:

¢Unplug your charger at night – you phone only takes a few hours to charge ¢Your screensaver  uses the same amount of energy as if you were using your computer

¢Don’t leave the water running while waiting for the shower to get hot ¢ ¢Put a dollar bill between the refrigerator  door and the rubber sealing to see if cold air is leaking out

¢Using the dishwasher uses 37% less water than hand washing ¢If you have small lawn, buy a push mower instead ¢

¢You can save up to 36 million trees a year by recycling your newspaper one day week. Every four feet of paper you recycle saves one tree

¢Microwaves use about 50% less energy than conventional ovens and release less heat into the kitchen ¢Reduce Waste ¢Don’t take a lunch tray if you don’t need one

¢Bring reusable utensils and your own lunch to reduce waste from packets and trays ¢Recycle milk cartons and plastic bottles

¢Paper thrown out at one school can add up to 28 pounds per person per year ¢Ask your teachers if you can e-mail your homework and projects instead of wasting paper ¢Recycle tri-folds and poster boards ¢ ¢ ¢Schools in the city are required by law to recycle

¢Print double sided and use the back of worksheets for homework

¢If  you take paper/plastic bags at stores instead of using reusable bags, save them at home and use them again

¢Light Bulbs ¢CFLs produce light differently then regular light bulbs. In a regular light bulb, electric current runs through a wire filament and heats the filaments until it stars to glow. In a CFL, an electric current is driven through a tube containing Argon and small amounts of mercury vapor.

¢This generates invisible ultraviolet light that excites a fluorescent coating on the inside of the tube, which then shows visible light.  CFLs need a little more energy when they are first turned on, but once the electricity tarts moving , it uses about 75% less energy than regular light bulbs

¢Recycle Ink Cartridges & Electronics ¢You can get money for recycling ink cartridges and other electronics. ¢A lot of people don’t know you can recycle things like your computer and cell phones.

¢You can get money for recycling  ink cartridges and electronics just like you get money for recycling bottles and cans ¢Saves energy and reduces the amount of metal needed to make products like these ¢

¢ ¢Ink cartridges-5$ ¢Toner cartridges-20$ ¢Laptops-135$ ¢iPods-150$ ¢Cell phones-300$ ¢    

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In Greek mythology, there was as King named Midas. Now Midas asked the gods that he be granted the touch of gold; the gods asked him to think over his request and come to them again; but once again Midas asked for the same, and the god’s granted his wish.

He touched some items and they were transformed into gold, so far so good. Next he picked up some food to eat and it turned to gold, as well, he was a little distressed but still happy. Lastly, in a moment of fatherly love Midas, hugged his only daughter and she turned into a lifeless gold statue. Now, Midas realized his folly but it was too late.

As, Midas had the golden touch; the modern man, has the toxic touch, as anything he touches, he desecrates. He has polluted the air, the water and the soil. He has polluted the air by his factories chimneys discharging toxic fumes; and he has polluted the water, by turning clean water reserves into drains, full of raw sewage; and he has polluted the soil by using fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides.

Man, has recklessly ravaged his environment beyond recognition, ever since the much cherished and much hyped Industrial Revolution, and still continues to do so with aplomb.

His rash and unwise treatment of the environment has created a hole in the ionosphere over the Arctic which is the major cause of the menace of global warming and the destructive weather changes prompted by it.

Man must realize, that he is only a single form of life among a myriad of others inhabiting the planet earth. From the elusive sperm whale, rarely spotted snow leopard of the Northern Areas of Pakistan, to the near extinct species, like the Siberian tiger and the majestic white Indian rhino, only to name a few.

Man is also responsible for deforestation of whole sections of the rain forest, in the name and for the sake of (what?) development. We all know that rain forests are the prime habitat where life thrives in so many different, colours, shapes, modes and varieties than all the rest of the Eco-systems combined. A unique example, is the Jesus lizard which walks on water (hence, the name).

Man is indebted to this environment and all the wildlife, as the valuable flora and fauna/herbs of the forests and animals like chimpanzees, rats and dogs daily help him in his quest to combat and defeat disease. These animals are guinea pigs in his daily research to come up with new and better drugs and cosmetic products.

And man thanks them and the rest of their kind by either destroying their habitat or encroaching upon it, thereby displacing whole colonies, which in the ultimate analysis, leads to their utter annihilation.

Now, is the right time when man must stop this madness which is irreparably destroying his environment and with it the precious wildlife, as well. And if he does not and that too, soon, he would have no place left to call home.

Man, like countless other living beings he has recklessly slaughtered__ for instances, the snakes and crocodiles (animals hailing from the age of dinosaurs) for the sake of making fashion accessories like belts, shoes and hand bags__ will also become extinct.

Pray let sanity prevail and man should proceed beyond and above political rhetoric and paying mere lip service to the environment and instead take some concrete steps to save Mother Earth.

The description for the project from my proposal almost exactly matched the action plan for my citizen project. It was missing many details due to I received most of the information late in terms of turning in my proposal already. I got all of the work I would have missed that day for the project and I completed it on the day that was scheduled. I did end up coming back earlier than expected though and so I took some extra steps in order to get my work I needed for certain classes.

I worked with many different people during the project , but I don’t remember all of their names. I worked with Ms. Lapsys, Ms. Fossum, Melia Barnes, Matt Feher, Larry Hailsham, two SCA counselors, and many other students from city high. I think I will work with the SCA soon again, because I am hoping to get some sort of summer job with the organization. As for the people I doubt I will be working with them again because I will be leaving the school soon. I will be seeing Ms. Lapsys in Costa Rica for the school trip though.

I learned that its important to wear pants for removing invasive species because you don’t know what kind of area you will be working with. A good resource to have would be the conservation portion of our school that Ms. Lapsys works in. according to the student who organized this project, it may be difficult to organize a project like this. It requires planning way ahead and making sure people know every detail about the project or event before asking for help. It also takes some reliability, and sometimes finances to put certain projects together. Teamwork is very important in the process of planning and organizing an event. Most of the time taking action only requires asking. Asking is the first step to taking action in most cases.

I wonder if we will ever completely eliminate the invasive species on accident to a point where they become endangered species. This action may be finished it depends on what I will be doing with my job that I may obtain with the SCA. If the job requires me to do something similar to this action then I would be doing the action again. Since I have never taken a job I think that getting job will further my vision of human excellence. Also my experiences in college will probably further my vision of human excellence the most because of all of the different activities available to me there. I will then try to strive in each and every activity I start in college. This process has made me realize that working with people is the way to get things accomplished. Also it takes initiative and some reliance in order to organize an event like the one I took part in. Also reflecting on the action makes me look at the background of what the whole experience was like, when I was presently doing the action I never thought about all of the background elements that were taking place at the time.

Students who develop friendly relationships to one another may become distracted from their studies by their friendship. This is more common in a brick-and-mortar classroom setting. Also, students who develop a negative relationship may also become distracted by their rivalry. I think in a learning environment where there are not negative rivalries and students are kept on topic, that social connections are beneficial to learning.

Hey did you know that buying bottled water costs us about 10,000 time as much as drinking tap water? Well I didn’t and I was quite shocked when I found out. For something we get for free every time it rains we sure are willing to pay a lot for. I wish I had been the one to turn a free nature provided product into a 12 billion dollar a year industry.

But with our economy still struggling to right itself buying bottled water just isn’t a smart thing to do. Millions of us have gotten in the healthy habit of drinking water every day which is great…but it’s costing us a fortune. A person who only buys one bottle of water a day will spend hundreds of dollars in a years time. And that isn’t the worst of it…

Thirty billion plastic water and soda bottles are produced each year and less than twenty percent of them are actually recycled. All this plastic is quickly filling up our landfills…uh if it makes it to the landfills. Tons of this garbage is simply littering our roadways and our waterways and oceans. It takes forever to bio degrade and nature simply can’t keep up.

So what can we do to help? Well I am lucky, my tap water is clean and fresh and doesn’t need extra filtering. For those not as fortunate a filter can easily be installed right on your kitchen faucet. There are many different systems available to us consumers and any one of them will pay for itself in a pretty short time. Not only will you be saving yourself hundreds a years you will be doing you part to save the environment as well.

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of Earth’s near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Experts say that global warming is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activities such as fossil burning and deforestation.

Global warming causes the earth to get warmer. The most drastic effect of global warming can be seen in the Arctic, where huge masses of ice are breaking apart and where glaciers are melting. This causes a rise in global sea levels. It will cause an increase in tropical cyclones and cause heatstroke and deaths. It will also cause an increase of malaria and dengue fever cases. Economically, it will cause a slight negative effect to the developed agricultural sector. An example is Australia. Over the last few years, Australia has been suffering drought in many areas that have led to its poor harvest of crops.

          Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases. What are greenhouse gases?

Greenhouse gases are gases like ozone, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide that cause a greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is the process by which absorption and emission of infrared radiation by gases in the atmosphere warm a planet’s lower atmosphere and surface. Human activity since the Industrial Revolution has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFC and nitrous oxide. CFC is a  gas (chlorofluorocarbons) that come from aerosols like the mosquito spray or the air freshener spray. Carbon Dioxide is produced when we breathed out air. Plants absorb co2 so if there are not enough plants, the co2 levels will increase. Carbon monoxide or CO is also a major contributor toward global warming. CO comes from car exhaust, factory smoke, open burning and volcano explosions.

         As you all have heard, global warming is a serious matter. It cannot be taken for granted. There are a few steps we can take to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. Firstly, we must do the 3Rs. Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. This can reduce deforestation by around 27%.  Next, we should support global activities, such as Earth Hour. We can also help by taking public transport such as buses and trains. We can reduce the amount of fossil fuel burnt by using lights and fans only when necessary.

          We can all help by doing as I have said. Even though it is not much, but it can help. After all, what if all the 6 billion people in the world did the same thing?  it would save the earth zillions of  tons of greenhouse gases in a long term.

     PROS:

So here’s the big thing why everyone is pushing recycling its just for one big reason and that is because it helps save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But recycling glass can also help to cut water pollution by 50%.

Recycling may also help to cut down on toxic fumes from decomposing plastics.

Lowers costs of materials made of recycled items.

This can also help to lower the costs of garbage barges and incineration.

     CONS: So now that all the pros have been said it’s the cons turn to shine.

Poor recycling rates since only 6.8% of the plastic used in the U.S. can actually be recycled.

Also recycling can release some toxins into the environment. Like the toxins produced by the machinery used and incineration.

Recycling may require more money than not recycling since you have to pay for the transportation and the processing costs.

Also recycling can be inconvenient for most people because you have to separate everything and wash it out and take off the lids or caps before being able to recycle it.

Recycling costs money. But maybe these costs could pay off as solid waste costs go up and landfills close down.

So here’s the big question is recycling good for the earth or should we try to avoid it all together. I think we should recycle because even though there are some cons most of these can be avoided or reduced. Another reason to recycle is because it may help out the economy and give people jobs since someone has to be able to work the economy.

But hey what do you think about recycling?

1. Keep you expectations realistic
Remind yourself that your family has never been perfect ad nobody’s is. Don’t be to hard on them or yourself.

2. Decompress ahead of time
Before a family gathering, engage in an activity like exercise, yoga, or meditation to break up stress on a physical level. This way, you’ll go into it as relaxed as possible.

3. Sidestep arguments
If someone brings up an old grievance, don’t get sucked into debating it. Set a time to talk about it at a later date. Add deflect critical comments (about your funky shoes, for example) by saying “I’m glad you noticed” in a playful tone.

4. Avoid a meet the parents meltdown
If your new guy is bringing you to his home, make sure he first gives you a heads-up about any hot-button issues that might spark tension. Avoid touchy topics and your stay will go smoother.