England-2011-krystnell

Krystnell's Journal

First question.

It’s hard to imagine that fifty years ago, the biggest challenges that society faced were centered around issues such as extraterrestrial life and finding more efficient ways to communicate. We seem almost light years away from the idea of UFO’s and pagers and with the emergence of satellites and cell phones that can fit directly in your ear, the scientific and technological “problems we once had seem trivial. This forces one to question whether or not waste disposal, clean water, and replacement body parts will also one day be seen as trivial, instead of as the most important issues society faces today. All one has to do is walk through any neighborhood after Christmas Day to fully grasp why it is imperative that a solution be found for disposing of waste. The amount of cardboard, Styrofoam and other non bio-degradable products that have to be collected and thrown into a landfill somewhere has begun to pose a huge threat not only to the environment, but also to the way we utilize the shrinking supply of land that we have left. If scientists could somehow discover or create more materials that are bio- degradable then we could at least have garbage that is broken down at the same or a faster rate than it is being built up. Although advancing technology has provided us with products that are smaller and hence take up less space when they are thrown out, more can be done to make these products more easily compressed. If there was technology available that could take a car and compress it into something the size of a lima bean, then we might be able to put off the effects of over-flowing land fills for at least a few years! The situation that Haiti has found itself in concerning cholera is a direct effect of not being able to supply some of it’s citizens with clean water. Scientifically speaking, there are several ways of purifying water. However, these ways usually take a lot of technology and tend to be costly. If scientists could somehow figure out how to clean large bodies of water using cheap and easy to obtain chemicals. Then, technology could figure out a way to detect bacteria and other harmful organisms that might find there way into them and destroy them quickly. Being able to replace body parts is one problem that comes with a lot of social implications however, the benefits of such a scientific advancement would far out way that moral discrepancies that may arise. Firstly, the quality of lives would be improved and the mortality rate would take a significant plunge. The role of science in this would be to find an efficient way to harvest and supply organs that worked just as well as those that are formed naturally. Technology would bare the responsibility of making sure these organs could be properly stored and distributed around the world. The may concept seem extremely futuristic and in some ways too ‘artificial’ but the fact is that advancing science should aim to make life on earth not only sustainable but easy. Science and technology have found themselves inexplicably linked in our society today. It is a pseudo-partnership that should always run in tandem with each other to provide advancements that serve humanity and the environment.

Second question

One cannot help but be sucked in by the soft blue light that radiates from the atmosphere gallery in the Victoria and Albert Science Museum. The exhibits which focus mostly on climate science, make it pretty easy for just about anyone to become engaged with the issues and history of the world’s changing climate. In particular, I found the kiosk about different climates of the world to be informative. Although I have a basic idea of what climate is, I admittedly was not completely aware of how the changing climate was affecting different areas. This kiosk (Climate systems) allowed me to pinpoint areas of the world that I might not ever be able to visit and in a way ‘experience’ by visual aid, the climate of that region. Even more engaging was the option to see how a changing climate would affect those areas in the future. The kiosk that I did not find enjoyable was the kiosk that talked mainly about the United Kingdom’s plans for reducing carbon emissions. It merely stated that emissions would be reduced by 80% by 2050 but did not go into great detail about exactly how the government planned to do all of this. It was also the least interactive of all the kiosks in the gallery. I most enjoyed the non- interactive displays like the tree bark with the growth rings and the ice core. I was unaware that ice cores could also supply information about how much carbon is being emitted during different time periods. It was without a doubt the most surprising thing that I learned. These non interactive displays were basically exactly what I thought I’d find in a science museum. For me, they represented cold hard undeniable science that I could see and hypothetically touch. The source of the information seemed to be mostly textbooks, which I thought was quite interesting. There are a lot of theories associated with climate and climate change and it was a relief to see that the gallery focused mostly on providing information that was factual. It made the entire experience comparable to a really ‘cool’ virtual classroom.