Month: September 2023

The entire world felt the tyranny from the Covid-19 pandemic. Everybody was forced to be locked up in their homes under the guidelines of shelter in place mandates. Everyone except for those who had nowhere to protect themselves, the homeless. In this poster, the Covid-19 virus is presenting as the sun, casting its beams of illness and death towards the homeless who have nowhere to go for safety. The poster screams to the audience that there is nowhere for the homeless to go but reminds them that everyone needs a place of safety from the Covid-19 virus. The second poster illustration shows a man in a similar situation as the first poster, doing whatever they can to protect themselves from the virus. A vulnerable man with signs all around him pointing towards his desperate need for help establishes ethos and shows how dire the situation is for the homeless dealing with the deadly virus. Both pictures cry out to the audience that they need their support in order to help the homeless find a place of refuge.

Speech outline:

Briefly mention how homelessness was a huge problem throughout the pandemic.

Talk about the visual rhetoric behind the first illustration, explain how it sparked awareness and gave the audience a sense of caution.

Mention that the real-life photo of a homeless brings a commonplace for the audience and how it directs them towards wanting to help the vulnerable as well as talking about its ethos.

Connect the two together and how they share the same message although they use two different types of visual styles.

 

I am sure you know based off my last few passions post, some of my favorite activities involve doing community service and being outside. At the beginning of the semester, I was given the opportunity to do both in Penn States, Fresh Start Day of Service. This event was held early in the morning on a Saturday, where Penn State personal was given the opportunity to meet new people and provide aid to the community. One of the options during the Day of Service event was doing community service at the Penn State student run farm. Of course, this option seemed to be the best option for me, it combined two of my favorite things, therefore making it a must! After making it to the registration table at nine o’clock, I signed up for the student farm section and hopped onto a bus and traveled straight there.

When I arrived at the farm, the first thing I noticed was how hot it was outside. During this time, it was close to ninety degrees outside and there was only one tent providing shade for the entire farm. As you would guess, the only time we spend in the shade was to drop our bags off, then immediately right into work we went. The first task including weeding a large section of the farm that was currently not being used for anything. Occasionally this side of the farm is used for growing vegetables, however this year was a rest year for the section, but maintenance is always needed.

To make this experience more interesting, I talked to the others who were also aiding in the effort. A majority of the people who were doing the community service came from the Penn State program called AURORA, which was a backpacking group meant for freshmen at Penn State to make early friendships. One of the requirements for this program was doing community service, which was the main motivation for a large number of the people at the farm. Although it may seem like the AURORA group was only here because they forced to, many of them shared that they would have been at the farm whether or not they were in the program.

After a hour of burning in the sun and multiple trips of wheelbarrowing weeds, we finally got to towards the end of the section, however stinging situation. The beehives were around the final area we needed to weed, leading us to negotiate who was going to get the weeds. After a long two-minute talk, we decided to all rush the area at the same time, then buzz off as quickly as possible.

We were then presented with one last task before the Day of Service ended, which was to peel onions in order to ship them back to Penn State. Although this was the least fun part of the day for me, I did enjoy spending time peeling through the layers of stories everyone had to share about how they ended up at Penn State.

A hour later we headed back to the bus, celebrating that we finally could get out of the heat. Overall, my experience with Penn State Fresh Start Day of Community Service was a very positive one. I got to experience two of my favorite things, as well as getting to connect with new people, it was one best way to spend some free time. I without a doubt see myself next year attending this event, and I highly recommend others to do the same.

Every single day, millions upon millions of pounds of trash are thrown into the rivers and into the environment, causing these ginormous pileups of garbage that ravage the ecosystem and world. As this problem continues to worsen each day, engineers have been trying to think of a way to slow down the inevitable approach of littered waste. One of the many attempts that have been made to solve this catastrophe was done in this photo from Guatemala.

In the past week, a video from Guatemala has gone viral showing what seemed to be a tsunami of garbage flowing through a river that would inevitably end up into the ocean or furthering damaging their local environment. However, this wall of trash was met face to face with fence determine to stop it in its tracks. The fence having been constructed weeks earlier, stopped a large majority of the trash moving further down the river. There was so much trash it started to bend the steel supports keeping the fence upright, sparking a worry among those who were watching this. However, after a few short seconds, they realized the fence was going nowhere, exciting the workers and making them jump up and down screaming “it’s working!” The video continued to role for a few more minutes, displaying what seemed to be a never-ending supply of trash, showing how effective the fence was at stopping the garbage.

Although this video should make you thrilled that their plans are working, it also shows the disturbing truth of how much waste we throw into our bodies of water and how important it is we come together to form a solution. This fence is a step towards the right direction, its simple and effective and can be built on different parts of the river. But the problem still remains, we must work together to stop throwing garbage into our bodies of water in the first place or creating a material that would quickly biodegrade. By holding each person accountable for their action and spreading more awareness of the problem, we could continue to reduce the amount of garbage in the rivers and oceans and produce a better world to live in. Although there will always be a person who does not want to listen and continues to litter, the constructions of these fences throughout the mouths of rivers can be a great first step in the right direction.

Henrys picture is captivating, so many eye-catching details happening in such a small amount of space, there is so much to take in. Henrys picture details something that we are all too familiar with and amplifies it with unique picturing. I believe the subject of deforestation is an extremely important subject that often gets overlooked or ignored by society. Although we may acknowledge the situation, action is often lacking, thus the problem has yet to be resolved and the continuing of deforestation is moving us closer and closer to the relentless impact of global warming. Deforestation is often talked about less because it is a very necessary material for the entire world and other alternatives are far less available compared to subject of energy. This leads to politicians and other organizations justifying their needs for deforestation and to allow them to walk away with what they are doing to the environment. Henry managed to convey all of these messages when he discussed the theme of this picture and was able to use the unique illustrations of the photo as talking points for each of the issues that were discussed. There is so much potential to dive deeper into each specific part and find each meaning behind it, Henery showed he was able to do that in one minute, I can’t wait to see what he does for his final project.

Back at my hometown in East Aurora NY during the covid pandemic, I decided that I was going to pick up a brand-new hobby that not too many people do, beekeeping. I signed up for an apprenticeship and picked up a book and decided to give it a go, and it resulted in something I love doing to this day. When coming to Penn State, I knew I wanted to continue my passion throughout college and decided to look into the Penn State Beekeeping Club. This past Tuesday, I was given the opportunity to head down to the hives with the club to perform an inspection, leading to a whole lot of fun.

Doing inspections in hives are quite simple, before you go into the hive you have to use a device called a smoker, which does exactly what it sounds like. The smoker allows you to mask the pheromones bees use to communicate with each other, essentially making it so they don’t go into an instant panic and become defensive. From here it’s pretty easy, the beehive is separated into separate boxes full of frames used to store whatever the bees wish. These boxes, depending on what the bees are storing in them, can weigh up to 50 pounds, making them a two-man job to peacefully get them off the hive. After the heavy lifting is done, we take the frames out from each box and inspect them in order to see if there are any irregularities such as egg placement and mite inspections.

This week, the hive itself to be in a pretty good condition after they had recently treated it for a mite problem. Although many people are terrified of bees, most people don’t realize how calm they often are. Honeybees will only sting if you are treating the hive poorly in self-defense, however, treat them kindly and you have nothing to worry about. As you can tell from the photos above, a majority of us were in wearing typical pants and only had protection over our upper body and head, one of the members doesn’t even wear gloves. Bees are often feared off, but when you take a moment to calm yourself down and take a look into what they are doing, an entire world appears, bringing along curious thoughts and a wanting to know more about our fuzzy friends.

 

Solar panels are a rapidly developing trend in the United States and across the world. With a 25% growth over the last decade, it appears that the emergence of renewable energy is rising. However, solar panel energy does not replace unsustainable energy sources and, in certain situations, contributes very little as an energy source. Penn State, for example, gets less than 1% of its electricity from solar panels. So, what are our options?

Starting off we can take a step back and examine who has done it the best, in this case its Arizona State University (ASU). In the picture above, ASU demonstrates why it is known as being the college that has the greatest number of solar panels in the country, this work can be replicated here at Penn State! ASU took years of planning and thoughtful coordination in order to get their solar panels implemented, and it has made a long-lasting impact on the campus. It has been recorded that around 50% of the energy that is generated by ASU comes from solar panels. Those numbers are outstanding and show the potential of what focusing our resources on solar panels could do, as well as decreasing energy cost by tens of thousands of dollars.

Although PSU positioning may not be suited to get the same results as PSU, the idea of reducing our carbon footprint through the implementation of solar panels still remains. Developing a foundation for solar panels at PSU has the potential to save the campus thousands of dollars as well as help lead the way and inspire other schools to follow in our footsteps towards a cleaner campus. The research is there, the work has been done before, all that we are waiting for is the green light. Solar panels can really make a difference.