Nuclear technology has been in constant consideration from its inception. Perspectives have changed dramatically since the 1900s to now from a really positive outlook to a downright suspicious glare at any nuclear reactor. These days, the fear of these reactors having a major accident and melting down is at a all time high which creates enormous friction between the corporations who own these reactors and general public who are concerned about it. I seek to answer the question of how fear of a nuclear radiation is used today to change current events. I will use the movie “China Syndrome“, the documentary “Nuclear Nightmares”,  and a recent current to support my answer.

The movie “China Syndrome” in my eyes was to open up the issue of the dangers of nuclear power to the public in a way that will shock them into realization. This movie is about a potential meltdown situation at a nuclear power plant because of corporate mismanagement. In the movie, a nuclear scientist analyzes footage of a recent nuclear reactor mishap. He says “I may be wrong, but I’d say you’re lucky to be alive. For that matter, I think we might say the same for the rest of Southern California.” (China Syndrome). This quote shows how the the potential failure of the plant could have killed everyone in Southern California or even more. The fear of radiation killing people affects the preliminary report from this scientist to show how it could have killed many. This can also be connected to the 1986 Chernobyl incident. After the nuclear reactor 4 exploded causing big amounts of radiation spread around the area, the people of the nearby town Pripyat was evacuated following the fear of the people being exposed to this amount of radiation. Both the movie and the disaster show the same fear of radiation killing or severely damaging people in the area of effect. While one is speculation and one was reality, the premise is the same. Fear has affect both decisions because if there was no fear of radiation killing people, people would not have been evacuated and the scientist would not have made such a claim.

Workers who worked to seal off the open reactor core of Chernobyl. The amount of protection gear is a testament to the dangers of radiation. Most of these workers died because even this was inadequate.

The documentary “Nuclear Nightmares” shows that expert’s knowledge of radiation may have to be reappraised after several studies of the area surrounding Chernobyl and other scientist’s research show how radiation is not a heavy hitter in cancer deaths. The documentary goes in length to show how the official chart for gauging radioactive cancer risk Linear no-threshold Model (LNT) may be flawed. The model does not show any data for radiation under 100 microsieverts (mSv). Scientists argue that the radiation under 100 mSv may have a beneficial affect to all lifeforms in fighting against cancer as the low dose of radiation exercises the genes that help people fight against radiation. A quote from the documentary says, “Its a classic example of what some scientist call radio phobia” (Nuclear Nightmares). This means that while radiation is still dangerous, people have a wrong perception of it as a whole. Many people fear radiation because they think it is bad in whichever way but in certain doses, it can actually become beneficial. The Fukushima Da-Itchi incident in 2011 shows how people fears of nuclear radiation affect their judgement on the nuclear reactors. After the meltdown of the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, the government proceeded to shutdown all the nuclear power plants in the country so they can go through a detailed review. The people’s support for nuclear power also plummets to 80% anti nuclear power because of this incident. The people want to keep these reactors shutdown because of fear of another radiation leak which is also how fear is influencing the Japanese people. While it may be ethical to move away from nuclear power, Japan’s nuclear power supports 25% of the nations power consumption and was set to raise up to 50%. With growing fear of nuclear power affecting peoples decisions and resulting in pushing away nuclear power, Japan may resort to burning fossil fuels to create power which does not provide radiation but does produce green house gasses. This fear can be found all over the world and this results to a very biased opinion from a lot of people hating on nuclear power.

The original Chernobyl sarcophagus which prevents any more radiation from going into the atmosphere is close to its failing point. A replacement dome is now in place to stop a new potential radiation leak.

In my own opinion, I think that the fear of nuclear power is irrational and needs to be thought through a bit more by people who severely oppose nuclear power. While there are accidents and the occasional leak of radiation, there have been only 3 major accidents in the entire history of nuclear power. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar power are good alternatives but they will never give a consistent source of power and a lot of windmills and solar panels are needed in order to produce enough power to match a nuclear reactor. And a solar panels and windmills are not completely environmentally clean either. The use of metals and materials such as nickel to produce the electronic components and mining the metals are also very damaging to the environment. My point in a nutshell is that the fear of nuclear power is really unfounded and irrational when compared to the current alternatives to power production. This also shows how fear controls and influences peoples decisions on such matters.

Elephants Foot, named after its wrinkled appearance and resemblance to an elephants foot is probably the most dangerous object in the world when first created. Found in the basement of reactor 4 at Chernobyl after the core melted. It is made of a mix of melted sand, graphite, and nuclear fuel. Within the first few years of its creation, anyone who looked at it will definitely die because of its high radiation.

Writing this blog post was a a real eye opener for me in terms of radiation. What really got to me was the study of radioactivity in the documentary and how it actually is not a heavy hitter when under 100 mSv in the cause of cancer. It also brought out from within me a point I wanted to make with others but never knew how to express, this point is how people fear nuclear power but when compared to our current energy alternatives, it really is not something to fear because these other sources produce a slower by still deadly outcome in the end.

The spread of radiation from the Fukushima Dai-Itchi nuclear power plant. The scale of its spread is shocking as particles that have absorbed radiation can be picked up by the wind.

Time to share why I feel Canada is special. Yay. Over the spring break, the teachers found a great way to torture us through it by assigning a video for the My Canada contest. The contest wants us to make a video that would have us reflect upon something about Canada. It had to be no more than 30 seconds and must be all original work. With nothing in mind, I enjoyed my break instead.

After I got back from spring break, I came up with an idea that I felt really suited me. Something with very little time of my face, has to be about technology, and make use of the apps on my iPad as promised in my SLC blogpost. My reflection topic is how Canada builds machines for sea, land, air, and space. I avoided brand names so I would not feel like a sellout in the video. My plan in the beginning was to use photos of the actual machines but the images had to be my work. So I just decided to draw them all out using Paper 53. Once I drew up my sad looking pictures, I attached them to backgrounds made by Explain Everything. I decided not to draw them in Explain Everything because I felt that Paper 53 has better drawing tools. I then put all the slides together into iMovie to string the slides together and recorded my voice over the slide show. I then realized that I needed to put some music in as well as a small bumper at the end of the video for the contest. I decided to put the video I made into the app My Canada provided because they automatically put the bumper at the end of the video. The app also let me choose music to play over my video which was nice but when I was all done, the app would not export the video the My Canada. Time to transfer the project over to my laptop (Ahem Mr Hughes what do you have against Dell). I found a program online for video editing installed it. I had to take a bit of time to learn the system but I got it done and attached the bumper. I had a huge problem with copyright free music and choosing a track to fit my video. I found one I liked after almost an hour. I adjusted the volume of the track an fumbled around near the end of the video to get the music to fade out. It did not really work but it did not ruin the video. I went their website and then submitted the video which worked unlike their app.

This project was a real exercise in problem solving and my drawing skills. The drawing was tough as I am not a good artist but I think the pictures get the point across. Figuring out what to do after the My Canada app did not work also poised a challenge as many programs out on the web are expensive or an absolute scam as they get me to pay at the very end of the editing process. Luckily I found this program but it was very complex. I had to spend some time to get this done. Overall, this project touched upon a subject that I did not really think of before, what do I appreciate about Canada? It was also a lot of problem solving on the fly but I think the video turned out great.

Here is the video, please take time to give a vote for me on the My Canada website if you want to so I can a prize if my video gets voted the most!

The dreaded SLC has arrived, apparently a roast fest of gigantic proportions that is designed to make people cry. At least that’s what I heard from the other people who have been through it. Below will be a showcase of what I have done over the time I have been in PLP. The 3 blog posts that I show will answer the questions,

1. What was an assignment that you were proud of.

2. What was an assignment that showed your learning.

3. What was an assignment that showed an example of your growth mindset.

A reflection of my most enjoyable time in this course, the visit to a real nuclear reactor at Reeds University.

The assignment that I was most proud of was definitely the PLP exhibition somewhere around the beginning of this year. The project is about the major events that Canada went through in World War I. The whole class was split into many different  groups which all researched a topic regarding an event. My team chose to cover the events before Canada went to war.

The reason I was very proud of this project was because of how the entire class pulled together in time for the exhibition. To be honest, my group really did not have an idea of how things would look and we did not have time for a dry run of what we were going to present as the audience moved through the exhibition. At the last minute, Tom suffered a head injury which led to me taking his place as Robert Borden who had a major talking role. My entire group acted and delivered a spectacular performance considering the circumstances. It was extremely cold because a side door was open exposing us to the frigid night of January. My group stayed on task with little complaint and went through the night without a single hitch. The rest of the entire exhibition was excellent to as I heard the enthusiasm that went into every performance by every group. This was definitely an example of snatching victory for (not that far away) from the jaws of defeat.

PLP Exhibition At Seycove

This next assignment really showed my learning. This topic of this assignment was to ask a question about Canada’s situation along the beginning to the end of World War I. Me, being the history nut of the 2 world wars really wanted to know how Germany fared after being oppressed by the allied forces of World War I. This was of course not about Canada but I had already written more than half the post by the time I contacted Ms. Willemse to ask for permission to stray from Canada so she gave me permission.

The Effects of the Roaring 20’s and The Great Depression on Germany

To be fair, I knew some of the facts about the question that I asked myself but I wanted to delve deeper and learn more of the smaller details and other bits of history to how Germany was hit by the after effects of World War II. The major thing I took away from this project was to learn about the smaller bits of detail before and after the event being researched. It’s an excellent way of improving the understanding of the topic in all aspects and also gives the edge when other history nuts challenge me to a duel of who knows more!

The final assignment will answer the question of what my growth mindset is. The assignment I have picked for this is the recent movie we are trying to produce. This movie is based on the Shakespearean act of “Macbeth”. Since we were studying World War II at the time, we decided to give the movie a World War II spin to it. The project was not a great success but I took away from it a very important lesson that will display how I want to grow my skill in the future.

The Macbeth Movie World War II Style

The growth mindset that I have constructed was influenced by when the failure of this project became apparent. It was the need to improve on my leadership skills. I would like to state that the failure of this project in the end fell down to me as I was in charge of seeing it to completion and that is why I am working to improve my leadership to make sure this never happens again. As I worked through this project, I realized that while people listened to me respectfully and seemed to follow direction, it seemed that the directions were not executed well or not at all. I believe it to be them not having enough respect for me and that I did not have enough of an air of command which motivated people to do things not for the sake of just doing it, but for the assignment and for all of the class. I will encourage growth in this area through taken the lead on more group work that does not require that many members and be very diligent on how I carry myself around them.

Goals

I have already set a goal in my growth of mindset part but there are 2 others. One is to become more proficient in all the small programs and tools that this course provides to make learning and organizing so much easier. I became aware of this from the movie project. I was using a very inefficient method of marking down the availability of the crew. When Maria stepped in and provided a new solution to the delays in filming, she also came with a google form that was easy to fill in and everyone did it in no time. I see some challenge seeing all the settings and using the programs to their full ability. I plan to achieve this by looking through all of the google tools and asking other PLP students on what they use. My final goal is to see if I can work up a reputation in like Marley has but not in the way that she over achieves in all her assignments, but by showing how I leadership and problem solve much better than what I can do now. I plan to achieve this through taking the lead in other projects and preparing for the problems that come.

This SLC definitely took a bit of time to write but luckily everything was in my learning portfolio so I simply needed to connect all the dots for this to work. I hope this shows how I have grown in this course how I will continue to grow as I move further into the year.