Awaken Your Inner Gaia

Our Time To Be Alive

Dude, our generation has a lot to experience. Also known as Generation Y, Generation Einstein, the iGeneration, the "rear end" of the MTV Generation, we are the Millennials (all those born between 1982-1996. Not to be confused with Generation Z, 1996-2001, the Neo-Disneys). Like the GI Generation (1901-1924), we are the "civic heroes" of the world according to Strauss and Howe's list and book Generations.

Doesn't that alone get you pumped?

And just think about it for a sec.; there is this life changing "war" going on, technology is booming (I mean, MC Lars said it best in his song, iGeneration, "this is the internet generation"), and everyday there is more to know.

The world, as I write, is creating a natural, evolutionary revolution! Every generation has their call to arms, and this is ours: adapting to change. We are right at the age where we weren't born with all this, and we aren't too old to understand it all. With all this change, only the best will survive.

Though as Millennials, we have this awful rep: Millennials have a reputation for being peer oriented and seeking instant gratification. Businesses are scared to hire us because of this! Even 60 Minutes created a warning to the world about us(Part 1)(Part 2)! But something nice to grind your teeth on, fellow Millennials out there, like the WW2 babies (Baby Boomers), we as Cold War babies, are almost equal in numbers (Baby boomers have 76 million, we have 70 million).

What gets me started on this, is that I, along with my fellow Team Gaia members, have been watching I Love the New Millennium on VH1. And it reminded me of all the change we are going through, and really makes me just want to say, "This is our time. Bring it on."

Tasmanian Tiger is back

It's been 70 years since its extinction; 2 years since they almost abandoned the project, but now the Tasmanian Tiger is back!

Scientists harbored the DNA inside mice, the first time that extinct DNA has lived inside a different host and has been revived successfully. This brings to question, what else could scientists do with DNA? Could Jurassic Park become a reality?

This new discovery could also help scientists isolate Neanderthals' DNA and bring scientists one step closer to the "missing link" that could once and for all, prove evolution as a fact.

Current Events, Schm-urrent Schm-ents

I’ve have recently come to realize that only a small amount of teenagers watch the news of their own accord. Some only watch it when their parents have it turned on the tube, BUT most don’t watch it at all.

I began to understand this concept slightly when I was talking about some pro-choice/pro-life debate with my friend ‘Anthony’ (name changed to protect his ignorance). He had no idea what I was talking about, so I explained the concept to him, and he didn’t understand why there couldn’t be harmony. I am not going to get into this topic now, but I will take it up in a later blog, of that you can be sure.

More and more teachers have begun to ask about current events such as Darfur, vote yes/no on 1, and the newly established Sunshine State standards for Evolution. Perhaps four kids in each class were able to keep the discussion of these subjects going.

And today, a friend of mine, whose dream it is to be a cop, didn’t know a thing about what happened on “Go-Skate” Day (celebrated on the longest day of the year, June 21st, aimed to get kids outside and having fun), nothing about this cop who arrested a kid for calling him “dude,” shown on FOX News recently, and didn’t know about the cop who didn’t believe that a man was paralyzed and tossed him out of his wheelchair! It was all over the NEWS!

Something has got to inspire teens to watch the news or read it. Not only can you view the news online now, but there are so many places that you can see it, read it and write about if you so choose. I mean, there are fun websites like Digg, Wired, Huffington Post, and even my own Team Gaia, which are all pretty cool! Then there is always that thirty minutes when there’s nothing on TV when one can turn on the news.

Long ago, Linda Ellerbee used to air a news show on Nickelodeon, and back then everyone hated it and no one ever watched it so I don’t think it airs anymore, but it was someone trying to take initiative in interesting teens in the news! I mean you’re getting some of it right here at Team Gaia right now!

The future of America needs it. For instance did you see the article in USA Today (Yes, a NEWSPAPER…so probably not!) that most teens do not know anything about History – I mean come on – it’s being made everyday!

What are we turning into? I don’t think there should be a “Current Event Class” to count as something like a History credit, but I think teachers should find more ways to integrate current events (and it would seem past ones as well – DUH!) into their lesson plans. It can be done very creatively, and easily, with a little invention called the Internet, the World Wide Web! In this information age there is just no way that we should be uninformed or news ignorant.
It’s not much to ask for someone to get people interested, if it was a part of a grade maybe it would work! Maybe then the history of now will pave a way for the future.

The Predicament of Evolution

February 19th, 2008 Florida Board of Education changed their science standards. I think to myself, “Awesome, I’ll actually learn something!!”
So I read the article more, and learn that evolution has been adopted into the science standards. No more “changes over time," but yes, EVOLUTION! The basis of all biology! You honestly can’t learn biology without understanding Evolution. Biology is the science of creation, and without evolution…well that’s like teaching chemistry without a periodic table.

What a relief! Especially considering Florida has the worst science department I have ever seen…I can tell you this for fact. I’m a student there.
The only science we learned in Elementary School was the Scientific Method. Imagine five years of learning the same thing. Middle school was a bit better. We “reviewed” the Scientific Method for a science fair. I boycotted the project - half too lazy to do the project, half not caring enough because I was sick and tired of the same old science class. I thought in middle school I was gonna get a full hour of the glorious subject of Science. No. It was a repeat. A broken record.

For the next three years, my teacher would give us an eighty-question questionnaire on Monday, a PowerPoint project on Tuesday, a review of the questionnaire on Thursday, and a test on the questionnaire on Friday. The questionnaire was nothing, but an easy way for me to store the information for short term memory, not really learning anything, further proven by the fact that I can't remember anything from those three years of Science except how to operate powerpoint. In my opinion, being spoon fed information was no way to learn science fundamentals at all.

Alas, I entered high school and found hope. My ninth grade Biology teacher skimmed the edges of the state standards - and I learned I understood Evolution, even though it wasn't allowed to be taught. We had fun projects, an exciting teacher, and I swear it was the best class of my life. The next year, I also got lucky, taking the only Chemistry class that had one teacher for the full year. Of course it didn't help that the teacher didn't care about Chemistry, and really wanted to teach Psychology.

This year, my junior year, to expand my knowledge, I am taking Physics online at Florida Virtual School, and taking AP Chemistry with the seniors in my high school. This has by far been the greatest year of learning in my young life. So naturally, since I plan on taking AP Biology next year, learning Evolution is a super plus. But wait...there’s a catch — Evolution will be taught as the “Scientific Theory of Evolution." Not simply "Evolution." Which raises my brow, last year it was proclaimed not a "theory," not yet a law.

So, what happened to academic freedom? Religious advocates have wanted their say in it, and their say is "NO Evolution all!" It is "Intelligent Design" or "Creationism." But that's mixing religion and state, and shows a religious bias, which isn’t allowed in school either...RIGHT? Hmmm…looks like a predicament, so did the powers that be cave by calling it "Scientific Theory of Evolution?" What does that mean anyway? And what will the teachers teach?

How about this? You religious people send your kids to a school that doesn’t tell the full story, and the rest of us kids that want to learn something that makes more sense than an unproven, disputed, not even the most popular rule of thoought, "God letting there be light..." yadda, yadda, yadda... will go to a public school that should be allowed to teach Evolution and CALL it Evolution.

Now, don’t get pissed off because you think I’m slandering God. Dude, I’m totally Christian and I don’t find any reason that religion and education can't be separate, but equally accepted entities. That Evolution is a scientific fact and it needs to be taught.

And as a final rant, everyone is free to think of their own accord, so if you don’t like what Junior says at the dinner table about the Big Bang, then send him to CCD already!