Topic: How green is your city?

1. Intro

A. Subtitle (overview)

2.Examples

A. “green”

B. Examples of green energy

3. Novato

A. How green they are

B. How to improve it even more

4. Albany

A. How green are they

B. How to improve even more

5. Berkeley

A. How green are they

B. How can they improve even more

6.Bay Area Environment

A. How green we are

B. How to improve

7. Conclusion

A. Things to do at home/ in your city

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My podcast group members were Aneesa and Kelechi. We decided to do our poscast on stress. More specifically stress with in the SMASH community. To do this we interviewed an RA and a SMASH scholar to see how they handled their stress. To make it unique, we made a skit of a SMASH scholar going to the doctor and getting checked for the stress syndrome. Overall I think this is a strong podcast. It is a bit long and I wish I could have made it shorter so the audience wouldn’t loose focus or get bored. I use a series of sound effects like opening and closing doors, footsteps, and tv turning on to create a more realistic scenario and make the skit come alive.

-Introduction

1. Stress epidemic
2. -Basic information of stress

-Doctors visit

1. - Intro to patient
2. - Patient describes stress symptoms
3. - Doctor says scientific info

-Interviews

1. - Asking SMASH scholars/RA’s how stressed they feel
2. - Asking about effects of the stress
3. - Asking if they do anything to relive stress

-Conclusion

1. - Cure

For my podcast project I am in a group with Aneesa and Kelechi. Our topic is about stress, its effects and ways to manage it. Our question is:

How does stress effect your everyday life at SMASH?

My PSA poster is about telling people that Styrofoam is NOT recyclable. I chose this topic after debating between this and the other ideas on my previous post. I ultimately chose this one because it is a topic I am concern about and close to my heart. I know that a lot of people recycle but I also know that a lot of them don’t do it right. My call to action is for them to get their facts straight and be conscious that styrofoam is not recyclable. By this I hope that people will stop putting Styrofoam into their local recycling facilities. By putting just one piece of styrofoam in a recycling bin, you are sending the whole bin into the land-field. I think that the image of the cup is powerful but the elements around it could support it better. Over all I think my PSA poster is strong but I know that it could be improved.

For my PSA poster I would like to make a poster that tells teens to find something to do and stop smoking weed. I want to do this because I know some people who do this and I have seen the effects of it through out the years. In my community there is nothing interesting or fun to do and there are a lot of teens with money to spend. This two things combined is what makes what makes it so easy for them to go and smoke, that’s why I want my PSA poster to say “find something to do”. My target audience would be teens, specially teens who smoke. The imagery I was thinking was having side to side images of a teen smoking and another who found “something else to do” and make it kinda funny.

My other idea is about recycling or being conscious of what can and can’t be recycled. I want to do this because I always see recycling been full with Styrofoam containers which ARE NOT recyclable! and it frustrate me. I would call people to get their info and learn what need to be recycled and what shouldn’t even be put in the recycling. My target audience would be people who care about recycling, even if they are doing it wrong. An imagery that would might work would be a picture of some animal being out in danger by the Styrofoam. Also a picture of what happens to the Styrofoam once it goes to the land field.

My third idea would call people to get an annual check up every year and not skip them thinking your fine. This is important to me because I have known people who did this and if they hadn’t they might still be alive today. My target audience would be the older people that’s why a picture of an older person standing in a check up room might work. The person, besides from being of older age could look very sick and in the picture there could be a confine.

ENVIRONMENTAL issues are not a thing of the past. Most of us, the younger generation,  have been living with the idea that we are the ones in charged of fixing or taking care of our planet. Ever since we were old enough to understand we have been told “this is your only planet, you have to take care of it”. But did you ever wonder how the planet that we are told to love and care for got to this point? Didn’t the generations before us know to take care of it too? And if they did, why are we the ones responsible for fixing the planet, for taking care of it? What about the previous generations that created this problem, what are they doing about it? Well, with help from the pop culture, these generations have begun to make the younger generations feel that they are the ones who should be paying the bills. Fixing something that was done even before they were born. Its is generations like the baby boomers that caused the environmental issues at hand. Yes, like David Willetts says in his article about his new book “The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took their Children’s Future – and Why They Should Give it Back”, the baby boomer generation has done many great things for society, they have created and infinity of things that we can’t live without like electronics and the internet, but along with it they created environmental issues like Global Warming.

No, I am not blaming Global Warning on one group of people. We are all to blame, but it is unfair for the older generations- like the Baby Boomers and Generation X- to pretend it is the responsibility of only the young people to take care of the problem. In the recent years a trend of having the younger generations “save us” has increased. With help from new technology, this message has spread world wide. We constantly hear about environmental groups for teens, to teach them to be self aware of their impact on the environment. Two examples of this groups are the Conservation Corps North Bay, in Northern California and the Teenager and Environment Festival held in Vietnam. I have personally experienced this type of environmental projects and I never viewed them as bad. In fact I loved being a part of a program like that. But we can see how the older generation knows that as teens we are starting to realize how it is not only our duty to fix this. That is why they use incentives like money or school credits to persuade teens to join. They go to public schools or teen centers to hand out fliers that promote their programs, using money as bait because they know how most teens will do anything for money. While I was in the environmental program, I realized how much more open the younger generations are to the idea of keeping the planet clean because it is an idea that we have grown up with ever since we can remember.

Now, kids are being bombarded in every way possible with the duty to save the

planet. There is the example of Disney who uses other teens to motivates kids to make a difference. One of Disney’s latest campaigns is Friends For Change, where they tell teens to join with their friends and “Take Action!”, save the planet a group of teens at a time. To do this, Disney uses a group of celebrity teens from their hit shows in Disney Channel like the Jonas Brothers, from Jonas L.A.; and Miley Cyrus, from Hannah Montana. They form a series of ad campaigns including music videos and commercials that are constantly shown to teens while they watch their favorite tv shows. An example of this is the Disney’ Friends for Change Send it On, shown below.

Imagine a normal teenager surfing through the internet, they are doing what they would normally do. Checking their Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or just watching videos videos on YouTube. Suddenly they run across a video like Climate Change- Message to Young and Committed People. In this video the younger generation is being told that they are responsible for fixing the environmental problems, but this time they are told that he or she is “just a consumer”  they are told that they need to “change themselves to change the world”. In videos like this, they are being targeted emotionally and mentally to make them feel guilty and responsible for what is mainly the fault of Generation X and the Baby Boomers. While they are told this, they are told that even though they were ignorant of this subject at a younger age, it is still their responsibility. According to the narrator of this video he is just trying to give the younger people “an understanding of what they must do” to change the world.

It is only when we take a closer look at this situation that we see how the baby boomers have manipulated the situation and dropped the burden of our recent  environmental issues on the younger generations. They have manipulated the media as to spread this message to more and more people. They used print media to spread “save the earth join our environmental group” propaganda, music videos in websites frequently visited by teens, and even tv shows to take the burden off of themselves. So why is the younger generation responsible? Well, they are not, at least not completely. We are all responsible for taking care of this earth. It is unfair for the older generations to manipulate the media in their advantage and make the younger generation carry the responsibility for something they should also be a part of, saving this earth.