Sex, Lies and Cigarettes
I came across this video via Steve Harton’s Hartonline Bio website and clicked on it because of the Indonesia connection. I’m glad I did, though it made me quite angry.
Aldi
Having spent most of the last eight years in Indonesia, I have long been concerned about the ubiquity of the tobacco industry and the all-pervasive nature of the advertising. Everything – literally everything – is sponsored by tobacco. From TV and movies to sports (!), some schools (!!) and music concerts. There is no escaping the message that smoking is cool, good for you and leads to an exciting life.
So how did it get this way when the developed world is shunning the dangers of smoking?
This 40-minute documentary by Vanguard puts it all in context. From the viral video sensation of Aldi the smoking baby, to the simple, ruthless economics of exploiting a developing country and targeting their children as an emerging market, the film-makers lay it out clearly and passionately. It focuses too on the work of an anti-smoking action group who face the huge challenge of taking on big tobacco in a country where so much depends on it – it’s a major cash crop and source of income.
This video is a YouTube upload, but there are clips and resources on the official Vanguard page.
I loved the bit where the Miss Indonesia contestants help the film-maker crash the World Tobacco Asia conference!
Some questions and thoughts to consider when watching the movie:
- Near the end of the movie, there is a quote from Warren Buffett: “I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty.” Although he has changed his stance on tobacco, it neatly illustrates the bottom-line ethos of business.
- As a publicly-owned company, your main responsibility is to the shareholder – you must maximise profits. Discuss the ethics of targeting children in emerging economies as a market.
- Accepted science states that tobacco is addictive and harmful to human health. Why then has this not been recognised by the Indonesian government?
For more good documentaries, have a look at Vanguard's website.
King Corn – we are what we eat, drink and cook with
King Corn
This film came out about a year ago, but I saw it for the first time on the History Channel a couple of days ago. A very enlightening view of the omnipresence of corn and corn-products in our food. From corn-fed beef to corn-starch and high-fructose corn syrup (boo!), industrial production of corn is in all facets of our diet.
In the film, two friends set out to produce an acre of corn and track how it grows and where is goes. Inspired by the Omnivore’s Dilemma and in tune with other recent super-docs (Super Size Me, Food Inc., The End of the Line), King Corn is a sensitive and educational film that manages not to stray into anti-industry polemic.
This extended clip from PBS shows the first 20-minutes of the movie:
It’s amazing to see that the corn farmers can’t even feed themselves with the corn they grow – it is not fit to be eaten! Instead it is bred and grown for maximum starch output. If you get a chance, watch it.
One impactful scene explains how high fructose corn syrup came to be and how it is made. Something to surely make you think twice about the contents of the processed foods we eat. Here’s a challenge – check the labels in the supermarket and see how may products contain it.
There’s no such word as ‘amount’
Here’s the presentation flipbook for the Grade 9 Intro Chemistry group:
For more resources for this unit, visit the Matter and Measurement page.
Describing Motion Resources
For my Grade 10 Physics students. Resources for our unit so far can be found on this page: MYP Describing Motion . The presentation will continue to be updated as we go through the course, so keep checking back and let me know if you spot any errors.
Have fun!
Inside Fukushima
The Guardian has a nice interactive gallery this week of some images taken inside the Fukushima clean-up operation. In the months since the Tōhoku earthquake, there have been published a wealth of very useful educational resources regarding nuclear power, radiation, earthquakes and tsunamis. Sadly too the internet has been inundated with rubbish. When we come to our Atomic Energy unit of inquiry in Grade 10, we will look at some of these and try to evaluate their usefulness.
For now, enjoy the pictures. If you want to learn more, the Guardian was pretty good with their coverage and their links are well worth following.
The end of the shuttle
Here’s a neat little clip from Nature Video, with natty soundtrack, highlighting 135 space missions of the NASA shuttle programme. If you have access to BBC iPlayer, you can see a very insightful documentary on the final shuttle flight here. Visit NASA’s shuttle resources to find out more about the shuttle programme, its successes and dramatic episodes, as well as what is next for NASA.
Tweetal Lunar Eclipse
NASA
There’s a total lunar eclipse tonight (15-16 June 2011), or very early tomorrow morning for Australia and SE Asia. Click here for a chart from NASA on when and where it will be visible and how much of it you can expect to see.
……….o0O0o……….
I also finally caved in and got Twitter. @iBiologyStephen, if you will. There’s a little Twitter widget up on the top right of the blog that will take you to my profile. Beyond the basics of leaving messages, getting into PD and checking out updates, what novel – and effective – ways are you putting Twitter to work in class? Add your ideas in the comments below or tweet me. That’s how I roll now.
i-Biology 