My book Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly ends with Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon. The main character Katherine Johnson was the dominant calculator on the Apollo 11 Mission. She was very confident in her calculations and was relieved when they completed their mission to the moon. “Katherine Johnson had confidence: she knew her numbers were right, and she assumed everyone else...had given their all to the mission.” Shetterly (p.245).
Throughout this novel black women demonstrate perseverance during a time when minorities were often treated unequally. Their success years ago is important today because it shows that obstacles can be conquered through hard work as seen by Katherine and the other black computers. They gained much respect from many NASA employees. This is valuable today because it helps people become stronger mentally by making them think that if they get past a big obstacle they can conquer anything!
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The Space Race was a conflict in the mid 1900’s between the USA and the USSR. This was in the middle of the Cold War where tensions were high. Both countries were trying to get to the moon before the other and most people didn’t know that black women did the calculations for the United States. These black females that worked for NASA broke racial and gender barriers and helped the United States win the space race.
Black female college graduates at that time usually got a teaching job. These women were very good at math, science and NASA hired them. These women were discriminated against and they persevered through it. Still today blacks are treated differently just like in the NASA base with separate tables in the cafeteria and separate restrooms etc. Breaking the gender and racial barriers of the 1950’s resulted in even greater opportunities for today's women of color. For example Michelle Obama being the first African American First Lady! If the Space Race hadn’t happened, technology wouldn’t be as advanced as it is today. What we did in the 1960’s accelerated the process that may not have been accomplished until the 1990’s. Mars landings may not have happened if Russia had not provoked us with the launching of the Sputnik in the 50’s and we may have not realized all of our accomplishments in space exploration. In the late 1940s the United States and the Soviet Union were in a Cold War. The Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite thus leading the world in space exploration. In turn, the US launched a rocket which unfortunately blew up and left us behind in the race. NASA was hired by the US government to regain its title as the leader in space by stepping up its effort to develop a spacecraft that can send a man into space. NASA needed scientists to put the first person into space.
The nonfiction book, Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly tells the story about four black American women mathematicians who helped win the space race against the Soviet Union. The novel tells the story of what the researchers did behind the scenes to make the launch possible. At the time WWII was ending, many men were returning from the war, going into the civilian workforce and up until that point women were hired. Some of them were black women. The women had gender and racial barriers to overcome not only in society, but also at NASA. Some of these were when black women could only get teaching as their best possible job. “In 1940 just two percent of all black women earned college degrees, and 60 percent of those women became teachers….exactly zero percent of those 1940 college graduates became engineers.”(p. 40) During that time, American society feared Soviet Nuclear attacks. The citizens had fallout shelters in case of soviet attacks and every threat the USSR made against the USA made the people worry even more. The American people were very patriotic and they wanted the country to win the space race. In the book and also in real life have racial discrimination. Several areas at NASA were segregated; the west side was for colored workers as well as certain tables in the cafeteria were open to the colored. One day, researcher Mary Jackson had to work in one of the hangers on the east side of the NASA base and she had trouble finding a bathroom. All the bathrooms on the east side were for white people only. “Negotiating racial boundaries was a daily fact of Negro life. Mary wasn’t naive about the segregation at Langley-it was no different than anywhere in town.”(p. 108) Gender problems occurred both in real life and in the plot of the story. Women weren’t given credit for the work they did and they were always in the shadow of a man. Katherine Johnson was helping with the apollo missions. At this time the meetings were for males only. Katherine took matters into her hands and successfully convinced her supervisor to let her attend these meetings. “Even a woman who had worked closely with an engineer on the content of a research report was rarely rewarded by seeing her name alongside his on the final publication.” (p.83) By Thor, Max and Jesse
Raleigh, North Carolina is a very clean city although several of its large recreational areas contain multiple kinds of pollution. A major pollutant in Raleigh is waste and garbage. Waste and garbage is especially bad in communities because it can run down to water sources then making the water dirty and potentially making it unsafe for others. Water pollution can be very dangerous and will affect anyone who drinks it, it can lead to tons of diseases and its bad for the environment. Even if Raleigh is a very clean city we can help to try by cleaning up and getting rid of some of its pollution and in doing so help out the environment and the community. In the U.S. nearly 63 million people have to drink dirty water every day(USA TODAY). That is about a fourth of the population drinking potentially dangerous water. This number is way too high and we don’t want Raleigh to be contributing to the issue. To help prevent this issue becoming worse in our city we can try to help clean up around large bodies of water like Jordan Lake. Pollution is a serious issue around the world and we should make sure it doesn’t become a serious issue in our community. Water in our area has several contaminates. Some contaminates like Chloroform and Bromodichloromethane increase the risk of cancer. The EWG(Environmental Working Group) detected 9 contaminants in our area above health guidelines, meaning these toxins are above healthy standards. This problem has been an issue for at least 10 years and hasn’t gotten better. These toxins form during treatment processes using chlorine and other cleaning products(EWG). Anyone who drinks this water has an increased risk of cancer. Some of these toxins are very close to the legal limit which could lead to more complications. These pollutants may increase problems during pregnancy, if this is not taken care of our population would decrease due to the increase of cancer and problematic births. Trash has chemicals in it that intoxicates the water. Trash like six pack rings can choke and kill aquatic life as well as pollute the water. The Conservation Trust of North Carolina is helping preserve the Neuse River by protecting the land around it. “Land trusts work with landowners, state and local governments, and other conservation organizations to protect drinking water sources across North Carolina.” (CTNC) Wetlands, forests, and fields filter the pollutants out of the water through the soil. Our community still needs help because this problem is very complicated to fix. To fix problem this you have to cut off all waste which is impossible. Even if we cut off all trash there will still be after effects of pollution like lead poisoning. Wakegov says join a stream clean up. A stream clean up helps fish and other animals that rely on that water source. What we will be doing to help the community and the environment is that we are going to go to Jordan lake. Where we will have a group of volunteers split into groups going around on the trails or the picnic areas and picking up the trash. We were thinking about bringing around 25 students that are able to work together, we would later in the afternoon take a lunch break and then get back to work. Since we are under age we would need parental permission to go to Jordan Lake. To get there and from we would need a school bus. We would leave at 8 o’clock and leave Jordan lake at 12:45. It takes around 30-35 minutes to get there depending on traffic. Once we get there we would start to pick up trash. We would bring our lunch and have it at 11:00, if you don’t bring a lunch you can order a bagged lunch from the cafeteria. The information on how to do that will be on the permission slip. It would be provided before the trip. Lunch would take 30 minutes then we would start collecting trash again at 11:30 and then leave at 12:45 to get back to Martin at around 1:15. Our goal will be to collect 10 bags of trash or more. We will know we’ve reached this goal when we have over 10 bags of trash full or close to full. Bibliography Conservation Trust For North Carolina.”Upper Neuse Clean Water Initiative.”Conservation Trust For North Carolina.”2017.January 23,2017.<https://www.ctnc.org/assist/upper-neuse-clean-water-initiative/>. EWG.”EW’s Tap Water Database.”EWG.2017.January 23,2017. <https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=NC0392010#.Wm8-NGkbPIV> Fedinick, Kristi Pullen, et.al.“Threats on tap.”Natural Resources defense council” May 2017.January 23,2017.<https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ threats-on-tap-water-infrastructure-protections-appendices.pdf > Agnel, Philip, et.al.”63 million americans exposed to unsafe drinking water.”Usa Today” August 15, 2017. January 31,2018. <https://www.usatoday.com/story/news 2017/08/14/63-million-americans-exposed-unsafe-drinking-water/564278001/> Photo http://elipalteco.com/water-pollution-lesson-plans/water-quality-critical-thinking-in-science-pollution-lesson-plans-high-school-d/ The issue that I am concerned about is Raleigh’s streams are being polluted by sediment and runoff. Our storm runoff doesn't go to the water treatment plants it goes straight to the rivers and streams. The runoff includes dirt, fertilizer, oil, etc and goes to the nearest streams.
Runoff kills fish, harms our environment, and can be dangerous for our health. Polluted water can lead to cholera, malaria just to name a few. People should care about this issue because this is what we drink and keeps us alive. I’m interested in this issue because it seems to be important for our communities health. I think a solution could be is to pick up trash off the streets. People should make sure that used oil goes into proper containers. Recycle plastic bags, cups, bottles, cans and to not throw then in the streets. I could organize stream walks where we go in a stream and pick up the trash and report offenders that are piping pollutants into the streams. I could convince others to not cut down their trees because that disrupts the soil. Eventually that soil will go in our streams. I believe in pushing through your pain and frustration. When you skip a routine event for a week or longer it takes you a long while to get back into it. Four years ago, I had mononucleosis for a week and a half and while I was sick I couldn't do anything!
My whole day was spent sitting on the couch, sleeping or watching TV. My arms hurt and it was embarrassing that I needed help walking up the stairs. It was depressing, I had no energy to go to swim practice and felt like I was missing fun times because while away they flipped tires during dryland! I had to push through the pain of swimming once I was better. During my first practice back, I could barely swim 200 yards(8 laps). My chest felt like it was caving in and my arms were weak. I thought it would be fun getting back into the pool. But it was the complete opposite. My coach pulled me out of the pool and gave me a speech about pushing through my frustrations. He told me I wouldn't get better in this sport if I didn't push through the pain. After a couple weeks my work ethic had gotten a lot better and I started to try even harder. My new understanding about pushing through the pain is “NO PAIN NO GAIN”. Now, whenever I feel pain I always remember pain is temporary, glory is forever. |
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