GOOD good

http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/ann_cooper.html
good website. an found for me! THANKS AN! it's about ann cooper and it lead me to her website. good good! yeaa

i also found a neat website with menu ideas:

http://www.laptoplunches.com/lunchmenus.html

NEW TOPICS

K. Well here are my two new topic ideas.

I really did want to stay within the medical field because that's where I plan to go in college. However, I think I would be limiting myself because my interests do lie else where as well. Maybe I had my panic attack too late. I don't know but I know that in order to recover I need to choose something that I am interested in an can work with fairly easily. I have begun to get into two new topics. However, I need to narrow it down. Feed back would be highly appreciated. These are my inquiry statements for my topics.

1. I am curious as to how to improve the school lunch so that it's menu items fit within the limits of a healthy diet for all those who eat it.

- This may sound very limited. However, I have been talking with Mrs. Peckham and I think that I could split my thesis paper up as follows: analysis of the current lunch menu - point out inadequacies and strengths, show caloric amounts for the foods, look at portion sizes, analyze ingredients in the current foods, then find research that shows what types of foods fit within a healthy diet, support for my suggested improvements, prove that the inadequacies in the foods, this includes the ingridents and caloric values are plausable, find research that show what types of foods would be most suitable for a school (possibly foods that have been shown to increase brain activity and alertness), then I would end with my suggestion of a meal plan for the cafeteria.
- I could include also at the end of this thesis a letter to Mrs. Betts describing my finding along with my suggested meal plan.
-I might also have to show how my suggested foods would fit within a budget.

Well I am having trouble formulating my second idea into an Inquiry statement. With this second idea I would like to enter into the conversation about biological alternative sources of energy suggesting the jatropha bean ( whose oil can be used as a biofuel and burns clean) as a possible alternative source of energy. Well as I am trying to type this out I am realizing that what I have so far would turn into more of a report than anything else. However if I went with this thesis it would be an argumentative thesis that would analyze and define the problem with current biofuels. It would look into using other possible biofuels, such as the jatropha bean, as other possible solutions to this problem.
I am not really sure how to work this into a thesis.
However, if you have any type of feedback be it good bad or otherwise please get back to me.

Thanx y'all.

Journal entry

Today we did our class talk. I got a chance to voice my concerns about my topic because it is so BIG and when I start asking around for hospital emergency plans for a bioterror attack people get really touchy. So i figured I should narrow it down some. I mean I had like a full scale panic attack. NOT good at all. So my goal is to refocus. This will require some talks with Mr. Engholm and Mrs. Peckham. The stuff that I am interested in I don't know enough about to mix any original though into. Scary i know. I mean I am thinking, although it might not seem like much I guess I just had my topic crisis late. I hope it's just not too late.

So today I talked with Mrs. Peckham for basically the whole 45 minutes that we were in the library. I just bounced ideas off of her. She has a lot of stuff up in her head so she was a big help. We started off by discussing small things like where does our trash go? I mean it's not exactly what I want to do because I want to stay on the same basic track that I was on before, the medical area. So I think that I might start looking into public health things like nutrition. However, I am sort hitting a wall when it comes to pushing in orignial thought. I mean I have an imagination but it seems to be doing it's own thing. So I will be posting a free writing post. I am planning to talk to Mrs. Peckham again, she has been really helpful so hopefully I can move quickly into a new thesis.

super bowl sunday

well I am not much of a football fan so I am upstairs doing homework. i started thinking about my thesis when my dad came upstairs to talk to me. He suggested that I look into things like staph infections. I got to thinking about the Hippocratic Oath that doctors take. I mean they are basically saying that no matter who you are if you come to them they will do their absolute best to help you. However, what if helping that person puts the doctor at risk? When is the doctor's well being considered? Should the doctor have the right to NOT treat a patient? How does this connect with what I am doing? HOW? Well if a patient has an infectious disease, caused by an pandemic does the doctor have to treat them? Or would this treatment of the patient inhibit the doctors ability to serve and help others?

I am just thinking out loud here.

Progress Report #2

1.16.09

1. PREVIEWED SOURCES :
People:

• Kalynn Chumney-My thesis partner. She and I discussed my topic for a while allowing me to articulate my ideas.
• Mr. Engholm- I talked with him about what types of things that I should include in my thesis paper. I also chatted with him about my Inquiry Statement and what types of things that I should say and I bounced different forms of my Inquiry Statement off of him.

Articles:

• Title:
  Unbuilt public health lab a linchpin in state's readiness for bioterrorism
  Authors:
  Toland, Bill
  Source:
  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA); 03/23/2005
• Website Link: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nfh&AN=2W60022330297&site=ehost-live
• This article discusses a Pittsburgh, PA idea to prepare for a biological terror attack. The article references a group called: Trust for America's Health: it is a Washington-based health advocacy group that has created a ranking among the fifty states for biogolical terrorist attack prepared ness. It also mentions a conference on Biological Terrorism that I would like to find transcripts from.
• http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr4904a1.htm
• This is from the CDC it should be a very good source.
• http://search.hhs.gov/search?q=+Biological+Terrorism+Preparedness&entqr=0&ud=1&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&output=xml_no_dtd&site=HHS&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&lr=lang_en&client=HHS&proxystylesheet=HHS

2. INQUIRY STATEMENT: I am curious as to how I create the best possible solution to the problem of United States hospitals being ill equipped to handle a massive influx of patients due to a biological terrorist attack.

3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

• What history is there of Biological Terrorist attacks around the world?
• Are C/B (chemical/ biological) terrorist attacks even a probable threat to the United States? - This question basically asks whether or not my thesis will hold water - if you know what I mean.
• What solutions have previously been proposed about this issue, if any at all? - This would be good for me to know so that my solution wouldn't copy someone elses.
• What kinds of materials would be necessary to prepare a single hospital to handle a possible C/B attack?
• How much would my solution cost/ per hospital?
• Would it be necessary to equip every hospital to be able to handle an influx C/B attack patients?
• If not which hospitals should be equipped?
• Would the total cost be and would it be practical to equip hospitals all at once?
• Should I incorporate an implementation schedule for my solution?
• Who should I talk to about my idea to access my potential solutions practicality? - This would have to be someone involved in a hospitals administrative staff.
• How could I make my solution fiscally responsible?
• Would it be possible to get government funding for my solution, possible later on?
• Can Categorical/ Block grants given to my plan to cut down the cost for each individual hospital? - My goal here is not to shut down hospitals or to send them into bankruptcy with the introduction of my plan, which makes me think that I need to make sure that I find a PRACTICAL way to implement my solution

Journal 4

Journal 4

1.14.09

Today we got partners for the thesis project. We were divided up according to what type of thesis we would be doing. My thesis deals with creating a solution to the problem of how hospitals are currently ill equipped to handled any mass influx of patients due to a biological terrorist attack. Since my thesis deals with the medical/science field Kalynn C. is my partner.

I talked with Mr. Engholm about a possible Inquiry Statement and he told me that basically I was on the right track with my I.S. (Inquiry Statement) but that I should make sure that my statement is open to change.

My Inquiry Statement:

• I am curious as to how I create the best possible solution to the problem of United States hospitals being ill equipped to handle a massive influx of patients due to a biological terrorist attack.

Tentative research questions are as follows:

• What history is there of Biological Terrorist attacks around the world?
• Are C/B (chemical/ biological) terrorist attacks even a probable threat to the United States? - This question basically asks whether or not my thesis will hold water - if you know what I mean.
• What solutions have previously been proposed about this issue, if any at all? - This would be good for me to know so that my solution wouldn't copy someone elses.
• What kinds of materials would be necessary to prepare a single hospital to handle a possible C/B attack?
• How much would my solution cost/ per hospital?
• Would it be necessary to equip every hospital to be able to handle an influx C/B attack patients?
• If not which hospitals should be equipped?
• Would the total cost be and would it be practical to equip hospitals all at once?
• Should I incorporate an implementation schedule for my solution?
• Who should I talk to about my idea to access my potential solutions practicality? - This would have to be someone involved in a hospitals administrative staff.
• How could I make my solution fiscally responsible?
• Would it be possible to get government funding for my solution, possible later on? Categorical/ Block grants given to my plan to cut down the cost for each individual hospital? - My goal here is not to shut down hospitals or to send them into bankruptcy with the introduction of my plan, which makes me think that I need to make sure that I find a PRACTICAL way to implement my solution

Well these are my questions and there are going to be more!!! I don't know if I will be able to answer all of these questions but MR.ENGHOLM IF YOU READ THIS COULD YOU PLEASE RESPOND!! Comments would be great, I need some feedback. Thanks!!

Journal 3

Journal #3

1.13.09



Now that I have narrowed my interest down to the area of biological terrorism preparedness in hospitals I have begun to formulate an Inquiry Statement, similar to the one we talked about in class. However, I felt that before I could create an adequate Inquiry Statement I needed to look at some more articles from our databases. I've found two pretty good ones that could be useful for proving that there is in fact a threat for biological terrorism. The first article talks about the Tokyo subway nerve gas attack carried out by Aum Shinrikyo. This can also serve as a background for the history of biological terrorism. I think that after today I should have a very definitive set of research questions and one really good but completely open to change Inquiry Statement.