Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Wednesday Feb 12th

From student blogger Joyce - 

Due to popular request (of one person. Hi neighbor, congrats on the perfect score), I will send in a lovely paragraph loaded with as much as sarcasm as possible. Which in this case, is only a little.

      In the article "Yellow Fever and Malaria in the Canal", the author is describing the problem of yellow fever and malaria during the Panama Canal project and the eventual solution. The author starts by informing the reader that more than 85% of canal workers in 1906 had taken a lovely excursion to the hospital due to either yellow fever, which gave them a lovely, cheery yellow complexion due to jaundice, headaches, pain, dark black vomit that complimented their skin tone, and often death as a free bonus; the other workers had gone due to malaria, and they were lucky enough to get to visit the hospital numerous times, as malaria could reoccur, making up for the low death rate. Although tens of thousands of workers fell ill, the author also states that doctors had not agreed on a set way to treat patients, and usually resorted to tender love and care. Doctor Gorgas, however, who had eradicated yellow fever in Havana by ridding the land (fine, city) of mosquitoes, felt he could do the same in Panama. Although his proposition was rejected due to the cost ($1 million) and because they believed the "miasma theory", a yellow fever scare hit the canal and long story very short, convinced everyone to adopt Gorgas' plan. As he started the genocide of the mosquitoes, yellow fever eventually disappeared and malaria dropped dramatically (to the disappointment of those who wanted the classic jaundice look and hospital experience), and workers and tourists both flocked to the isthmus.

-- 
Joyce

Mr G's post
Today we tried something new....

We took an article about the Panama Canal and applied some structured evaluation processes to summarize the articles main concepts. We used a process to determine the key elements presented and focused on how the author delivered their message.
A summary of what we did will be due tomorrow to demonstrate the outcome of the process. We will have more activities similar to today as we move through the next Unit.

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