Wonder Project Blog Post #1

My Question: Why are some allergies more common than others?

Why my question Is meaningful to me:

I personally have many allergies myself and I grew up never having a clear answer of why I had all these rare allergies. I have the EpiPen and I have the medications to take for my reactions, but I found it a bit unfair how I couldn’t eat the foods that I wanted to eat which always made me always a bit frustrated while I saw everyone else right in front of me enjoying the goodness of fruit. I wasn’t born with all these different types allergies, but really it was out of the blue when I bit into my favorite fruit and suddenly came the swelling and the itchiness all around my face. What started small ended up getting to how severe it got today and ive always had flooding questions of the whys and what ifs. I connect to this question personally with a lot of interest and curiosity and its always been something ive wanted an answer for.

Why my question is meaningful to others:

I feel that many people can have a way of connecting to this question, whether its to yourself or through others, everyone knows someone with one or more allergies. Some allergies might be common but others may be rare, either way its very interesting to see how someone can have all these different kinds ad types of reactions to food, nature, animals and more. This question can also be meaningful to others if they’re going through something more personal as well, having a personal connection with this question can make it that much more important and interesting for a person to get into it, which I know that many can relate to.

My sub-questions:

• Can our allergies be caused or get more severe from what we do and put into our foods?
• What exactly is an allergie?
• Are there ways to cure or get rid of some allergies?
• Are there ways to prevent certain allergies?
• Why and where are allergies increasing?
• Does our community or where we live have anything to do with our allergies?

My Creative Commons picture:

Herrin Publishing Partners. “The Science of Latex Allergy.” The Science of Latex Allergy > Outpatient Surgery Magazine > March, 2002, outpatientsurgery.net/issues/2002/03/the-science-of-latex-allergy.

 

My Creative Commons Video:

 

 

Noggin, Life. “What Do Allergies Do To Your Insides?” YouTube, YouTube, 24 Aug. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4fv8UE13xQ.

 

3 quality sources I found:

a) Sinatra, Stephen. “Food Allergies So Common Now -Why?” Heart MD Institute – Dr. Stephen Sinatra’s Informational Site, Heart MD Institute – Dr. Stephen Sinatra’s Informational Site, 14 Aug. 2018, heartmdinstitute.com/health-and-wellness/food-allergies-so-common-why/.

Summery of information:

Few ways that you can prevent food allergies; follow a mostly organic and anti-inflammatory diet; if you have young ones talk to your pediatrician about early exposure to foods: and try to always stay as clean as possible. We all know following a healthy diet is always good but for allergies having a healthy immune system is extra important even though having allergies doesn’t necessarily mean your body is weaker than everybody else’s. I found that kids at a young age has a bigger chance of getting rid of their allergies as they grow because their bodys hasn’t been fully developed yet, they say to work with your child’s doctor to introduce foods such as peanut butter, eggs, and dairy at an appropriate time but definitely far earlier than age 2 or 3 to help reduce the chances of getting allergies or more severe allergies. Keeping clean doesn’t mean you have to be OCD, but it does mean you should be more aware and cautious in your everyday life because you never know what the human eye cant see. Germs getting into our system probably wont give you anything to serious but may cause a weaker immune system which is the last thing anyone with allergies want. Again all of these things are not 100% accurate but its still probably something to consider to help you to be just a little bit more healthier.

How this information will help and answer my big question or one of my Sub-questions:

This information has helped me answer one of my sub questions  “are there ways to prevent certain allergies?” the information I received gave a good understanding of some small things you can do to prevent allergies for the future.

b) Levine, Jennifer. “What Are Food Allergies, and Why Are They Becoming More Common?” Home, crosstalk.cell.com/blog/what-are-food-allergies-and-why-are-they-becoming-more-common.

Summery of information:

To understand what allergies are, allergies are basically a chronic disease but that’s not how its commonly known or called. A persons body with allergies react to certain things differently than other people without any allergies because the body/immune system of someone who has allergies will think that a substance or allergen is dangerous or harmful so the body tends to overreact to the substance (allergen). when the allergic reaction kicks in, the immune system of the person who has the allergic reaction creates an antibody called immunoglobulin E (which responds with an allergic reaction) by trying to help things out by trying its very best to destroy what it has mistakenly thought as a pathogen. People can guess what comes next, the different kinds of reactions, that can depend on what you’re reacting to or how severe it is as well.

How this information will help and answer my big question or one of my Sub-questions:

This information has helped me answer one of my sub questions “what exactly are allergies?” by explaining how allergies work using very detailed information.

c) “Can Allergies Be Cured?” WebMD, WebMD, www.webmd.com/allergies/can-allergies-be-cured.

Summery of information:

So far there has been no cure for any allergies yet, but as many people may already know there are medications you can take to treat and control your reactions and symptoms. There are also some alternatives to treat your allergies, by getting shots, drops ad of course oral tablets or the same medicine but in liquid form. All of these can help with significantly reducing your level of sensitivity to your different kinds of allergy triggers and can also help to reduce your allergic response  you might be getting. Of course, all of these different things you can try might not be from everyone and there’s always a chance that it may not even work or help for some people but its always something you can try out to see if it’s affective on you or not.

How this information will help and answer my big question or one of my Sub-questions:

This information has helped me answer one of my sub questions “can allergies be cured?” It has helped because not only did the site that I found give a clear answer, but they also gave extra information leading on from their answer with many examples.

My research that still needs to be done:

I still need to go even more deeper in with my sub-questions for me to get closer to my wonder question.

Is there a community expert that could be helpful?:
No, I could not find any community expert in my community that could’ve helped with my question. My allergie specialist was unavailable to  help me with these questions for they are usually very busy with booked appointments.

Can a scientific investigation/experiment help you determine your answers?:

I know there’s not a clear answer out there yet, but I do know that scientists are finding the answer to why some allergies are more common than others and a cure for allergies as well. doing more further research and experiments will take us a step closer into getting our wanted answer just like how scientists are looking for a cure for cancer.

 

Mr. Robinson’s information fluency questions

 

a) What questions did you need to research in order to research your question?:

I had my 6 sub-questions in order to research my wonder question:

1. Can our allergies be caused or get more severe from what we do and put into our foods?
2. What exactly is an allergie?
3. Are there ways to cure or get rid of some allergies?
4. Are there ways to prevent certain allergies?
5. Why and where are allergies increasing?
6. Does our community or where we live have anything to do with our allergies?

 

b) What new or familiar digital tools did you try to use as you worked through this project?:

I used new citation websites out online from Ms Durand’s recommendations even though ive been using EasyBib for awhile now. I’m not quite sure i like i better yet but I definitely am always open into trying new things and maybe when i get used to using citation machine or if i get used to it, i can continue to use this website to for my bibliography.

 

c) What was the process you used to investigate the topic?:

The very first thing me and my class did is we brain stormed about 10 different sub-questions, I made sure all the questions i was writing down was interesting to me and hopefully to others so I asked few other students in the class if my questions were deep enough. Then our class learned how to make a deep question step by step for when we would pick our 2 questions we had the most interest in. Then I picked my 2 questions and did question refining. After that, I looked at my 2 questions and decided to go for the question that i have more of a personal connection to. After I picked out my question, Ms Durand gave all of us an idea organizer (for our blogpost #1) to help me be more visually organized and to make it easier for me for when it was time that I wrote my edublog post. I came up 6 sub-questions to do my further research about. After we had our days to be sure of a question I discussed it over to a teacher about her opinion on the question that i came up with, i changed a couple of my sub-questions to make them so that i got to my main wonder question faster with more detail. I continued to search for more sites to get the best one and eventually had the amount information that i wanted to build my edublog post. That was the process that I went through.

 

d) How did you verify and cite the information you found?:

I used new citation website out online from Ms Durand’s recommendations even though ive been using EasyBib for awhile now. Its called citation machine and if i get used to it, i can continue to use this website to for my bibliography.

 

e) How did the process of completing this challenge go? What could you have done better?:

If I’m being honest the process of completing this blogpost was harder than i thought, but surprisingly also pretty fun. Trying to find the best good quality new resources was also difficult, but I ended up finding really good resources. I was able to answer some of the sub-questions asked in the edublog part of the project. Something I could have done better is probably going more in deep into my research with more details.