November 2019 – Kenya’s Blog

Power Solution Fluencies

Kenya on November 15, 2019

Power Solution Fluency

Kenya and Kiera

Define: We were asked to come up with and solve a problem regarding technology and power.

Discover:

Problem: How can we improve technology so that it is more environmentally friendly?

Guiding Questions:

How does technology negatively impact our environment?

Technology negatively affects our environment by causing heat, water, air, or even noise pollution when it is being used or created. Many resources, such as metals, are also being spent in creating technology and the toxic materials that are used in technology can cause cancer. Being addicted to technology could also result in additional health problems. Also, when old and used electronics such as phones and laptops break and are thrown out, they are usually not disposed of properly and the toxic materials in them make them a hazard to the environment.

2. How have people tried to solve these problems in the past?

A common problem with technology is the waste that it produces. When electronics get old or people replace them, people tend to just throw technology away which is a problem because it cannot be recycled, and it does not dissolve or compost easily. A solution to this is to sell old devices. This can benefit you because you may be able to profit from selling this item. This benefits others because some people may be in need of a new device and if a shiny new phone is not that important, you can just sell yours to them and that will reduce the amount of new technology needing to be made and the amount of technological waste. Another solution to this is that you can try to maintain it and use it for other purposes. If you can maintain your electronics for as long as possible then it can reduce current waste. If you must get rid of it, research how to dispose of it properly. There are many ways to recycle your electronics. This can allow the expensive parts inside of it to be reused and that saves time and money and now people won’t have a need to make more because they can simply reuse it. Another problem that these solve is that it costs lots of money to make these electronics and it takes lots of precious metals and some toxic materials.

3. How do problems in the past compare to current issues with technology?

Now there are less jobs available because certain roles have been replaced by machines and AIs. Another problem that has escalated a lot during the past few years is technology addiction. This has caused issues with learning abilities, reducing attention span, and has become a very common distraction. There is also the problem with cyberbullying and social media. In the past, bullying was not as common because once you were at home, people couldn’t really contact you and bully you. Now, people can message you and contact you at any time and it has led to multiple problems such as mental health issues and in extreme cases, death.

Dream:

-A current solution is scheduled screen time. Some parents use this with their children so they can control how much time a child spends on their device and can still have time to be social and get exercise.

-If possible, it would be more environmentally friendly to walk or take public transit rather than driving because driving costs a lot of money and car gasses cause air pollution. Walking more often can also lead to a more active lifestyle and counts as a source of exercise.

-Instead of throwing away your device, donate it or sell it online so that it can be reused. If it must be disposed, do so properly by bringing it to a recycling center nearby.

-Leave your phone in a big or in a locker at school/work to reduce distractions and encourage real social interactions with other people. This also can help because your device radiates toxic energy and having it away sometimes can be healthy for you and reduce the risk of cancer, etc.

Deliver: Our biggest solution to make our use of technology more environmentally friendly is to reduce, reuse and recycle. First off, if we reduce our use of technology then us as humans can be healthier and more social. If we reuse technology rather than just throwing it away, it can reduce the amount of factory use to make more technology. Reusing technology and reusing the expensive parts inside of it can be great for saving money. Consumers will be spending less money on technology and factories will be spending less money on making new devices and parts. ‘

Debrief: First off, to solve our problem, we had to come up with a question involving electricity. Then, after coming up with our question, we asked ourselves some questions such as how technology affected our environment negatively, how have people tried to solve these problems in the past, and how do these problems in the past compare to current issues? After researching questions, we began brainstorming solutions for the problem and presented our final solution. Some things we did well is that we came up with sub questions to guide our research and we were able to brainstorm solutions without assistance. However, some things we could improve on is we could’ve probably gotten a lot more research in if we had more class time and we could have been able to look at more aspects of technology. We just wish we had another block of class time.

Bibliography:

Author, Guest. “How to Reduce Electronic Waste and Its Hazards to the Environment.” Get Green Now, 20 Apr. 2019, <https://get-green-now.com/reduce-ewaste-hazards/>

“Free Bibliography & Citation Maker – MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard.” BibMe, <http://www.bibme.org/>

“Green Computing – Environmental Issues – The Carnegie Cyber Academy.” Green Computing – Environmental Issues – The Carnegie Cyber Academy – An Online Safety Site and Games for Kids, <http://www.carnegiecyberacademy.com/facultyPages/environment/issues.html>

The Dangers of Technological Development, <https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/technology-dangers/issues.html>

TOKTW2019

Kenya on November 9, 2019

TOKTWD Reflection:

Name of your host: Sonja Anand

Relationship to you: Mother

Job Title: (there are two but I’m choosing to only write about one) Legal Transcriptionist.

Job Description: Typing of legal audio files.

Duties/tasks performed at job: Typing of legal audio files.

Training: On the job training.

Education: Not relevant/specific to job.

Experience: None needed.

Skills/attributes: Attention to detail, grammar, spelling, typing, editing, listening, detail oriented, extreme focus.

Things you like about this job: Flexible hours and work load

Things you dislike about this job: Antisocial and stationary. Not very physical. Also extreme focus is absolutely needed.

How do you anticipate this job changing in the next 5 years or so: Does not expect any change other than working for different suppliers.

Three reasons why I like this job:

I was able to keep up
Very flexible hours/times
Working from home

Three reasons why I dislike this job:

I dislike typing a lot.
Sitting in the same place for hours at a time.
It gets boring if the case isnt interesting.

Is this job for me? Why or why not: No, I don’t think so. Though I am not bad at it, I don’t think this is the job for me because I find it a bit boring after a while. I also don’t like sitting in the same place for that long and even my neck was sore after only 45 minutes of working. Lastly, I’m not the greatest typer though that can be improved.

Explain the value of the TOKTW experience in relation to your ideas about post secondary (after highschool) plans (education?, training?, travel?, work?): It shows that I don’t want to work in an environment where I have to stay in the same place for hours on end. I want to move around a little bit throughout my day and talk to people, even only a little bit. It also shows that I would love a job with flexible hours and days off because I would love to travel when I am older and I will need a somewhat flexible job for that. Though, it didn’t really tell me about what job I may be interested in. Sure, I had some ideas before, but this experience didn’t really change anything for me. It only showed me some of the qualities that I would like

Picture of Workplace: (works at home)

Image preview

Everything I Know About Exponents

Kenya on November 8, 2019November 15, 2019

1. Represent repeated multiplication with exponents

When an expression is written in repeated multipcation, it is much easier to take the amount of factors of the base is turned into the exponent. This doesn’t work with 0 though which has a different outcome which is explained in a different question.

Examples: 6x6x6x6= $6^4$ and 3x3x3= $3^3$ .

3. Demonstrate the difference between the exponent and the base by building models of a given power, such as $2^3$ and $3^2$ .

The difference between the base and the exponent is that the base is the original number, while the exponent which is either written in a superscript next to the base and is how many factors of the base in which will be multiplied together.

$6^7$ , the base is 6, the exponent is 7. It can also be written as 6 to the exponent of 7. That would mean 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 x 6 x 6. The whole thing of $6^7$ /6 to the exponent of 7 is known as the power. Though, $7^6$ is different 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7.

5. Evaluate powers with integral bases (excluding base 0) and whole number exponents.

When dealing with bases, you will notice bases that are positive and negative. First of all, positive bases go as showed before where you simply multiply the base as many times as the value of the exponent (ex. $6^2$ = 6×6 because the exponent is 2 and you are multiplying two 6’s together. Though, when dealing with negative bases, the answer and whether it is positive or negative depends on if the exponent is even or odd. If you have a negative base and the exponent is even, the negatives will cancel each other out, but if the exponents are odd, then the answer will be negative. (ex. $(-5)^4$ will be 625 while $(-4)^3$ will be -64). There are some interesting situations where you will see a negative power with no brackets around the base( $-6^3$ ) and the outcome to that will always be negative because the negative sign in this expression would be a coefficient because the exponent is inside the brackets. So if you were to write $-6^3$ as a repeated multipication, it would be written as -1 x 6 x 6 x 6.

7. Explain the exponent laws for multiplying and dividing powers with the same base.

When multiplying powers with the same base, you keep the base the same, add the exponents, and if there are coefficients, multiply them.

$2^2$ x $2^4$ = $2^6$ and 3 $(3)^4$ x 2 $(3)^2$ = 6 $(3)^6$

When dividing powers with the same base, you keep the base the same, subtract the exponents, and if there are coefficients, divide them.

$4^7$ $\div$ / $4^5$ = $4^2$ and 6 $(3)^3$ $\div$ 3 $(3)^4$ = 2 $(3)^-1$ = $\frac{2}{3}$ .

9. Explain the law for powers with an exponent of zero.

Anything to the exponent of zero is equal to 1. This is because following the pattern that bases are just multiplied by themselves, they can also be divided by their base to find the number therefore if $2^2$ =4 and 4 $\div$ 2 = 2 and $2^1$ is 2, then $2^0$ must be 1 because $2^1$ = 2 and $\frac{2}{2}$ = 1.

$3^0$ = 1 and $35783297628762967589237^0$ = 1.

11. Explain the law for powers with negative exponents.

When dealing with negative exponents, you have to find the answer as if the exponent was positive and reciprocal it. Don’t just put a one over it because if you are dealing with fractions then you

Image result for exponents

will end up with a complex fraction and an incorrect answer.

$3^-2$ = $\frac{1}{9}$ and $x^-y$ = $\frac{1}{x^y}$ and 2/ $3^-6$ = 2 x $3^6$ .

13. I can apply the exponent laws to powers with both integral and variable bases.

Product Law: When multiplying powers of the same base, you keep the base and add the exponents. If there are coefficients, multiply them. For example, 5 ( $3^2$ ) x 4 ( $3^3$ ) = 20 ( $3^5$ ) = 20 x 243 = 4860 and x $y^a$ *b $y^c$ =xb $y^a$ +c.

Power Law: If there is an equation with one base and two exponents, then the expression is solved differently than regular multiplication. Instead of adding the exponents, you multiply them. For example, ( $5^4$ ) $^3$ = $5^12$ , and ( $x^y$ ) $^z$ = $x^y$ z.

Quotient Law: When dividing powers of the same base, you keep the base and subtract the exponents. If there are coefficients, divide them. For example, 6 $2^3$ $\div$ 2 $2^4$ = 3 $2^-1$ = 3 $\frac{1}{2}$ . and y $x^c$ * b $x^a$ =yb $x^a+c$ .

Negative Exponent Law: You need to reciprocal the answer of the power if the exponent positive. For example, $3^-4$ = $\frac{1}{3^4}$ and $x^-y$ = $\frac{1}{x^y}$ . Also, $\frac{2}{3}^-4$ = $\frac{ 3^4}{2}$ and $\frac{n}{m}^-r$ = $\frac{m^r}{n}$ .

Power of 0 Law: Anything to the exponent of 0 = 1. $3647344327560274363454687067^0=1$ and $x^0$ =1. Also, x cannot equal 0, and $0^0$ does not equal 1.

15. Use the order of operations on expressions with powers.

Remember that you must do brackets first, then exponents. But, if there are exponents inside the bracket, then do the exponents there.

(2 x $3^2$ + 8) / 13

(2 x 9 + 8) / 13

(18 + 8) / 13

26 / 13

= 2

17. Identify the error in applying the order of operations in an incorrect solution.

If you mistake yourself and multiply/divide before applying the power, you will end up with the wrong answer.

(incorrect)

2 $(4)^5$

$8^5$

32768

(correct)

2 $(4)^5$

2(1024)

2048

As you can see, there is a major difference between the two answers.

19. Use powers to solve problems (growth problems)

When doing growth problems, powers are used when showing how much something grew. The amount that you started with would be the coefficient and the base would be how much it grows by per said growing period and the exponent is what changes when the amount of time changes.

A colony of bacteria doubles every hour. There are 50 to begin with. How much will be there after 1 hour? 3 hours? 8 hours? Keep in mind it does not have to be hours. It could be seconds, minutes or even days, months, years, decades, centuries, etc.

So far, you have a consistent amount and how much it goes up by per hour, which is the coefficient and base. It is written like this: 50 x $2^n$ . n=how many hours it has been. So, to find how much there will be in one hour, you would write 50 x $2^1$ . $2^1$ = 2 and 50 x 2 = 100. To find how much there will be in 3 hours, you would write 50 x 2^3. 2^3=8 and 50 x 8= 400. Lastly, to find how much there will be in 8 hours, you would write 50 x $2^8$ . $2^8$ =256 and 50 x 256 = 12800.