Madelaine's Blog

My Riverside Rapid Digital Portfolio

Feb
23

By

Inquiry Post #1

Category: English Honours 9 Tags: 1 Comment

The Friday Everything Changed

Inquiry Questions:How does inequality get perpetuated? Why is stability often chosen over taking a risk? How does a fear rejection stop individuals from expressing their true selves? What motivates us in the face of despair and oppression?

Primary Source: The Friday Everything Change

Secondary Sources: Malala Marches Towards the Nobel Peace Prize

The Friday Everything Changed is a short story of the past, where society’s expectations and stereotypes are unalike to the ones we have in the twentieth century. Protagonist, Alma Niles, made ripples in her small class as she challenged a tradition of carrying a water bucket normally done by boys. In the 1900’s gender rolls were nearly set in stone, men were given the ‘important’ tasks while women were to remain at home or to tend to meaningless work. One of the girls wanted to see a change, and when the boys started to torment her for doing so, the girls united and stuck together for the first time. In our modern society we are constantly letting gender inequality perpetuate. We are aware of the discrimination that happens, yet we do nothing. We are as good as Donald Trump and the gun issues in America. Malala Yousfzai, a children education activist, went against the rules of her community and the Pakistani Taliban to fight for her right to go to school. Malala remained strong and determined, even when the Taliban shot her. In a way it’s a modern-day version of what happened in The Friday Everything Changed. Through the hardships they were forced to face, both girls persevered, and they never lost sight of what they had in mind. The world is an ever-changing place. With all our progression of modernization and the changing of our society and culture, some have been left behind. Fortunately, in first world countries such as America and Canada, the gap of inequality has lessened; Women are gaining more and more rights. Third world countries such as Pakistan still view women as less, expecting them to stay in a prison like house and mainly reproduce. Maybe we need more people like Alma Niles. Thankfully we have had those few amazing people who’ve tried to solve our problems, put in the effort to change the world for the better. Andree Geulen, Malala Yousfzai, Jade Hamiester all empowering women who have impacted the world in a positive outcome. One part of The Friday Everything Changed that I really admire Alma for, is when her cousin tries to talk her out of trying to carry the water bucket. “I’m sorry, Arnold.” she said. “but I’m used to the cold weather. In winter I walk to school the same as you.” That simple line proves that the reason we have limits is because we create them. We all perform the same task relentless of gender at one point or another. It is because we choose to set these rules and limits that gender inequality exists. If we were to all work together we can make it cease to exist.

Feb
20

By

Power of the Placebo

Category: English Honours 9 Tags: 1 Comment

What is the placebo effect? The placebo effect is essentially a fake treatment, that has no active ingredients. I’ve heard of this ‘placebo effect’ multiple times throughout my life but I never understood the true meaning or concept of this complex situation. I’ve heard it on the news, movies, TV dramas a even read about it in books. It’s quite intriguing, if we are being told positive outcomes and more pros then cons while heading into a study for example, there is higher chances of the results being a better outcome, or vice versa with negative comments. In The Power of the Placebo Effect, it describes that we tend to treat things that seem to be of higher quality, normally in higher price as well, to be better then one of lower quality. If we are simply told that we are receiving something that would help us, we are often fooled into believing it would.  I like that this article had a rich array of vocabulary, making it seem so much more sophisticated, and when giving examples of the effect it was very insightful and descriptive. They use words with depth like feasible, efficacy, beneficial and moderate, when they could’ve used more simpler words. I would say that the uses of the descriptive vocabulary and insightful examples helped the enhancement of the overall article. Us humans tend to believe things that aren’t necessarily true, we go along with what one says and don’t normally challenge it. It is an odd habit that we’ve revealed to continue throughout our entire existence, believing the world is flat or that the world is only composed of four elements. It proves that we are satisfied just being told things and not doing them ourselves to prove it’s validity. It exemplifies just how easy we can be swayed into thinking in one narrow minded way.

 

Here are the articles I read;

http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/researchers-examine-how-the-brain-reacts-to-the-placebo-effect

http://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect

http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/placebo-found-to-relieve-pain-even-when-participants-knew-the-treatment-wasnt-real

Feb
9

By

Pill Dissolving Experiment – Lab Report

Category: Science 9 Tags: 1 Comment

Our first week in Science 9 Honours and we’ve already gotten to the fun parts of science! Experiments!! Mr. Horton assigned us groups that we’d work with to see which painkiller tablet would dissolve quickest. We wanted to test 5 different painkillers we regularly use and see if it’s dissolving rate affects the time it heals our pain. We often resort to popping a Tylenol or Advil when we’ve got a headache but have we ever wondered how do they work? How does the medicine actually reach to our source of pain? What is curing us of our pain? What is causing us the pain? Which pill works best and why?

Before our lab, we had a day to prep. We did some research and came up with a rough plan of action. Digging deeper into pain relievers, my group (Claire B, April T, Nolan F) found a number of interesting facts. A number of pills enter through the blood stream, not quite focusing on a specific area of pain. It spreads throughout your entire body and latching on to an enzyme that creates a molecule, prostaglandin (it develops pain through inflammation), and blocks it from making that molecule. With all the molecules being blocked, the body is now more at ease, the pain is subsiding. Advil is actually made up of ibuprofen, which is a drug that is recognized as a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug(NSAID) class. Other drugs that are similar are aspirin (which is also known as a acetylsalicylic acid) and naproxen (a propionic acid), they all have similar properties and belong to the same drug class which reduce fever, stiffness and even menstrual cramps.  Naproxen is found in Aleve, Ibuprofen in Motrin IB along with Advil, and Aspirin is mainly in 3 different brands, Bayer, Excedrin and Bufferin.

They make one of the two major NSAID’s groups, the other is Tylenol. These two groups are the ones most commonly sold over the counters, they are used to alleviate mild pains opposed to morphine which relieves more severe pain. Tylenol is created with acetaminophen aka paracetomal. It is it’s entire other major group alone, funny right? The reason for that is unlike Ibuprofen, acetaminophen does not treat inflammation. Looking more, not too much is known on Tylenol or how it works. Paracetomal drugs include Tylenol, Panadol and Calpol. There is really not too much of a difference between ibuprofen and paracetomal, one treats inflammation and the other does not, and paracetomal supposedly causes less stomach discomfort. To sum it up, majority of the drugs listed above enter through our blood stream, latches on and prevents prostaglandin (pain molecule) from producing, is metabolized through our liver and promptly relieves our pain.

Taking Ibuprofen by mouth takes about 20-30 minutes before it starts to work, Aspirin 20 minutes, Tylenol on an empty stomach 15-20 minutes while on a full stomach 30-60 minutes. Must be the stomach acid content that affects the time. Pretty interesting stuff!

On to the actual lab part! Our original plan was to have 5 beakers each holding about 30ml of vinegar, 40ml water , 5ml milk and about 5ml of mushed apple. The next day we realized that we had changed to many variables so our lab would be inconclusive. We wanted a stomach like environment which is why we had brainstormed the plan before, now that we had reduced it we still wanted the same goal. Our stomach has acid in it, its what breaks down our food. On top of our change of fluid, we were surprised with the size of the vessel we’d be conducting the experiment in. We assumed it would be a 100ml+ beaker, instead we had a rough 20ml test tube. We had to reduce our size and ratios! At the end we ended up putting 12ml of water and 5ml of vinegar. Mr. Horton had purchased five different pain relievers. Advil liqui gel, Aspirin(Bayer), Tylenol, Motrin and Life Brand.

From top to bottom:
Life brand, Advil Liqui Gel, Tylenol, Motrin, Aspirin.

We placed the test tubes that were filled with our mix into a beaker which was atop a heat pad. There we heated the liquids up to about a 40°C, quickly moving them to a test tube rack. We hoped that by the time we were ready to drop the pills in the temperature would stay around 37°C. Our stomach is about that temperature. Next we dropped the pills in, set up a 35 minute timer and a time lapse video. Here’s the video!

Here are some of the notes from the lab 🙂

Partners: Claire B, Nolan F, April T

Purpose: To see which pill dissolves the fastest, seeing which reacts in the least amount of time to aid our headaches.

Prediction: I think Aspirin will dissolve first.

Hypothesis: If we create a stomach like environment, then the aspirin will dissolve first.

Materials: 1 beaker, 5 test tubes, 3 graduated cylinders, 2 eye droppers, 1 heat pad, 1 test tube tray.

Procedure:

  1. We put 12ml of water into a test tube plus 5ml of vinegar.
  2. Then we stirred it briefly, before placing it into a beaker which was on a heating pad. We brought it up to about 40 degrees Celsius.
  3. Next, we placed it into a wooden test tube tray/rack, where the bottom of the tube was exposed, and dropped the pills in at the same time.
  4. We set our timer for 35 minutes, started a time lapse video and closely observed the pills.
  5. We kept track of our observations periodically.
  6. Unfortunately we had to stop the experiment after 15 minutes, 10 minutes remaining.

Observations:

31 minutes > Tylenol looks like white fuzz

  • Advil looks same, looks like expanding the letters peeled off
  • Asprin looks like a small gathered fuzz at bottom of test tube
  • Motrin A flattening pancake…starting to get fuzzy
  • Life Brand…exploding like the capsule broke open ‘fluff’ is coming out

 

26 minutes > Advil still looks the same

  • Tylenol still like a thick layer of fuzz
  • Asprin like a small amount of fuzz
  • Motrin looks like its rising pancake, still sorta fuzzy
  • Life Brand capsule breaking apart almost as if exploding from the inside out.

 

24 minutes > Advil looks like the top is evaporating? Turning invisible…the gel layer getting thinner.

 

20 minutes > Tylenol Fuzz expanding

  • There’s now a line split down the advil, it’s white on the edges
  • Aspirin still the same
  • Motrin deflated and now fuzz is like rising upwards
  • Life brand still the same, a pile of grossness with a miz of red and white fuzz everywhere in the bottom

 

15 minutes > Tylenol Still same amount of fuzz

  • Advil looks like a bean…top is narrower the bottom is fat
  • Asprin looks like weak amount of snow
  • Motrin looks like it’s climbing the sides of the test tube
  • Life Pill looks like blood in snow
  • They all got little bubbles in the test tube…Tylenol has the most bubbles

 

 

In the end, after spending 25 minutes, we had to stop the experiment 10 minutes early, submerged in our vinegar water concoction, the pills were pretty much dissolved. Our lab supported our hypothesis, the Aspirin dissolved the fastest. I was quite surprised that even after the Tylenol, Aspirin, Motrin & Life brand has turn to life a fluffy white powder in the tube, Advil liquid gel remained in its pill shaped form. At the beginning of this lab Mr. Horton had said that his son said that the Advil liquid gel worked best out of all the pills for him. We were shocked to see that the Advil barely even changed, the closest thing to exploding it did was balloon at the bottom and have a tiny slit down the middle with a white fluid slowly dripping out. At the end of the whole experiment I thought it was a enjoyable lab! It really did open many doors to learning more about pharmaceutical drugs and how they work. Our experiment was a one time go, if we repeated it a few more times our results would have a more accurate and clear answer. This is definitely one of the neat intriguing things that drew me to science!

 

 

Bibliography

“What Is the Difference between Paracetamol and Ibuprofen? | Acetaminophen.” Sharecare, www.sharecare.com/health/acetaminophen/difference-between-paracetamol-and-ibuprofen.      

“OTC Pain Relief: Understanding NSAIDs.” WebMD, WebMD, www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/pain-relievers-nsaids#1.      

“Acetaminophen: Uses, Dosage & Side Effects.” Drugs.com, Drugs.com, 12 July 2017, www.drugs.com/acetaminophen.html.

“Here’s How Common Pain Relievers Actually Work in Your Body and Brain.” Business Insider, Business Insider, nordic.businessinsider.com/how-pain-relievers-tylenol-ibuprofen-work-2016-10/.      

based., Independent. Not-for-profit. Evidence. “Treating My Child’s Pain or Fever – Paracetamol or Ibuprofen?” NPS MedicineWise, www.nps.org.au/medical-info/consumer-info/treating-my-child-s-pain-or-fever-paracetamol-or-ibuprofen?c=what-is-the-difference-between-paracetamol-and-ibuprofen-for-treating-my-child-s-pain-or-fever-40e2977c.      

NHS Choices, NHS, beta.nhs.uk/medicines/ibuprofen-for-adults.      

 

Feb
7

By

Community Connection

Category: PE 9 Tags: 1 Comment

Interviewee – Dr. Harminder Antal

Here is a picture of her business card! Sorry the quality sucks!

 

Works at Coquitlam Centre Eye care

MW: Why are you passionate about your job?

HA: I’m passionate about it because I feel like vision is big in life, there’s more to optometry than just glasses! There’s the health of the eye, eyesight in general, it’s huge in our lives and it’s something very important to us.

MW: What obstacles have you faced to get where you are today?

HA: Rigorous training. Getting through school, just the interviews getting in to a good university is a challenge. The work for school is very intense and you have to be very focused.

MW: What made you interested in this career?

HA: I shadowed a lady doctor and she said as a woman it was an illustrious career. I saw that other opticians thoroughly enjoyed the job. In India I saw someone on the street with an eye problem and my brother in law, who is also an optometrist, was saying how if this was in a country like Canada we could’ve helped. I was inspired by those two doctors, they made me realize just how important this profession was.

MW: What advice would you pass on to someone who is interested you are doing?

HA: Shadow somebody, make sure it’s for you. It’s a distinguished career. People think it’s just glasses but it’s not, there’s the health aspect, you may have an emergent care and can have surprises, you have to be prepared!! Don’t underestimate what optometry provides in your life.

MW: Would you be open to further contact from Riverside students?

HA: Sure! This is my email hkaurantal@gmail.com

MW: Are there any negatives to your job?

HA: For patients, it’s not always covered by the government. For myself, I think vision care is so huge, so I tend to find more personal connections, at the end you really hope the patients vision is going to be fine.

MW: Describe a difficult experience you’ve gone through in this career field…

HA: When you know a patient needs the extra care from a specialist, but they refuse it anyways.

MW: Would you say it took teamwork to get you where you are today?

HA: Yeah! Even in aviation, before I was in optometry I studied aviation, you had to work as a team. You have to look at the bigger picture all while carefully paying attention to intricate details as well.

MW: Thank you so much Dr. Antal!

HA: No problem.

End of Interview.

Who did you interview?

For my community connection I interviewed Dr. Harminder Antal, she is an optometrist associate of Coquitlam Centre Eye Care. She works alongside two other opticians in this small yet successful clinic in Coquitlam Centre Mall. Her role in the clinic is enormous, she has to check every patient’s general eye health, their prescription and rule out any possible eye diseases they may have. Dr. Antal has to be very thorough with her work, definitely going back and double checking, making sure her information on the charts are correct. If the doctor notices there is something there they suspect, they also refer patients to eye specialists for extra care they may need. Overall they encourage people to get their eyes checked regularly to make sure that everything is in tack!

Why did you choose to interview this individual?

After high school I plan on going to university or college and study to become a doctor. Not quite sure which field yet, got to keep your options open! I chose to interview Dr. Antal because she is an amazing role model, inspiring woman, a great family friend and a even better person to work alongside. I work as a receptionist at Coquitlam Centre Eye Care so I get to know Dr. Antal personally and professionally. She is definitely someone I look up to 🙂

What did you learn from the interview and how did it connect to your interests?

I learned so much about optometry through this interview. You get to dig deep and get this quick crash course on the inside of a doctor’s job. I learned the hardships you go through to become a doctor, the whole deal of the job and what you might experience. I got to learn the depth of optometry and how important your vision is. It was a pretty cool experience, you get to be inspired by their experiences and you get an insight on their perspective of why they do their job.

                         

 

Skip to toolbar