Thursday, February 11, 2016

Film Observation and Homework sharing, from Mike Lohre



Good afternoon, students, and before we go forward in class today, I want to stop and share our observations and homework.



Using the Comments feature of this post, share two things in your Comment,and this way all the Comments for the while class will be easily found here under my post.  Write about:  

1)  What two visuals or images stood out to you most in the first 15 minutes of GMO OMG? In film, images are obviously a vital part of the presentation, and what is allowed in the final film is going to be there for a reason.  What struck you as noticeable, effective, manipulative, pleasing, etc.?  Share two visual observations from your active listening notes.

2)  Whatever your research turned up, let's not cement our mindsets just yet on whether GMOS are perfectly okay or totally terrible.  But let's start to compile information to lead us toward taking an informed stand on GMOs.  Share one of the most interesting research facts or ideas that you discovered in your research, and also try to describe the sources credibility and/or possible bias.


13 comments:

  1. 1) The first visual that stood out to me was the little girl playing. Shortly after the little girl playing, it panned into a visual of a beautiful little stream with clear sparkling water, animals and nature all around it. It is a clear manipulative measure to try and entice people to become more aware of the affect GMOs can have on our environment and future, especially the future of our children. Bringing children into an argument can be a decisive manipulative factor when trying to get someone to change their way of thinking.

    2)One of the most interesting facts I learned when researching GMOs is that in the U.S., GMOs are in as much as 80% of all conventional processed foods. The source I acquired this information from is http://www.nongmoproject.org/learn-more/ . They are a non-profit organization formed to "preserve and build sources of non-GMO products, educate consumers, and provide verified non-GMO choices." (Nongmoproject) which might give them a possible bias against GMOs.

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  2. The things that stood out for me first were the tree and the little girl. I think that starting the documentary like that made me more interested. I guess its not something you expect to see. It showed that the movie was going to focus on nature and humans.

    I got my information from LiveScience.org. I found out out that 90% of soy, cotton , canola , corn , and sugar beets have been genetically engineered. I did not get a bias feeling from reading this.

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  3. 1) Definitely the opening images of nature itself caught my eye. They were very calm and caused a sense of peacefulness. Another image would then be the pictures and videos of his children. I think both of these images connect with the emotions of whoever is watching. Anything that would destroy the environment or harm children is a big eye catcher for all people watching.
    2) My most interesting fact was that only three states had passed mandatory laws for labeling GMOs; Vermont, Connecticut and Maine. There are at least fifteen other states that are considering similar regulations. I got this information from "www.livescience.com" where they seemed very neutral on the topic of GMOs.

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  4. 1.) In the first 15 minutes of GMO OMG, the visuals that really stood out for was the representation of life. This was shown through the film makers children and the little facts that he gave about them. It was also shown through the "freshness" of the plants that he chose to show. He didn't show wilted plants or failed crops, he chose to show lively plants like the big tree or the many plants and vegetables. He gave us an idea of what plants, nature and life should be untouched by the man made world around it. Just like children, who's minds are innocent to the world around them, he compares that to what plants should be like as well. The images and visuals that he chose to show were positive, even though the content is unsettling and serious, he proves that there is an importance to a positive revolution.
    2.) One of the most interesting things that I found out about GMOs is how damaging it is to almost every organ of animals. So GMOs are not only affecting the plant world but also the animals that ingest the affected plants as well. If we are ruining both worlds of nature, where will this put is in the future? The source that I used for this information was fairly neutral so I didn't detect an apparent bias expect for stating the information. (responsibletechnology.com/gmoeducation) One place that I found bias in was the websites extremely for the use of GMOs, for me personally their reasoning seemed in-genuine, or supported by outside sources. They almost completely deny what other websites were saying, and that makes me mistrusting.

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  5. 1. One image that stood out to me was in the opening scene that included images of nature. I liked this because I think that it helped to set up what the video was all about, which was natural food sources, rather than genetically modified food. Another image that stood out to me was when the people in Haiti were tearing up the plants that had been given to them.
    2. An interesting fact I learned from my research is that there have been studies done on animals that suggest that GMOs cause organ damage, immune system disorders, and accelerated aging. My article is definitely biased against GMOs, because it is titled "10 Reasons to Avoid GMOs."

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  6. 1) Some visuals that stood out for me was the health of children as the pretense for the documentary. Also the scene which had a slew of chemicals and compounds slapped onto the screen, representing the ignorance that many people, including myself, have in this subject and why the director was after answers.

    2) A person that had recently discussed gmo's was Bill Nye (the science guy), and he had some questions about this area as well. I researched that he had a talk with the CEO of Monsanto and decided to change his mind on the health risks of gmo's. i also watched a Youtube video done by SciShow, that had re-uploaded a video correcting themselves on a false study linking gmo to cancer. SciShow explained that genetically modified organism is a misnomer, humans have been modifying their food for generations through selective breeding, the scare for people is genetically engineered organism, where the genome of a species is altered. The narrator of the video described that the problem with gmo is not necessarily the research or health concerns, but the economic issues it entails with patenting foods.

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  7. The two visuals that stood out to me was the burning of the seeds because they looked at the seeds as seeds of death and how the plants they planted came up red so they wouldn't eat it because they wanted something that was natural for the earth.

    One of the most interesting things i found during my research was that over 80% of all GMOs grown worldwide are engineered for herbicide tolerance but they don't know the long-term impacts of GMOs. The source that I found my information was biased against it.

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  8. One visual that stood out to me big time was the people in Haiti protesting the GMO seeds even when they needed food the most. It was a really strong image to me because here are these people in dire circumstances who felt so strongly against GMO products that most of them would not accept them even if it meant having the food they so badly needed.

    Another Image that struck me was that of the dead, wilted, and discolored plants that grew from the GMO seeds that WERE accepted by some of the Haitian people. This was emotional to me, as they needed the food so badly and they took the time to grow these plants and they spent the little money they had, only for the product to be something they could not even put into their bodies.

    One fact that I found interesting was that GMOs are in sooo many things. Cotton, Canola, Corn, and Zucchini are all commercialized GMO products. The source from which I got this information seems credible and fairly neutral.

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  9. One visual that stood out to me during the first fifteen minutes of watching the documentary was when he showed people protesting, in Haiti, about the modified seeds that were being sent to the farmers to start using. They believed the seeds were bad and not good for them to be eating. A second image that stuck out to me was near the beginning of the video when Jeremy Seifert was with his son looking at all the different seeds he had collected. It showed me how interested he was in the matter of genetically modified seeds.
    The source that I got information from was The Battelle Insider from Battelle The Business of Inovation website. They did seem to lean towards pro GMO, but the information given on the sight was put for by a biotechnology expert Dr. Josh Arnold, Ph.D. and Battelle's Vice President of Agribusiness David Nothmann. One thing that is discussed in the article is that GM food products must be tested before they are sold and that the testing process can take 7-10 years. They must also include the potential risks to humans, livestock, wildlife, and the environment from their testing.

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  10. The main visual that struck me during the first 15 minutes of the film was the short scene where the Narrator and his family were eating breakfast. The camera focused on the food that they were eating, and made a specific point to show his baby eating the food as well. This scene does a good job of making people feel the possible dangers that GMO's could cause, especially to the very young who do not yet have a developed immune system.
    The second visual that struck me were the multiple visuals of food being injected with a syringe, as well as the scene where the author explains what GMO's are. In the visual where the food is injected, a dark cloud immediately appears behind it, which I believe is manipulative, because it casts GMO's in a negative light without much explanation. Also, when the Narrator is listing the process that GMO's go through, he intentionally makes the audio and visuals sound confusing. I think that this is also manipulative, as it makes a process that is completely realistic and possible sound like some kind of confusing idea from science fiction.

    One of the most interesting facts that I have discovered about GMO's is that since their inception, the use of pesticide has increased to 15 times its usage before GMO's were used. This is definitely a harmful side effect of GMO's, because overuse of pesticide can lead to insects developing resistances to them, just as viruses can eventually evolve to overcome antibiotics. Pesticide can also harm the environment, as we have seen in Ohio with the recent algal bloom in Lake Erie.

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  11. 1) Some visuals that stood out to me were the shots of the tree with the ants crawling around it. It made me feel disconnected from nature. Also, the footage of the narrators family were interesting as they show where his concerns over food come from.

    2)The website I chose to search through for my GMOs info was factsaboutgmos.org.

    The operators of the site openly shares their pro-GMOs stance stating, "We will continue to advocate for the continued safe and effective use of agricultural biotechnology to increase the food supply while lowering cost. And we will continue to engage in an informative dialogue with our consumers so that they understand the safety, prevalence and benefits of GM technology and can make informed choices for themselves and their families."

    Obviously, the site is skewed in the support of GMOs, but I figured it would be a good exercise to read through it. One piece of information I found to be interesting was that apparently GMOs help to keep the price of production, maintenance, and distribution more cost effective. The site claims that because of GMOs the price of corn, soy beans, and sugar beets have gone down in price by 15-30%.

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  12. GMO's by Bubba Spaulding
    Genetic modified organisms or GMO’s are foods we eat day to day. Some people say they are bad for us, some people say they are not. Who do we believe? I hold a neutral position on GMO’s.
    GMO’s have been altered on some way with the DNA of another organism. These organisms can come from bacterium, virus, plant or animal also called transgenic organisms. Scientist actually inject dna from a silk spiders into goats in order to get silk proteins in the goat milk. This makes a stronger, lightweight silk material, livescience.com. I love to see the genetically modified pigs that have been injected with bioluminescence jellyfish dna. Glow in the dark pigs would be awesome to see. On MNN.com they tell about glow in the dark cats or fluorescent felines. Plants have been genetically modified to fight pollution. Pollution form the ground water affects the roots of plants. Scientist are solving that issue. Cabbage has been injected with the dna of scorpion poison . This reduces the use of pesticides. The caterpillar (they love cabbage) will bite the cabbage leaf and well you guessed it, die. Researchers have also produced genetically modified hen to produce cancer fighting eggs. I’m not a expert but I’m starting to think GMO’s aren’t so bad. The video started out strong with the scenes of nature and children. It seems to me that if we point out things that affect children and nature we tend to try and do something about it faster. The rest of the video was very informative about different countries. I think if the narrator wanted to get his point to me and probably others here he needed to do his research her.

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  13. THIS IS FROM THEO: He posted in new post, so I just simply copied it and pasted it here to put all comments in one place.

    Theo: The video was very strong to me at the beginning because it seem to have a feel of nature. It really made me think that this movie is going to be about nature and trying to preserve whats natural. When I looked up what GMO's were I sort of had an idea of what it was, I've seen the signs at Chipotle. It wasn't until I looked it up that I realized pretty much everything we eat has been genetically modified in some way. The biggest surprise to me was the fact that we genetically modify our crops, and in a bigger way than just cross breading to get a bigger yield. I found on the nongmoproject.com that they have been making our crops resistant to bugs and herbicide. This has caused an effect that I actually have just recently learned in my anthropology class. We learned that when you make your crop resistant to a certain type of insecticide that you actually cause a battle in the evolution of the insects. Basically due to the amount of offspring the beetles make they have millions of different of mutations from generation to generation. When you make an insecticide the beetles genes will adapt through their offspring. Once an offspring is born with an immunity to it the insecticide pretty much kills off all of there peers and leaves only them to breed which leads to thousands more with that mutation and so on. So the big question is how do we fix this never ending battle? We can't, but what we can do is make our own food our responsibility. If we grow our own natural food at home we don't have to worry about having GMO's because we would be the ones to grow it.

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