mixed emotions.

The Youth and Environmental Action article left me a bit skeptical. I was wondering why more females were studied than males. I think the study is biased. The students all come from the same economic backgrounds. I think when you pick a homogeneous study group you are bound to get the same result. If you saw the copy that I had printed out, the margins are FULL of notes. Full of them. One of the big things that I keep thinking of when I read this article is when you are 16 or 17 I don’t think you really have that strong of a sense of who you are. I think you are highly influenced by your peers when you are in high school, and high school is a learning process, but how can you use these students in a study? “Several participants said their friends’ involvement was important because experiences are more meaningful when there is sharing and affirmation from others.” (p.31). Really? You had to do a study to come up with that? I don’t know why I am so skeptical on this article, I thought perhaps I was just in a bad mood or something when I read it for the first time, but after reading it a second time, I have the same if not stronger feelings about this article. I believe the children that were studied in this did not have a very broad meaning of the word, “environmental.” I am reminded of myself at that age, when I thought environmental I thought, save the redwoods, save the dolphins, close the hole in the ozone. But across the state, high school kids in Roxbury have a different meaning of the word environment. I think this study should have been more broad, and reached out to more diverse mix of children. Then…I was thinking maybe they choose more women in this study because I think for girls it is an easy science to study. I’m not saying it’s bad I did it myself, and am still doing it, but when I started college I was a bio major, then it got too hard, and switched to a BS of earth, environmental, and oceanic science. I don’t know that could be a totally false statement, but once I took a bio class over the 300 level, there were maybe 2 other girls in the class. I’m not sure if there is any correlation to the study and the number of women who go on to study a life science, but I feel the tables turn dramatically from a study of 12 girls and 2 boys to the number of males and females that will do complete a BS.