While it seems logical to think that gene expression is a fixed, unchanging thing, like the Rosetta Stone of human biology this isn’t necessarily the case. Genes are often viewed as sequences written into our DNA that remain unaltered through our lives, yet today we spent the majority of class time disproving this idea. As …
Category Archives: Block 5
Week 1: A Peek into the Genome
Imagine a stack of textbooks, packed like sardines with words, and standing four stories high. Now think about being given the task to find not one page, not one paragraph, but one word. Seems like an impossible task. To some extent, this is comparable to the task scientists were charged with in the late 1980s …
Week 1: Self Reflection, Hegemony, and Eating Chocolate in the Dark
On Friday I finished my first week in Kathy Giuffre’s Art and Society block and I can already tell that this block will be one to remember. On the first day, I wasn’t sure what this class had in store. As we moved through the week, we developed a definition for art, discussed art’s role in …
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A String of Thoughts
“We fixed the education system”, my classmate exclaimed during our group discussion on Tuesday. Later in the week, we found out that our “solution” to the education system in the U.S was closely related to market theory, and that has a lot of issues in and of itself. We have been aggressively looking for answers …
An Open Letter to the U.S Education System
Dear U.S Education System, Why can’t we fix you? My class has spent a total of nine hours this week talking about how to combat re-segregation alone, and we have not gotten the slightest bit close to an answer. My problem is that I don’t even know where to start. Re-segregation is only one problem …
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Winter Ball Examined Through Theories of Sociology in Education
The ballroom was dim, and the music was loud. All I could see were my peers lumped into one organism, flowing on the floor, spinning like a tornado, and destroying everything in its path. All I could hear was the chatter of students and jazz music. All I could feel was hypocrisy itchy down my …
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Let’s Be Clear: The “Dear White People” TV show Is NOT Racist
In the second week of this class, we watched the movie Dear White People. Have you seen it? It came out in 2014 and Netflix ordered a TV version of it, also named “Dear White People” last May. While there was some backlash at the time to a tv series of “Dear White People,” it was …
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Week Two Reflections: how do layered igneous rocks form?
The second week of Igneous Petrology was a whirlwind! We spent most of the week discussing all of the processes that can cause different rocks to form out of the same body of magma. We looked at several major igneous rock formations that are made up of distinct layers with different mineral compositions, even though they …
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What is Whiteness Studies??
When I told some of my white friends that I was taking Critical Whiteness Studies, I was met either with chuckles or furrowed brows and questions like “What even is that?” Let’s talk about it. Are you white? If so, how do you know you’re white? Did someone tell you? Many of us know that race …
Where does magma come from?
Hi! My name is Grace, and I’m a senior geology major here at CC. This block I’ll be sharing my experience in Igneous Petrology. I fell in love with geology because of how differently it makes me see the world. One of my favourite authors, John McPhee, says it well “A million years is a …
