Thoughts and Ruminations on Chapter 11: Agriculture

Jack S.
4/18/16
Mr. Angus
AP Human Geography
Chapter 11: Development

Thoughts and Ruminations

Presentation Link: Presentation

Supersize Me Write-Up: 

     In the documentary Supersize Me, a man named Morgan Spurlock eats only McDonalds for 30 days 3 times per day. Spurlock does this as an experiment to see what eating nothing but McDonalds does to your body. Before he begins the experiment Spurlock meets with three doctors who all say he a very healthy 30 year old man. At first Spurlock is 6'2 and 185.5 pounds. After just five days Spurlock had  already put on 10 pounds and they following five days he put on another 5 pounds. It is important to note that Spurlock could only walk the amount of steps the average American walks per day which comes out to 5000 steps per day which is not a lot. Additionally, if the cashier at the McDonalds asked if he would like his meal "Supersized" he had to say yes. After putting on a significant amount of weight Spurlock went back to visit his three doctors. Each doctor is appalled by the amount of weight he had put on in the short amount of time. In addition to the weight gain there were also other underlying problems. Spurlock found that he would become very sad when he was not eating the fast food but the instant he began eating it again the sadness vanished. One doctor claimed that Spurlock became addicted to the McDonalds food. Another one of his doctors urged him to stop the experiment immediately due to the fact that he could be prone to a heart attack or liver failure if he continued to eat this way. In the end, Spurlock ends up gaining 24.5 pounds and developed some very harsh health issues to go along with that. The main point this documentary tries to make is that fast food chains get their customers to keep coming back by getting them hooked to their food like a drug so they continue to pay for it while it simultaneously destroys their bodies. 

Link: Sentence Link

Sentence: Go Green Agriculture wanted to help the industry in agriculture become more environmentally friendly but many farmers are set in their traditional ways and refuse to change so Go Green Agriculture built their own farms with their technology and environmentally sound farming techniques and now there are 9 Go Green Farms across the U.S. making a difference.

Map: I chose to color a map of Cuba because in 2006 the World Wildlife Fund identified Cuba as the only sustainably developed country in the world. This is because they had adopted the practice of agrocelogy.  This is a farming practice that reduces and eliminates the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Many believe that Cuba is now the future of modern day farming, but many are hesitant to adopt this farming practice due to the fact that it might negativly effect the amount of food we are able to produce at one time.
Article Info is from:  Article
"Is Cuba the Future of Farming? - The Boston Globe." BostonGlobe.com. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

Model: Von Thünens model helps depict the different areas of farming that take place within a city.