July 30, 2008
One of the crucial areas of study in biology is the health of all living organisms. All living organisms depend on the continued good health of other organisms. Certainly, the health of the human population effects each of us. Sometimes the connections are difficult to see, but with good analysis, they are there.
One of the interesting observations about disease throughout the human population is its relationship to such influences as: economics, general values, religious influences, customs, education and population distribution.
http://www.globalhealthfacts.org/
At this web site, you will use the literary tools of compare and contrast to analyze different reasons why certain countries have varying degrees of global health issues.
In order for us to have the same information from which to discuss this topic, here are the parameters of your investigation:
] 1. Create a Custom Data Sheet by choosing these 5 countries: Afghanistan, Zambia, China, United States, and Brazil
2. Indicators: Choose the top 3. When they ”expand” clear all. Then choose just the one category under each.
HIV/AIDS - ”people living with AIDS”;
TB - “people living with TB”; and
Malaria - Malaria Cases.
3. Click submit.
4. Before we can really compare the numbers on the chart, we must turn each number into a % of the population. You can do this by first clicking on the country name.
a. NOTE: The % of people living with AIDS has been calculated for you. Copy it down.
You will have to calculate the % for the other two categories (AIDS and TB) Do this by:
b. Dividing the number of people “living with TB” in a country by its total population and multiply by 100. Do the same for malaria cases, dividing the total # of malaria cases by the total population and multiply by 100. You should now have a % for each country in each of the three categories that we chose.
1. Post your results … 2. Compare and contrast the results between countries … 3. Analyze the results using some of the influencing factors that I posted above. Answer, for example, “Why do you think Afghanistan has little to no AIDS amongst its population?” or, “What influences affect the cases of malaria in a country? “
You can interact with each other as you post your thoughts. I will also interact in your conversations.
THIS POST QUALIFIES AS ONE OF YOUR SUMMER ASSIGNMENTS
August 4th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Hey Ms. Story,
Sorry I havn’t commented recently, I’ve been working on some of my other project. But I’m back.
Let me see if I understand this, because I’m a little confused:
We have to go to that site and ONLY pick those certain countries you mentioned (meaning we can’t pick, say, UK?) and do a compare and contrast on them…but then i gets confusing to me…
1.Do we post the compare and contrast here?
2.We’re only comparing the contries on one topic, not all three, right?
3.I don’t get the “expand” and dividing into percents
Please help
August 6th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Hi Brandon,
1. Yes, please pick just the countries I suggested because then we can all discuss the same dynamics discovered.
2. Yes, you’ll post your findings here on the blog
3. No, your data sheet created on their web site will have the 5 countries and data for the 3 “indicators” that I listed. Getting to this point should be rather easy. The problem now is that we don’t have %’s in each of the 3 disease areas (HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and TB.) You do have the %’s for HIV/AIDS for all five countries, but Malaria and TB are in total #’s of people having TB and malaria. These 2 must be turned into %’s for each of the 5 countries.
Obviously, a country with less people to begin with will have less people with a disease, but they might actually have a very high percentage of people with the disease overall. Does this help make sense?
4. I had you expand each country so that you could easily find the total population for each country, a number you need to calculate %.
5. Upon completion we should be able to discuss how each of the countries compare to one another considering the 3 different global diseases I’ve asked you to focus on.
For example: you will find that one of the countries has no statistical evidence for having any AIDS cases … why? And, why is it, then, so prevalent in other countries of the world? The same holds true for malaria … why the vast difference in malaria cases between countries in our global culture?
Does this help?
Ms S.
August 6th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Thanks Ms. Story,
Yeah, it helps. I get it now.
August 26th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I’m working on this assignment; hopefully, I will have it completed by tomorrow.