Story of Cosmetic

I chose to watch “Story of Cosmetics.” The video talked about the toxins that are in our everyday cosmetic products, such as shampoo, lipstick, and lotion. The possible toxins include carcinogens, neurotoxins, and many other types. I learned that less than 20% of the ingredients in our cosmetics is inspected. The video also talked about how certain companies, such as Proctor and Gamble, label their products as herbal or natural even though there is no basis for their claims. I learned that in the regulation of the cosmetic ingredients, cosmetic companies make their own rules, which is obviously a huge conflict of interest. These toxic ingredients don't only affect the consumer but also the workers and community that is exposed in. What needs to happen is to introduce new laws to prevent the toxic ingredients from being in the product, which relates to the “precautionary principles”.

The video surprise me because I wasn’t aware of the lack of regulations that goes into my products that I used everyday. I will be more careful about what products I will use by reading the label and seeing what ingredients there are.  I can also look for products that are label safe. I hope that my awareness will eventually contribute to my safety and I can spread that awareness.

Unit 7 Reflection

In this unit, we learned about ecology, interaction with organisms, and the interdependence organisms have on each other. For example, giant land snails could not exist without plants and algae to eat, and the plants and algae could not grow without bacteria and other organisms helping recycle nutrients in the water and soil. We also learned about the relationships between the different levels of organization in an ecological system including Individual, Population, Community, Ecosystem, Biome, and Biosphere. In the future, I hope to learn more about the ecological pyramids since we were not able to go over them as much as I had wanted to. As we finish this unit, I still want to know about the importances of each different trophic level. I wonder why 90% of transferred energy is lost as we go up each level of the energy pyramid. The vodcast we made went well because everybody said everything correctly and our presentation was put together nicely. Unfortunately, one thing that did not go well understanding the concept of biodiversity. I learned about the poaching in the African savannah. The collaboration went well because everybody researched their information.