Week of December 5 and 12

Essential Question

     How does the Sawnee Mountain Preserve Visitors Center embody an environmentally sustainable building, and what else can be done to obtain a Green Building certification?

     I selected this question because it fits perfectly into the environmental engineering field. I want to be the engineer that puts something back into the earth instead of other engineers who take away from the earth. Since I have been working with Forsyth County Parks and Recreation within my internship, a lot of great ideas have surfaced regarding an essential question. This one, by far, has been the one that I have been most interested in, so I will pursue the answer relentlessly. This question excites me so much because this is definitely something that I see myself doing as a career later on in life. This question fulfills my desires to pursue making something more environmentally sustainable, so generations to come have some earth that they can use as readily as we do. My goal is to use this question and apply it to many others buildings and visions that I can take part in, later in my career endeavors. 

Week of November 28

  A guaranteed way to get the job of your dreams   

http://growingleaders.com/blog/first-soft-skill-develop-students/

     This article goes into detail in the discussion of youth and how they can find themselves in trouble when applying and maintaining a job. Employers state that they find youth too loud, too forward, too self-absorbed, and lacking self-awareness. This all boils down to not having any social intelligence. As defined, social intelligence is defined as the capacity to effectively negotiate complex social relationships and environments. Social intelligence is knowing when or when not to speak up. It it also knowing when to talk about yourself. It is not however, taking advantage of your new job and acting like you are the best employee that the company has ever had. Remember, your first priority is doing the job you were assigned. If there is ever a time when youth should reign in their emotions and get to work is during this learning period of your first job. 

     This article made me realize that social skills are probably the most important part of every job. Knowing how to have a successful conversation with your boss and other coworkers is the key to having a long career with a single company. If every at the job likes you because you are easy-going and well versed, then you have just practically hired yourself. According to the article, this is want employers want. They want somebody that will fit into their company with no hiccups and who will not overstep their boundaries.

Week of November 14, 21

https://1drv.ms/p/s!Ah-arZ30T3i0gSBI2bJKg4BwdvMT

Week of November 7

     Keep Forsyth Beautiful is very much a partner in my education because they foster my development into the field that I want to find a career in. In my opinion, they provide greater education than any class that I take in school because I am actually interested in the stuff that I am learning in my internship, compared to the stuff that I learn in school.

     I have learned about several careers in my internship, including Storm Water Runoff Maintenance, Land water runoff stakesmen, and drinking water facility manager. All of these jobs pertain, in some form or fashion, to the Environmental Engineering field. All of these jobs I see myself possibly going into. My mentor has done a superb job making sure that I obtain as much exposure to any, and every, career that falls into the Environmental Engineering field.

    I have met several goals so far. The first on being, exposure to many different fields so that I can come up with my Essential Question to display at my presentation later in the year. Some goals however have changed. Initially my mentor and I thought that we would have more time to explore possible careers in the environmental engineering field, but as time went by our goals changed to really being this essential question project. This project has really taken off in the last week due to my discovering of this question after some talk with some folks at Sawnee Mountain Preserve.

Week of October 31

     My name is Phillip, and I am a senior at Forsyth Central High School. I have been raised to love and understand the benefits that the environment offers us. That being said, I am fully aware that the environment is in the worst shape that it has been in. I chose to pursue a career in environmental engineering because of this. I want to be able to say that I helped the environment when most other people were doing the exact opposite. With this in mind, I believe that Keep Forsyth Beautiful believes like I believe and also wants to help the environment in ways that will prolong its existence.

     At Keep Forsyth Beautiful, I take part in numerous activities. I started out the year touring a recycling facility belonging to Advanced Disposal. Then I moved to visiting waste water facilities across the county, where I saw the different methods of water filtration, including biological and chemical. Then, I got to understand the flip side of that coin when I visited a drinking water facility where I got to see how they take the water out of the environment and transform it, chemically, into the tap water that comes out of our sinks. I have also taken part in many other activities, including Code Enforcement and Storm Water Management. With Forsyth County Engineering, I partook in the latter of the last two, along with the task of correcting and accepting runoff water plans on newly designed housing lots. With my mentor at Keep Forsyth Beautiful, we have began scheduled maintenance of methane flares at the old landfill in North Forsyth, as well as collecting waste that people have dumped on the side of the road and in creeks.

     Next year, I will be starting at Kennesaw State University Marietta Campus, to begin my journey to a degree in Environmental Engineering. My mentorship will help me tremendously in that I will be able to have a decent grasp several of the possible career fields that I could go into, after I earn a college degree.

     Below are some of the activities that I have taken part of.

Above is my mentor and I.

Week of October 24

What I have learned about my internship

     To be honest, I thought that Keep Forsyth Beautiful was just an organization that went around planting trees at various schools and picking up trash on the side of the road. But, upon diving into my internship I have discovered that Keeping Forsyth beautiful involves much more. This includes actions like monitoring methane levels in a local landfill and monitoring oxygen levels in local streams. Now, I am really enjoying my internship and all of the various activities and people that I get to interact with every week.

     This internship surprised me with all of the different jobs that I get to take part in once a week. I have done everything from touring a Advanced Disposal recycling facility and viewing a water filtration facility to monitoring the water coming out of dams throughout the county. I have really enjoyed getting to experience, however quick, the different careers that I may go into.

    From the routine parts of this internship, I have learned what goes on behind the scenes to make the job run smoothly, from all the phone calls to the paper work that I have seen take place over this internship. Now, credit to my mentor for making my 3 hours a week as action-packed as possible with as little as the day to day work as possible. But, the little "boring" stuff that I see is important to witness because that is what happens at every job. There is always the fun, but the less fun usually happens more often. To sum it up, I now know why the common saying is that you have to love what you do, or you will not work very long there.

Week of October 17

     The article that I chose is going to be very useful in my research because I intend to find the different fields of engineering that use, transform, or help the environment in any way, shape, or form. This article, being what it is about, fits perfectly into this quest because of how Shah used his engineering mindset to further the enforcement of ocean fishing. With this in mind, I intend to use this article and others to understand how large of a role that the environment plays in every different engineering field. The article adds just another application that the environment provides for other fields of engineering to focus on.


     This article opened my mind to better understand that environmental engineering is not the only field that involves working with the environment. I hope to find more articles like this one to discover other people, like me, who enjoy working with the environment. I appreciate when other people involve their passions with the environment because that is what I see myself doing in the near future.

Week of October 3

Annotated Bibliography Graphic Organizer

Phillip Thompson

Source / Bibliography: (APA Format)	Bloch, H. (2015, December 17). The Rocket-Science     Environmentalist. Retrieved October 14, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rocket-science-environmentalist-1450368433
Annotation:	Becoming an environmental fanatic is something that everyone can do. Just like Mr. Shelbe, who was a rocket-scientist originally, realized his fanaticism after attending several environmental seminars. He discovered that he could use his aeronautical skillset to help advance the field of environmental science and engineering. Shah combines the fields of mobile technology, satellite data, and drones to monitor and regulate the overfishing all across the world’s oceans.
Potential Quotes:	“Shah combines the fields of mobile technology, satellite data, and drones to better protect the environment.” “People used to wonder, who’s this engineering guy coming here to do things.” “He envisions an Internet of environmental things in which entire nature reserves can be connected via smart technology to spot and reduce threats.”
Assessment:	This source is credible because it was published by Wall Street Journal. The author also seems to write with a very objective tone, which implies that she does not have any bias on this topic because she is looking at just the facts of the situation, alone.
Reflection:	This source will be best used as a “recruitment” tactic in that Shah being a rocket-scientist, which is very far from environmental science, can become an engineer in the field of the environment.

Week of September 19

Communication

Communication between different groups of people that I come into contact with every day ranges from texting with my friends, to accepting scolding from my parents, or even listening to the teacher lecture during class. All of these scenarios are different. They way I communicate with my friends is often informal, being that they do not care that how I talk too much. But, as I communicate with my teachers, employers, or adults around me, I often make sure that I use a formal tone, and listen more than I talk. I also talk more around people I am comfortable with, like family and friends, but talk less around people, like employers and teachers, whom I feel less familiar around.

Much of this difference in communication style has to do with the different expectations that each group has for me. Where a friend has expectations such as being friendly, an employer has expectations that may include respectfulness and obedience.

When I am talking to my mentor, I try not to talk over them and interrupt them. I always try to enunciate my words to the best of my ability to make sure they can clearly understand what I am saying. As well as I can, I also make sure that I can find things that we relate on as people, and not just mentor and intern. This last act will make our relationship more personal, which is important to make sure that we can get along easily to hopefully make the most of these experiences.

Work Ethic

This assignment was a test to determine how good of a work ethic that I have compared to other individuals. This is important because a strong work ethic is critical for me to become employed and then stay employed.

The results from this test are very close to what I expected. I knew that I would be lower in interpersonal skills, than I would be in initiative. I understand that I need to improve these interpersonal skills by becoming more comfortable among other people, especially around possible employers, because employers absolutely do not want people working for them that have no idea how to effectively communicate with others. I need to remember that I have to be able to act naturally in an unnatural environment, which ties right back into the interpersonal skills that I need to develop.

Week of September 5

Getting Ready for my Mentor

Getting ready is the most important part of an internship. If I am not ready, then I have failed before I even step foot in the door. But, on the other hand, when I come prepared, I am able to make the most of my experiences and truly walk away from my internship better prepared for college and the workforce that I will soon enter.

Also, what does a mentor think of a student that does not come prepared each and every time that they meet. They will think that they are working with a lazy slop who does not care one way or another about the experiences they will collect with their limited time. Mentor do not get paid to tell and show us what they do. They do it out of the though that they love what they do and they want other people to love and appreciate the job that they do. They just want to prepare us for the workforce in ways that they know have worked.


If my mentor shows up prepared to teach me, then I should do no less than show up prepared and ready to learn.

Week of August 29

https://www.youtube.com/v/zarli7__Su8

    This video is all about the idea that not caring about cause, or letting something you know is bad happen anyway without putting up a fight, is the worst thing that we could do. It benefits no one, and oftentimes, it will hurt somebody. As a society, we need to take part and speak out if we see something that is not pleasant to us or other people. Until our society does this, we will stay in this rut, and never get out. I also need to put this lifestyle into play in my life, whether other people join me or not will not affect the way that I continue to be me.

    

Week of August 22

What is the best way to connect with you mentor?

        The best way for me to connect with my mentor is to always listen and participate in whatever task we are doing. I always need to ask questions because, after all, they want to answer my questions. If these internships are always a one-way conversation, then it's not an internship. I also always need to keep our conversations personal. It's not all about the job. I need to get to know the person behind the job. I also need to remember that it's not school, it's the real world where making impressions is the name of the game. A bad first impression will lead to a less-positive internship, while a good first impression will lead to an internship filled with better experiences.

       From my internship, I want to gain experiences that will get me ahead of other people in my certain field. I want to be pushed to learn the way that various people work together to help the environment and use its resources for the betterment of human society. I want to be able to leave this program and say that it was worth it, and it truly prepared me for the future as a worker.