Our Learning Journey

Before this project, I had no idea what the Temperance Movement was and had limited knowledge on marijuana prohibition other than that it was not taking effect here in Colorado. After my research and blog post, I have learned a lot about the Temperance Movement, alcohol, recreational and medical marijuana, and much more. It has changed my thinking because before this project, I believed prohibition was good and was necessary to maintain safety and order in our communities. Now, I believe prohibition is not very use full and usually causes more problems than good.

I have learned so much on the topic of prohibition in the short few weeks we had to research it. I learned that the temperance movement was a movement made primarily by women and people of the Church to ban alcohol. they made this movement in order to try to keep men from sinning and from being bad at home. The Temperance movement was a success, but only for a brief period. Only about 30 years after alcohol was banned, it became legal again by the 21st amendment. While researching the Temperance Movement, we saw that it was commonly associated with modern day marijuana prohibition. I learned that marijuana is banned by the federal government of the U.S, but is legal in some states such as Colorado. Many people don’t want to ban marijuana because it can preform medical miracles. Others think marijuana users cause many disasters especially in car crashes and therefore, for the safety of the general community, should be banned.

My biggest AHHA moment occurred when I was researching marijuana. I realized that the banning or marijuana was exactly the same as that of alcohol. In both, a substance is banned because it is thought to put harm on society. Then, people start protesting and rebelling against the prohibition. Lastly, the substance becomes legal again(or is starting to in the case of marijuana). This made me realize that nothing can be prohibited and stay prohibited as long as people have the desire for that thing.

The hardest part of this project was researching information and then correctly citing it. This project has given me a new respect for bloggers who curate their research because it is hard. The difference between curating and collecting research to me is that when you curate research, you are actually taking in the information because you have the passion to learn. When you collect info,you are just looking for sources to put down so you can get a good grade on your bibliography. Things went pretty smoothly for me during this project. The only failure I had was that I forgot to cite my sources for one of my blogs. This caused me to spend a lot of time the next day hunting down my sources and then citing them correctly. If I did this project again I would try to write a blog a day so that i would never loose track of my sources. This project will help me with future projects because it has taught me how to truly use information I find to back up my thought on a topic.

I didn’t learn much about technology during this project other than that some search engines don’t work with certain websites such as infinite campus and D20 blogs. I also don’t see using a blog in the future except when required for school because I don’t intend to have a career that requires me to share information over the internet per blog. I might have to send e-mails for my job, but I do not think I will be required to make another blog in the future.

This project taught me a lot about the way I think. I tend to be one sided during arguments and will stick with my opinion, even if I know it is wrong. I also am someone who thinks inside the box. I don’t get curious about thing I don’t feel very interested in and I don’t have much of an imagination.

This project has taught me many things, but most of all has changed my opinion on learning. Now, I believe students don’t learn when they are forced to, but they do learn when they want to. If you can get a child to learn because they have an interest in the subject, they will connect with it and learn better. That is what I learned from our project on prohibition.

At first, I was just thinking that prohibition was a minor group of women who were protesting alcohol. I didn’t really know anything about how it started, or how it impacted the society. My thinking changed because now I realize that the women were trying to protect their families and children from men that would drink too much. They had a good cause for protesting drinking. I think I realized more of the background on how it all started, while before I didn’t really think they had a good purpose.

I learned that the women who were trying to ban alcohol were very serious about what they were against. They wanted to get rid of it for good. A lot of people disagreed with this ban, but the protesters stayed strong in their opinion and they stood for what they believed in. Also, I learned about marijuana and it’s negative and positive side effects. One connection I made throughout my research on prohibition was the yellow fever plague. Many of the doctors including Benjamin Rush had a very strong opinion that many people thought were wrong. However, they didn’t care and they went with what they thought anyways.

My biggest “AH-HA” moment was when I learned that the women were protecting their own families from alcohol, and not just thinking about themselves. Some of the women were getting beaten by their husbands who were going to saloons and were getting so drunk that they went crazy. I saw that many teenagers starting at around my age were drinking tons of alcohol. Basically, I just realized how big of an impact alcohol had, and the thinking behind prohibition.

I learned that when you are curating you really want to draw the readers in. You don’t want to just state the facts, you want to let them in on your thinking and what you found was interesting. When you’re researching a topic you just look up some sources and write thing down. When you curate you find pictures, and you add a lot more of your personal opinions into the information.

Some things that went successfully was the actual research itself. I could easily find the information that answered the questions I had at the beginning of the project. Another success was being able to create my own opinions on the subject. They were many successes but they were failures as well. A failure for me was not being able to take my own opinions and connecting them to what the people thought during the temperance acts. I kind of just said what I thought but wasn’t giving an in-depth point of view. Overall, I think me and my partner did a very good job on this project.

If I could do this project over again, I would definitely add a lot more opinions. I would also want to add more of my research path, and how I came across the information. I would draw in the readers more so that the information seems more exciting. To me the topic was really cool to learn about, but I could have done a better job sharing that to the readers.

Making a blog is a very creative way to share information to people, so I could see myself using it again. Maybe on a language arts project when I have to do a book report, I could use a blog to share my thoughts while I’m reading the book and give my incites on it.

I learned a lot more about citing my sources and finding information on the web because of this project. I learned about formatting my information for a blog and making it seem professional. Before I wasn’t really clear on adding pictures to a blog or adding captions. Now I know the steps I have to take to make it look right. Additionally, I’m more informed on researching things on the internet. On this project I found that when you go to a web page it might make you curious about a different topic that branches off of that one, and you can look that up as well. That way you can go to related topics and learn a lot more about whatever you want to know about.

I can see myself using a blog in my career when I get older. Whatever career I choose, I can inform people about my topic through a blog. That way other people can gain knowledge from my experiences and know what I have learned. Also, people could use my blog to help them with a project and use it as a source.

I learned that I think about my opinion and what I would have done if I were in that position in the past. When I learned about the women’s groups that protested alcohol, I found myself wondering how I would have reacted to that situation, if I had a relative that was for prohibition.

Lastly, this project changed the way I think about learning because now I know that you can add your own personal thoughts when you learn. You should always be trying to find connections between topics and themes to help you know more about what you are learning. Also, when you learn you should think about other ways to portray that information. Just stating the facts is really boring, so you should bring life to your research.

Overall, this project was a really good activity. I learned about prohibition and marijuana banning, but also a lot about technology and how curating works. I feel that I learned a lot about the topic and my own thinking path as I made a blog with my partner.

As we have said in previous post, Marijuana can be beneficial or harmful. Below are two peoples stories of their encounters with marijuana and how it has changed their lives.

First off, is Charlotte Fig, who is currently five years of age. When she was two years old, she gained a rare disorder that caused her to be unable to walk or talk and she suffered from 300 seizures a week. She tried every possible treatment she could find to try to cure her but nothing worked. So, she decided she would try medical marijuana. Now, after a few years of using marijuana, Charlotte can final talk, walk, and she no longer suffers from seizures. Her story has inspired 100’s of families to go to places where marijuana is legal such as Colorado to try to cure their children as well. Some scientist protest that there is no solid proof that it was the marijuana that cured Charlotte Fig and that the long term effects of marijuana has not been tested on children so it shouldn’t be allowed. But, countless of families such as Charlotte’s have found a cure for their children through a substance that is illegal in most of the U.S.A.

The second story is about a man named Darren Gold who claims that Marijuana ruined his life. He first started smoking cannabis at age 15. It made him feel good so he continued its use, using it more frequently. Eventually, he ended up smoking every day. In order to pay for this expensive habit, he resulted to stealing. Once out of high school, he continued doing illegal things and smoked even more than before. As a result, he was sent to a juvenile crime facility. After he left the facility, he became extremely paranoid and latter on his life, became addicted to heroin and alcohol. Now, he has turned his life around and no longer uses any drug, but cannabis almost destroyed his life.

Those are just two of the thousands of stories on marijuana. They show some of the pro’s and con’s to using medical or recreational marijuana in society.

“How pot helped Charlotte Figi, 5, with her seizures and inspired ‘Charlotte’s Web’.”NewsComAu. 21 Feb. 2014 <>.

“Real story: ‘My cannabis paranoia'” – Live Well. 21 Feb. 2014 <http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/drugs/Pages/Cannabiscasestudy.aspx>.

“8 Miraculous Medical Marijuana Survival Stories.” Alternet. 21 Feb. 2014 <http://www.alternet.org/drugs/8-miraculous-medical-marijuana-survival-stories>.

Our essential question was, “How has prohibition changed between the 1800’s and now?” Over the course of this project, we have come to answer this question and many more on the topic of prohibition.

We have learned many facts about the Temperance Movement and Marijuana prohibition through this project. For example, we learned that the temperance movement was a movement made primarily by churches and women to stop men from being drunk and sinning. We also learned that the 18th and 21st amendments of the constitution were on alcohol, though they contained very different materials on the matter. One of the things we learned that really interested us was that after alcohol was made illegal, the crime actually increased rather than decreased and that is why the 21st amendment was made to override the 18th amendment.

We also learned a lot about marijuana and its pros and cons during this project. Marijuana  has many positive medical benefits, but also helps the economy. We learned that Marijuana is actually not an addictive drug, but can be a gateway drug. Also, we realized modern day prohibition is almost the exact same as prohibition was in the 1800’s, except with a different substance. In both cases, people protested against a substance, it became banned, crime went up, and then the substance became legal again (or is starting to become legal again in the case of Marijuana).

Other than our essential question we wanted to know why they were banning alcohol. The women were trying to protect their families and children so that they wouldn’t get raised up by bad fathers. Overall, our research went really well, and we found out a lot about both topics. We are both a lot more informed than we were at the beginning.

Prohibition has happened several times throughout history, but one thing we noticed that it has never lasted. Therefore, if we could continue my research on prohibition, we would try to find a case where a prohibition act has been a success and is still in use today. We also would like to research more on women’s and children’s roles in the Temperance Act. Additionally, we want to know what the opposing groups did to try to stop the law of prohibition from going through. These things would be important to research because if we knew why people would oppose prohibition we could see their point of view and find out more about the history of the acts. If we had more time we would try to find answers to these questions.

Anti-prohibition supporters.
http://thefederalist-gary.blogspot.com/2012/03/will-pri-end-mexican-drug-war.html

Sarah’s Perspective- I think that when the government prohibited marijuana they had good intentions, but it was not really their duty to prohibit this substance. I don’t believe it is the government’s job to regulate the health or diet of American citizens. That is the soul job of the individual.  This way, the people have the choice to use marijuana if they please.

Marijuana has its benefits and its downfalls. Medical marijuana has many benefits. It kills cancer cells, relieves pain, stimulates appetite, helps people sleep, relaxes muscles, and much more. Also, recreational Marijuana is very popular so it benefits the economy. But, Marijuana has many negative effects as well. According to the National Drug Abuse website, Marijuana damages a persons ability to remember things, ability to balance, and causes extreme hallucinations. These factors can cause harm to the user or community, especially in cases with automobiles. So, I am neutral on my thoughts with the use of marijuana, but I don’t think it should be prohibited.

Angela’s Perspective- I have mixed feelings on the ban of marijuana. In the beginning they were using marijuana as medicine. However, in the 1920’s-1930’s they were banning marijuana for recreational use. I agree with Sarah that the government had good intentions because it was harming people, but I think that they should have the right to ban marijuana because they are trying to take care of citizens. If it helps the community for the better, I think they should ban it. The question is if it really IS hurting our society to a great degree.

Some evidence shows that it is a huge threat, while other evidence shows that it isn’t a big deal. Some say that can help prevent cancer. They say that THC and CBD which is found in marijuana can kill some tumor cells. On the flip side, other people say that if a person takes it while they are pregnant the kid is at a greater risk of leukemia. Some other studies in Australia show that they cause brain dysfunctions. There is huge controversy about this topic. There are many people who say that it isn’t that bad, and other people who say it is a terrible substance.

Before they prohibit it completely, I feel like they should do a lot more tests to see the effects and trends over time. This is also easier said than done, because who would they do the tests on? I think in the meantime we have to research more and gather sufficient evidence. I remain neutral like Sarah, for now.

Marijuana Banning
“Temperance Movement – Home.” Temperance Movement. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2014. .

“Temperance Movement – Home.” Temperance Movement. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2014. <http://riseofprohibition.weebly.com/index.html>.

“Discovery Health.” Discovery Fit and Health. 19 Feb. 2014 <http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/drugs-alcohol/5-common-uses-of-medical-cannabis4.htm>.

“Why Marijuana Became Illegal – The Basic Facts.” Bruce Alan Block Attorney at Law. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. <http://brucealanblock.com/why-marijuana-became-legal/>.

“10 Facts About Marijuana.” Drug Policy Alliance. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2014. <http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-facts/10-facts-about-marijuana>.

http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/the-harmful-effects.html

Sarah’s Perspective-I think alcohol prohibition in the 1800’s was not necessary or effective. The crimes that resulted after alcohol was outlawed in my opinion, out weighed the benefits it brought. One of the main point alcohol prohibition was supposed to bring was the cleanse the world of sin, but that act actually resulted in more sin, through the workings of thievery. Alcohol is addictive and once you become addicted you can stop, even if it is required by law. People have the free will to chose what they do and what the don’t, so it is their duty to stop drinking if they see fit. Also, alcohol is often used to clean wounds, and back in the 1800 when it was very unsanitary, banning it would lead to many infections and deaths.

Today, I still don’t believe alcohol should be prohibited. Bars and other places which manufacture and sell liquor play a role in our economy today. Also, many folks today have a need for alcohol that still can not be broken by any law. I think that prohibition will never work as long as people crave the substance enough.

“Prohibition.” PBS. PBS. 19 Feb. 2014 <http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/roots-of-prohibition/>.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Temperance movement (social history).”Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica. 18 Feb. 2014 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/586530/temperance-movement>.

Angela’s Perspective-  I think alcohol prohibition was both good and bad. Back in the 1800’s they were drinking a ton of alcohol, starting at a very young age. This was especially bad because the women were needing their husbands to carry their own weight, and support them. That’s mostly where people were starting to realize that they need to get it under control. If the men got too drunk they would not treat their family right and everything would go crazy. For this reason, I feel that prohibition was a good idea if it would keep everything under control. For modern day, I don’t think we should make alcohol illegal for adults. I feel this way because if we were to do that there would be an outrage, and we would end up fighting it and taking away the law anyways.

U.S. approved prohibition.
Prohibition.” PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.

Back in the 1800’s, the U.S. prohibited alcohol. Today, the U.S. is trying to prohibit an new substance, Marijuana. Like alcohol, it is believed that by outlawing Marijuana, the general community will be benefited and people will have less health problems caused by the substance. Also, it its believed that banning marijuana will decrease crime rate and vehicle accidents, since most accidents today are caused by Marijuana. But, many people are fighting to keep marijuana in the U.S because it has medical benefits, such as helping fight cancer. Either way, history seems to be repeating itself, as we are banning a drug-like substance. Also, in some states such as Colorado, marijuana is no longer prohibited, so just like in the 1800’s, a substance that was prohibited is becoming legal again.

“DrugFacts: Marijuana.” National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). 17 Feb. 2014 <http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana>.

“10 Facts About Marijuana.” Drug Policy Alliance. 16 Feb. 2014 <http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-facts/10-facts-about-marijuana>

Many of the women who supported the Temperance Movement were trying to protect their families and children from alcohol since they thought it was dangerous.  They wanted to just get rid of it completely as excessive drinking was getting out of hand. As Frances E. Willard said,”Temperance is moderation in the things that are good and total abstinence from the things that are foul.” Since many people were drinking to the point where it was ruining their lives, prohibition supporters wanted to ban it in it’s entirety.

One major group of women who supported prohibition was the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. It was led by Frances E. Willard. They made an effect because they made it so that every school had to learn about alcohol, and it’s negative consequences. Another major group was the Anti-Saloon League. They collaborated with lots of different people including the Ku Klux Klan and the International Workers of the World, making them successful. The amendment was successful but then some thieves smuggled alcohol.

I don’t completely agree with the prohibition groups because they were wanting to ban the alcohol completely. I think having some alcohol in limited amounts should be acceptable and not illegal. However at that point it was completely getting out of hand, so I understand their point of view as well.

One group of women who fought to ban marijuana.
“Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.” Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Wikipedia, n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2014.

“Frances E. Willard.” Frances E. Willard. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2014. <http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1080.html>.

“Prohibition.” PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/roots-of-prohibition/>.

The temperance Movement was the cause of the 18th amendment, which outlawed the buying, producing, or selling of liquor but the 18th amendment only remained in service for 13 years. This is because the 21st amendment was created which abolished the 18th amendment. You may ask, “Why would they get rid of a law that was benefiting the greater good?” This is because after alcohol was outlawed, many protest arised and the crime rate surprisingly went up. Many were addicted to alcohol and couldn’t just stop using it just because a law told them to. So, men started illegally buying or selling liquor, completely disregarding the amendment. Also, certain religions started protesting the 18th amendment because they used alcohol such as wine for ceremonial purposes and this law prohibited them from practicing their religion. Those were the main reasons why the temperance movement ended.

“Why Prohibition? | Temperance & Prohibition.” Why Prohibition? | Temperance & Prohibition. 12 Feb. 2014 <http://prohibition.osu.edu/why-prohibition>.

“Temperance Movement and Prohibition Timeline.” About.com Women’s History. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

“Why Did Prohibition Fail?” Yahoo Contributor Network. 13 Feb. 2014 <http://voices.yahoo.com/why-did-prohibition-fail-2323864.html?cat=37>.