Sarah’s Conclusion on Our Prohibition Project

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.