Author: ztobias

  The data set that I chose to work with was Animal Bites. This was through the  Department of Environmental Health Services of St. Louis. It is not specifically mentioned in their data set why they chose to create this file for animal bites. The data itself has been structured and broken down into multiple categories such as Animal type, house number, neighborhood number, street, ward ect. When looking at the data I noticed even the title is animal bites it covers more dogs than cats. That leads me to some questions such as why is it only dogs that seem to be getting the most attention and not cats as much. 

                   The data from this file could be used to determine based on the wards and since there are some repeats among the wards could that be in relation to if the same dog was seen in that area. Some of the places within the St.louis area have no neighborhood number. Not having full information and missing pieces of important information such as the neighborhood number or house number brings up a question since there is not a house number for certain ones, could that mean that maybe a house was once there and it’s now torn down or possibility having a vacant lot and there is not a definite address for that particular space so therefore that might be a reason as to why it is left to be blank in the data set.

                  Some of the ambiguities within the data could have shaped this intentionally based on race and depending on which community you are living in in St. Louis. In reality we do not know the people that gave the information to the health services if they are black, white, hispanic and so forth. Without having any background knowledge of the community or certain wards if there are more black people or white people in on or another if this could be an effect of the data, On the other hand this could be an issue because if you are pulling data from a specific neighborhood of people with only a majority of one race then your not really getting the full picture of how this data might have been ultimately collected.

               This data resembles what we are currently doing for MOBOT in results to surveys and telling the history of the garden to the public and how most of the people that come to the garden are non-white and people with a decent amount of money that are willing to go to the garden to go on tours or to take pictures of plants while we also have people that might not be so wealthy and live further from the garden and who do not have a way to get to the garden if they want to go and explore and potentially learn about the history. This leads to a big loss as far as diversity and inclusion where we once again have ambiguous data and missing spots just like this animal bite data set then it is up to the people to interpret things the way they want to instead of having the hard facts and evidence to back things up as to why certain things are or not in place when they should be. 

  In this podcast we get a perspective from a black elementary school teacher about the topic discussion about the history of slavery being taught to younger kids. I find it very interesting myself that growing up and back in elementary school I personally did not learn much about slavery and the oppression and effects it had on black people. Towards my middle school years going closer to eighth grade, I had more white teachers and I was at an all-black elementary school where everyone looks like you. You come up hearing about the Dr. King and Malcom X and Fredrick Douglas, but you never hear about George Washington Carver who discovered peanut butter and Lewis Latimer who invented the lightbulb. The technology and items we use on a daily basis most were invented and or founded by black people and we do not get the credit we deserve today. It goes to show how in most school systems government officials are trying to ban the teaching of African American history and slavery. In the podcast it mentions how schools talk about heroes and they do not talk about villains. Kate Shuster first interviewer as her role in leading the new framework of teaching the hard history to elementary school students.   The goal of the framework was to create a diverse range of access points for teachers for K-5 specifically and its difference in relation to trying to teach high school history. The idea behind this was to already look at lesson plans teachers had and not change it completely but to add and to expand on what they already were teaching and incorporate some minor changes for the perspective of K-5 so students at an early age can get an understanding and retain that crucial information that needs to be brought into the light.