Tuesday, September 6, 2016

The Giant Panda Is No Longer Endangered. It's 'Vulnerable.'

Lyric Abbott   
September 6, 2016
Current Events

The Giant Panda Is No Longer Endangered. It’s ‘Vulnerable'
In the article, The Giant Panda Is No Longer Endangered. It’s ‘Vulnerable,’ published in the New York Times by Liam Stack, it is stated that Giant Pandas are no longer considered an endangered species. Giant Pandas originate from China where the climate is frequently changing which will have a negative effect on pandas in the future. Giant Pandas are no longer close to becoming extinct due to the growing forests and protection in China. Efforts by the Chinese government to create better living environments for the pandas has changed their status to vulnerable as opposed to endangered. Although the pandas currently live in a safe environment surrounded by forest, climate change in the future could eventually demolish over 35 percent of the animal’s habitat which is mostly made of bamboo. This destruction is estimated to occur within the next 80 years. The Chinese government is taking full measure to ensure a safe environment for the pandas in order to conserve the species for as long as possible. Although Giant Pandas are no longer endangered, the Chinese government is taking strong measures to make sure their safety is not compromised in the years following.
The endangerment of Pandas leaves a huge affect on the world for many reasons. As humans, we are the ones who have caused the endangerment of pandas and for our own unnecessary benefit. By cutting down forests, we have made many different species of animals environments a very unsafe place for them to live. The article states that pandas survive mainly on bamboo and by cutting down these bamboo trees, we are depriving them of both food and shelter. Giant Pandas are important to mankind because they play a crucial role in the growth of China’s forests. The article also states that Giant Pandas spread seeds and help with the growth of vegetation as well which could benefit humans in the future.
Although the author of this article does a good job of getting the point of how pandas are no longer endangered across, their are a few things that could be improved in order for the article to be more clear to the reader. The author starts with a strong opening that introduces the main idea of the article and backs it up with a lot of factual evidence. As the article progresses, the author starts to talk about how eastern gorillas are far more likely to become extinct in the coming years. This part of the article was not as necessary to include because the article is about Giant Pandas and their endangerment and the title of the article does not make it clear that the article will go into detail about endangered gorillas as well. The author could have also included more detail and facts about how they became endangered in the first place because only a brief summary is given which does not leave me as the reader particularly satisfied.

5 comments:

  1. I think Lyric did well on summarizing the article and describing this issue. I also liked how she included percents, and number of years until the bamboo destruction takes place, to go into more depth on the issue. One thing she can improve on is not repeating sentences that she already talked about earlier in the paragraphs. I thought it was so shocking how much climate change is really going to affect the world for our descendants, even for species other than humans. Overall, I think that Lyric did a good job on this current event and made me become more interested in the topic.

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  2. A link to the review I read can be found here. A link to the article can be found here.
    I read Lyric's review on the article, "The Giant Panda Is No Longer Endangered. It’s ‘Vulnerable’”. She did an amazing job writing this review. One aspect I liked about her work was the way in which she summarized the article. She began with good news, telling us that the panda is no longer endangered, then she broke the bad news that they may be endangered again in 80 years, but finished the summary with good news that the government is going to try to stop this. Another thing Lyric did well was that she stated why pandas and other animals were endangered and gave ways in which we can help these animals. Finally, I liked the way she included statistics from the article because it made her review worth reading and helped state the author’s main points and reasoning.
    While Lyric did an amazing job in her writing, there are a few things she could have done better. The review ends very abruptly with her criticism of the of the author's writing which makes the reader only think about the bad after they are done reading. She could have added another sentence saying that overall it was a good article. Another thing she could have improved on would be in her relevance paragraph. She could have connected the article more personally to either herself or things around her so that the article seemed more relevant to the reader.
    I chose to read Lyric’s review because it was about pandas, one of my favorite animals. It also stuck out at me because her heading was organized and had the link to the article accessible. I was both happy and sad from reading this article. I found out that while pandas are no longer endangered, if measures are not taken, then within 80 years they will be close to gone again. This made me realize that even though this is not a problem here, it is still happening around the world and steps need to be taken to prevent the pandas from becoming endangered again.

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  3. Sarah W.
    September 12, 2016
    Current Event #2

    Stack, Liam. "The Giant Panda Is No Longer Endangered. It's 'Vulnerable.'" The New York Times. N.p., 6 Sept. 2016. Web. 12 Sept. 2016.

    Original Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/science/giant-panda-endangered-vulnerable.html?action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=1


    My classmate, Lyric Abbott wrote a review on the article “The Giant Panda Is No Longer Endangered. It’s ‘Vulnerable.’” By Liam Stack of the New York Times. In the beginning of this review, the author did a great job explaining why the pandas are no longer endangered and now considered ‘vulnerable’. This is important to do because it provides background information of the topic for the reader. She also did an excellent job describing how climate change can affect pandas in the future. An example of this is: “Climate change in the future could eventually demolish over 35 percent of the animal’s habitat which is mostly made of bamboo. This destruction is estimated to occur within the next 80 years.” Lastly, I think Lyric did a fantastic job on describing how the endangerment of pandas leaves an effect on the world. She stated, “The article also states that Giant Pandas spread seeds and help with the growth of vegetation as well which could benefit humans in the future.” This gets the message across that this could be a serious issue especially since it could potentially hurt the economy.

    Though Lyric did a great job on her review, there are a couple things that could be improved. First, the introduction doesn’t hook the reader. It just jumps right into “ it is stated that Giant Pandas are no longer considered an endangered species.” Something more interesting would want the reader to learn more about the topic through the rest of the review. Also, I was left confused when it was stated that pandas are no longer threatened, but the review later stated that climate could pose a threat. Though the climate change may take years to affect the pandas, it is still a threat now because scientists could work to find a solution to this. This could be changed around so the statements don’t oppose each other.

    Lyric did an outstanding job on this review. I found it interesting that pandas spread seeds that help the growth of vegetation. I was surprised by this because I didn’t know pandas potentially play a role in our economy and growth of vegetation. I now think this is an important article to read because pandas are significant in our ecosystem and our economy would be damaged if they were to go extinct or go back to being endangered. It is now crucial to figure out how to stop or deal with climate change to save animals such as Giant Pandas.



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  4. Tommy Purdy
    Mr. Ippolito
    Core Honors Biology I
    15 September, 2016

    The Giant Panda is No Longer Endangered, It's 'Vulnerable.'

    My Classmate Lyric reviewed the article, The Giant Panda Is No Longer Endangered. It’s ‘Vulnerable, and it was very well made. One thing Lyric does well is raising awareness for Pandas. A large portion of her review is talking about how humans deprive Panda’s of forests etc which is very important in getting the point across. She says things such as, “As humans, we are the ones who have caused the endangerment of pandas and for our own unnecessary benefit.” By saying things like this, she raises awareness of the issue which is very important to do. Lyric also does a good job on pointing out the Author’s mistakes. Lyric points out that the author would, “start to talk about how eastern gorillas are far more likely to become extinct in the coming years.” It was smart to point out useless information put in by the Author. Lyric also does a good job on pointing out the importance of Pandas. She says, “Giant Pandas are important to mankind because they play a crucial role in the growth of China’s forests.” By saying this, lyric points out the importance of Pandas and why we need them. If she had not done that, the reader would be much more confused and wondering what the significance of the article is.
    Although Lyric’s review was overall good; there were some parts that could have had improvement. One part that needed improvement was her summary. The summary was very long, tedious, and made up a little under half of the whole review. The reason that I believe this needs work is because the review of the current event should be more of the readers opinion than of a summary of the article. To fix this, Lyric could shorten the summary and make it brief. If she does fix it, she can then add more of her opinion to the article and therefore making it more interesting. Another thing Lyric could do is add more of an ‘opinion’ section to her review. Most of the review is just Lyric summarizing the article and then concluding on it. There is only one short paragraph talking about her opinion on the situation and there should be more. To fix this, lyric could shorten her summary and conclusion which would allow more room for a opinionated section. By doing this, the overall quality of the review would increase.
    Overall, Lyric’s review was good and I learned a decent amount from it. I learned that Pandas are actually productive in the society and don’t just sit around and do nothing all day. The reason I chose this article is because I am always interested in nature and especially animals. I always find enjoyment in reading about them. One sad thing in the article is that climate change is destroying bamboo forests which has a negative impact on Pandas. This is frightening to hear and really changes my perspective on how badly things can end up for Pandas.

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  5. For my write-up, I read Lyric’s report on the article The Giant Panda Is No Longer Endangered. It’s ‘Vulnerable,’ published in the New York Times by Liam Stack. There are many aspects of her article I truly enjoyed reading. One aspect of Lyric’s report that I found was excellent work was how she legitimately covered the main idea of the article. She was able to do this by giving us a grand amount of detail on what she read about these unique pandas and what the circumstances are if us as humans want to keep them off of the endangered list. For example, Lyric talks about how climate change in China drastically affects these creature’s habit. Although there is not much we can do about climate change, the chinese government is taking cautious measures in keeping these animals alive. Another aspect of her review I adored was her explanation in her relativity paragraph on how much these pandas actually benefit the forests of china and everyday life. For instance, she talks a lot about how we are depriving them of their homes as well as their food source. To aid this, we as humans must stop cutting down forests. Lastly, I thought that she had done a great job at making her report unique and intriguing. Lyric started her article with a powerful opening that caused me to continue reading on.
    In Lyric’s review, there are very few things that could be improved. One thing that she could have enriched was talking more about the government and what they are doing to save these pandas from becoming extinct. I would have liked to learn more about their methods of preventing these pandas from becoming abolished. Another thing Lyric could have improved on was giving more information on the background of this species of panda. In her first paragraph, she dives right into explaining the problem instead of providing the reader with some knowledge on these animals. A way she could have improved this was by looking up some basic facts about these pandas.
    There were numerous points in Lyric’s report that I found to be striking as well as thought-provoking. One thing that truly was compelling to me was the fact that climate change is said to destroy the habitats of these pandas within the next 80 years. This made me realize how damaging climate change can be. Even though we don’t really see it, throughout time climate change can be extremely effective towards the environment. Another thing that shocked me was that these giant pandas spread seeds throughout the environment to help the grow of vegetation. This new information absolutely showed me how intelligent these animals can be and how much of a positive impact they have on our society. After reading this, I am going to be more courteous towards animals and how we negatively affect their lives everyday for our own personal gain.

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