Annotated Bibliography #3

Geary, Lori. “MARTA Pushing for Largest Expansion in History.” WSBTV. 20 July 2015. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
In this article that was published by WSBTV, it talks about how badly MARTA wants to make the biggest expansion in history. In ordor to make this happen it would cost $8 billion dollars. Although this expansion would cost tax payers a lot of money, MARTA chairman Robbie Ashe sees this as an opportunity to promote economic growth and to help fill jobs. This new expansion would extend rail lines to parts of North Dekalb, Alpharetta, and parts of South Dekalb. MARTA rider Belinda Morrow explains to how she is sick of having to sit in traffic for long periods of time to get to work. She tells Lori Geary that she would much rather be sitting on MARTA reading a newspaper while on the way to MARTA. Although there are many people pushing to get this expansion completed, there are also many people that do not want to get this expansion completed.  As apart of my research over the built environment I have uncovered that one of the major reasons that many people living in Georgia do not want MARTA to expand is because an expansion would provide easy access to the suburbs. Many wealthy people do not want this because it enables minorities and poor people to have a better opportunity to take suburban jobs and move into the area. Although this is a big issue among taxpayers, MARTA hopes to have the sales tax issue on the ballot in 2016. This could be a big success for the city of Atlanta as the city has been known to have poor transportation for such a big city.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “A green view through a classroom window can improve students’ performance.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 January 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160122170932.htm>.
In this article that was published by ScienceDaily, the author talks about how having a green view through a classroom window will improve a students academic success. William Sullivan and Dongying Li conducted a research experiment and found that having a green view from the classroom window will relieve stress as well as increase the capacity to pay attention by 13 percent. In the research experiment which involved 94 students, some students were told to take a test in a classroom without a window, a classroom with a window showing a green view, and a classroom with a window showing another building. The results were that the classroom with a green view did far better than the other two options. Both Li and Sullivan claim that the reasoning behind this discovery is the “Attention Restoration Theory”. The theory says that when the brain is fatigued it likes to pull its attention towards effortless things like nature or living things to get a break. This is why having a green view from outside the classroom window is good because it forces a students brain to get an occasional break from stress. Li and Sullivan hope that their findings can influence schools all across the world to begin to implement changes in the way the classroom is built. This article went hand in hand with another article that we read as a class talking about how college students perform better on college campuses that have lots of greenery and nature. I believe that college campuses in downtown Atlanta should take notes from this article because unfortunately there is not a ton of green space available. If  these campuses implemented more green space than it could improve a students performance which is the ultimate goal.
Steinmetz, Katy. “The Gender-Neutral Bathroom Revolution Is Growing.” Time. 11 Jan. 2016. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
In this article that was published by Time, the author states that gender-neutral bathrooms are starting to become a big trend across the United States. San Francisco supervisor David Campos, announced a bill that plans to turn many single gender bathrooms into gender-neutral bathrooms. San Francisco would be apart of a few other cities that have implemented this bill. Campos argues that many people are impacted negatively by gender specific bathrooms. Some of the examples he gives are; a mother trying to accompany her son into the bathroom, but not knowing which to choose or a person trying to help a disabled person use the bathroom, but not knowing which to pick. In giving all of his examples he still wants to focus mainly on the LGBT community saying that this is a huge battle for their civil rights. Some of the arguments against this bill come from a Wisconsin bill that says that students must use the correct gender specific bathroom according to their biological sex. Campos says that transgender people are constantly being harassed for going into bathrooms where they are not welcome and that this needs to stop. He finishes off by saying that going to the bathroom is such a big necessity and nobody should have a difficult time or be in danger because of that. This article goes along with some of the readings and research that I have done over ‘accommodating’.  When people accommodate for one another we help each other try to fit in even if we do not fully agree with what is going on. Everyone wants to feel like they are included and important. This gender-neutral bathroom accommodation is spreading fast and it is only a matter of time before Atlanta implements this bill as well.

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