The class had its first socratic seminar of the semester yesterday. It was on a cute little number about corn; and by "cute", I mean absolutely psychotic. (The guy who wrote the piece also directed Food Inc.)
The piece explored man's heavy reliance on the super crop, and how we came to use it as heavily as we do today. Most of that corn isn't even eaten. Not but 1/3 of all corn produced is ever eaten leaving the other 2/3s for use in other stuff. Corn is in lots of things, and for good reason. It's super versatile, corn refinery is super cheap and the byproducts of corn refinery are just as useful.
My topics of conversation within the seminar were focused on this refinery process. Man has become so ridiculously dependent on corn, and it's pretty interesting to think about the implications that the sudden unviability of corn could have on the EVERYTHING industry. I feel like the conversation went pretty well aside from a two things:
This was a short week so I guess that really all I have to say. So here's a nice 4K image of corn for y'all.
The piece explored man's heavy reliance on the super crop, and how we came to use it as heavily as we do today. Most of that corn isn't even eaten. Not but 1/3 of all corn produced is ever eaten leaving the other 2/3s for use in other stuff. Corn is in lots of things, and for good reason. It's super versatile, corn refinery is super cheap and the byproducts of corn refinery are just as useful.
My topics of conversation within the seminar were focused on this refinery process. Man has become so ridiculously dependent on corn, and it's pretty interesting to think about the implications that the sudden unviability of corn could have on the EVERYTHING industry. I feel like the conversation went pretty well aside from a two things:
- We spent a stupid long time asking and answering questions about vocabulary. We have to get better with this. Issues such as these have always ticked me off, because for the first time in history people are able to learn whatever the heck they want through a few simple keystrokes. Most of the answers to questions about vocabulary could have been answered through, "Just Google it..."
- We had a heavily reliance on our teacher Matt to facilitate the conversation. Students weren't talking to one another, students were just talking to Matt. The best seminars I've ever been a part of involved the teacher physically removing himself from the conference table.
This was a short week so I guess that really all I have to say. So here's a nice 4K image of corn for y'all.