Mosquitos, Malaria, and Education 8-11-14

Bill Gates: Mosquitos, Malaria, and Education
8/11/14

Summary:

• In Bill Gates' talk, he explains the extreme problem of malaria, links it to flaws in the education system, links the two issues, and suggests solutions to both.
• The malaria problem: Malaria is a disease. It is spread by mosquitos, and found abundantly in many areas, especially regions of Africa. It affects pregnant women and children under five the most because their immune system is less functional.
• The education problem: Education could be improved significantly if changes in the teaching style and teaching expectations were changed.
• The solutions:

• Encourage use of bed nets in areas that have a malaria problem.
• Change the teaching style: Reward teachers who teach affectively, not teachers who have been teaching longest. 

Before watching the video I didn't know anything about the mentioned issues that should be improved in education. I also wasn't aware of quite how prevalent malaria is. Though the proposed solution wouldn't be easy, it was more straightforward than I was expecting. However, he didn't mention what should be done once mosquitoes became immune to the used insecticides. There is a certain point where you can't just keep using new chemicals, because eventually you will end up with ones so strong that they could do more harm thanhelp to people. In addition, I think it would be better to try to iradicate malaria than mosquitos. It would most likely be much harder, but mosquitos are part of the environment. I don't know how important they are in the environments where malaria is found most, but common sense and past mistakes by others is enough to know that you can't just pull out one organism in an ecosystem without having an effect on all the other organisms. I think it is of the upmost importance to protect people from malaria, however, I think we should be as lackadaisical when messing with the environment, because you could end up creating more problems. I think people should carry out research on how mosquitos fit into the environment, and if it is discovered that they have a big role (e.g. if they are the primary food source for an organism that helps pollinate the crops grown by people in malaria infected areas, it wouldn't be a good idea to go about slaughtering every mosquito and therefore limit the food production in an area) then people should try to find ways to kill malaria, and not the mosquito. Another question I have is: can the mosquitos bite through the nets? If so, how do people make sure that they are far enough away from the fabric that they don't get bitten. The reason I wonder this is because mosquitos would bite me through our "mosquito proof" tent whenever we went camping.

The movie:

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsgvhP07BC8

Images:

http://www.everythingessential.me/mainimages/Malaria%20mosquito.jpg

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