Paper Progress

When we first went around the classroom and chose our plants, I chose the coca plant mainly because I thought it would be interesting to learn about and easy to research. Well, it turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong. After hours of researching with nothing interesting to show for it, I decided to switch to opium poppy. While researching I found tons of interesting facts, but the most shocking was learning that America’s consumption of opium is funding the Taliban.
I would have never thought in a million that poppy plants would be contributing to the war on terror. I was originally searching the term “opium poppy” on the library database, but everything that popped up was somehow related to Afghanistan. Once I noticed this, I began searching terms related to both opium poppy and Afghanistan, which is where I learned that opium provides 30% of their economy. This topic struck my interest because it is different than the everyday topic, a very current issue that most citizens as well as the government are concerned with, and it is information that the average person does not know.
After I knew the area I wanted to focus on, the problem came with the research. Most of the information that I found was in news articles or magazines. It was very difficult to piece all of my findings together because most of the research was just talking about the current problem in Iraq. I had to look for the events/ history leading up to the problem and Americas role in contributing to the issue.
Eventually, after I got a feel for the timeline of events, I began researching certain topics in depth to fully understand everything. For example, it took me hours of research to understand why the United States couldn’t just spray pesticides on the poppy fields and be done with the problem. After searching various specific terms, such as “pesticide harm in Afghanistan,” I slowly began to find information on how pesticides would hurt the economy, farmers, as well as the environment. Then the problem was finding how the pesticide hurt farmers and why they couldn’t grow other plants. My research basically progressed slowly, but I always eventually found what I was looking for.
I feel like this paper is forcing me to truly understand the difference between legitimate websites and faulty ones. I am now realizing how many different sites there are with bias information that seems true. I am absolutely in love with the online resources the library provides, which I will probably be using for the rest of my life.