Monday Wellness Reflection

Here is the link to the presentation my partner and I did on Tea: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1p5qPYVY4Lb-YmD8kLTVXgrTS92qT44oaomtix3TXEZU/edit?usp=sharing

  I really wanted our topic to be on tea because I drink tea regularly. My favorite type is green tea and I probably have it 3-4 times a week. I also enjoy drinking a lot of rooibos tea because it smells and tastes very good. Tea really helps me de-stress and I wanted to take the opportunity of a Monday wellness to share the benefits of tea with other students. I also thought it would be a fun thing to learn more about. After presenting I felt that my peers acted more awake and excited than before the presentation, so it was nice to see that they enjoyed some of the teas. 

                                           

The most interesting thing I learned while preparing for the presentation was about antioxidants. I had heard of them before but I never knew what they did or what free radicals were. It was also cool to learn about antioxidants because I am a chemistry student and antioxidants get its name from the oxidation reaction (a chemistry process) that takes place. In an oxidation reaction, the reactants lose electrons; this is the concept behind the stabilization of free radicals. Another interesting thing I learned was how many different kind of tea there are and how different they all look and taste. Even though green tea, black tea, pu'er tea, and white tea are all from the same plant, they all look and taste extremely different.                                            

Our topic is important for health and wellness because of its amounts of benefits. Teas can help promote sleep and it relates to our health unit. They reduce the risk of some cancers and can make you feel less stressed out. Stress is a big problem with students my age and any idea that can combat stress is a great benefit to students like us.  Teas can also help you lose weight because of how it speeds up your metabolism by increasing insulin production (this can help diabetics). 

If I had to grade myself, I would give myself an 8.5 out of 10, because I spent most of the time setting up and cleaning up the activity and did not get a chance to present. We had originally planned to split the slides in half; I was going to say the last 5 and she was going to say the first 5. But the tea making process in the beginning of class took quite a bit longer than expected so I just had to be flexible and let her do the slides, so I guided the activity with the discussion at the end. I also tried to speak more by answering any questions or adding in bits of unmentioned information to make the presentation a little better. I still put lots of time into researching and writing up the powerpoint, and also making the worksheet for the tea activity. We also had to choose which teas we wanted to bring into class and to save time we each made one tea at home. I just wish we could have seen how long it would have taken to make all those teas before coming to class.