Wollan, Malia. "How to Survive a Stampede." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Nov. 2015. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/magazine/how-to-survive-a-stampede.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience>.
This article, “How to Survive a Stampede,” is about exactly what you might expect: it educates people on the steps necessary in order to ensure safer evacuation. They did tests on mice who were dropped into pools of water, which mimics the flow of humans in crowded areas like concerts or baseball games. At first, the mice in the confined space “tend to herd, but on later occasions they find all available routes and exit.” This decreased the amount of time it took them to escape overall by seven percent. Not only does this show that the mice were able to learn from their mistake, but also, it demonstrates that the fastest way out of a situation would be to find different paths. People, like mice, usually follow the crowd, but this can clog the exit, and they typically ignore others, which can lead to disasters. Caesar Saloma was the physics professor at the University of the Philippines who did the experiments on the mice, and his advice is simply to not “just do what the person next to you does.” When visiting any sort of event that gathers loads of people, suggested by Saloma, one should make a mental map of where the emergency exits are, and though they can’t actually practice the escape, they should think of the step by step procedure. This is very important because “at high densities of seven or more people per square meter, crowds can resemble fluids.” By having such a large density of people, it creates a large wave with powerful force that can compress people to death.
This article is relevant to today’s society because lots of deaths occur at religious and sporting events. One of the most recent was when the Pope visited more than six million people. Because of this enormous amount of people, Saloma was even asked to work on the crowd-control plan. This shows how serious this issue can be, even if at first, it doesn’t seem to be very important. People tend to forget how powerful crowds can be, and comparing it to waves give visual of this force. Also, because we can’t exactly experiment on people crowd, we have to resort to experimenting with mice, and compare the two organism’s movements.
Overall, this article was really interesting and relatively easy to understand. However, I wish this article would go more indepth with the experiments on the mice because that seems really interesting. Most of the thing was mostly basic logic, yet nobody seems to think about it when met with a crisis.
Great job! The title was the first thing to catch my eye haha! I was confused at first to what this article would be about. You ended up explaining that very well for me however. I understood what the experiment was and how the results ended up. I liked how you included a quote for the article! I love when people do that because it gives you the writer more credibility. I also enjoyed how you explained the experiment to real world situations. Such as the situation of the stadium with all the people and the pope. This gave me a better understanding of what the experiment was and how it is relevant to us.
ReplyDeleteI thought that you did a great job and I really liked how you added a quote. However, I wish that you could have added more information. I think that I got an understanding of the topic but I wanted to know more. Another thing I think you could do better is explaining the actual experiment. I understood the purpose and everything, and I know that you did explain the experiment. Unfortunately, I still had trouble understanding exactly what the experiment what.
Overall this article was actually pretty relevant concerning the evacuations that had to occur in Paris because of the terrorist attacks. I learned not to follow the leader in a crisis situation too which was interesting.
Wollan, Malia. "How to Survive a Stampede." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Nov. 2015. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. .
ReplyDeleteAmy,
I thought you did a good job on your review. I liked how you jumped right into the experiment that was being performed, and how you directly related it to humans. This pointed out the relevance and importance of the article, which made me want to read more. I found it very interesting how the physics professor, Caesar Saloma, related crowds to fluids, and how you provided his insight on what people should do in these situations. Then, you included a clear example of this study being relevant in today’s society--when the Pope came to visit the United States. I was unsure that, even though the experiment and connection to humans was interesting, it would be relevant, but you showed how it was. Your quote integration was also very well done and helped explain the article and your review.
One problem I had with your review was in the opening. It was very vague and unclear, because you said “they” but did not specify who “they” were. This weakened your opening and made it hard to follow. Secondly, your writing flow was very choppy, which also weakened your review. You used a lot of empty pronouns and had a few run on sentences. In doing so, you again made your review hard to follow because I wasn’t really sure what you were talking about at times. I think you should reread your review and see if it makes sense.
Overall, I enjoyed reading your review because I thought it was a cool topic. I chose it because of the vagueness at the beginning; I wanted to know just what the article was about. When I found out, I was happy I chose to read it. One big takeaway from the review was Saloma’s advice to simply not “just do what the person next to you does” in a crowd. I found this to be insightful and intriguing. Thanks for sharing!
I decided to read your article because learning how to survive a stampede seems important and you covered the topic very well! I enjoyed how you explained the scientist’s experiment in a way that was clear and understandable. I like the sentence where you quoted Caesar Saloma who said that your best chance of survival was not doing what the person next to you does. You also put advice in about mentally mapping the exits in a crowded enclosed area which was important as well. I further like how you related your article to today by saying many people still die at packed sporting or religious events.
ReplyDeleteYour review was really great, yet there are still two things I would improve with it. First, I would add more statistics like how many people die in the US or how many people die globally due to stampedes or crowds. Secondly, I would add more details about the experiment because the speed of the mice only increased by seven percent. I’m surprised that the scientists didn’t run more experiments to investigate it further.
Your article made me think about crowds in a way I hadn’t before. I never knew that scientists compared them to water, the way crowds can create waves. Now I’m going to clearly think about where the exits are in a crowded place before I go into one. It’s interesting that such a small act of locating where the exits are could save your life in an emergency. Great Job on your review Amy!
Wollan, Malia. "How to Survive a Stampede." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Nov. 2015. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. .
Amy,
ReplyDeleteI thought your review of a current event article was particularly well done. You started off the right way by clarifying the article’s title with regard to the article’s meaning as a whole. Also, you did a good job in finding a unique article such as this, as it speaks volumes to both social behavior in groups, as well as natural responses in moments of panic. In addition, I liked how you included quotes from professor Caesar Saloma of the Philippines, who described how people tend to follow the pack mentality in moments of panic and follow in the direction most other people are heading in. However, the professor argues that this is the incorrect approach as most others will follow in suit and make whatever opening unfeasible. In light of these things, I feel there were still a few things that you could have improved upon in your review. First, I think you could have added some context as to situations in which knowledge of pack-mentality and how to escape would be relevant. Also, it would have added to the overall repertoire of the review if you included ways crowd control is performed, rather than just referencing its use to pacify crowds. Lastly, I chose this article because it seemed unique to other bio articles, as it focused on the science of the human brain and how it reacts in a particular situation.