Change Is Still Needed

If you have been following my recent posts about Transphobia you can tell that I have a strong passion against hate crimes and the rate that hate crimes occur against transgender people. Hate crimes towards transgender individuals has gone up by 300 since January of 2016. There have been 24 transgender people killed since the beginning of 2017. In the process of learning about Transgender hate crimes and experiences, I decided to go out and interview two people. One, who deals with transgender patients when teaching them about safe sex. The second person is a transgender male who came out at an older age. I interviewed him about his life and struggles as a trans person. He then proceeded to tell me about the hate he received from his own family after coming out and how isolated he was for years.

For privacy reasons we will call this trans individual John. John then told me he was kicked out of his home at the age of 16 and lost all communication with his parents for years. The only person he had contact with was his sister.

Image result for transgender homeless youth

He was homeless for several years and had to provide for himself. In my latest research 40% of LGBTQ youth are homelss and John was apart of the 40%. Throughout my years of knowing John I would have never expected such a painful story from him because of the way he presents himself. This is a first hand experience showing to never assume things about people and their story.

To further my research I interviewed a worker at Children’s Hospital Of Philadelphia, Yexsy Alicea . His job is to educate trans youth on safe sex. He deals with a lot of patients whose parents are unsupportive and leave them to educate themselves on how to support their lifestyle. He talked about the amount of stress his transgender patients have in using public restrooms. All the hype in the media about what restrooms trans people can use has caused a restraint on them actually using the bathroom. 59% of transgender people avoid using public bathroom and there is approximately 1.4 million transgender people in the United States. In 2016 a survey in New York went around that 27,715 people answered.

Image result for transgender bathrooms

It founded that 12% of transgender people have been verbally abused, 1% physically attacked and 1% were sexually assaulted in the restroom. After this survey was taken North Carolina passed a Bill which forces transgender individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender at birth. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory said this Bill was necessary to “protect our children” and “preserve traditional values.”

Transphobia is still existent in the United States. Throughout my research of Transphobia I find that despite the growth of mindset in the United States toward the LGBTQ community, statistics prove that there is still need for improvement. Therefore, I believe that we must continue our efforts to overcome transphobia in the United States.


Bibliography





The Extinction of Orcas?

In my first post, I explored the horrific actions of orca captivity. As I studied and dug deeper into the treatment of orcas. I found current events about the situation and discovered facts that had shocked me, including brutal images that will haunt me for many days.

Recently, at SeaWorld Orlando, a female orca, named Malia, is living her final days as a captive orca. In the article, SeaWorld of Hurt: Campaign Updates, they had stated that the ten year-old orca has been facing excruciating and painful infections for years, up to the point where the pain had finally broken her down. The painful infections had caused an infection in her upper jaw area. The jaw is now discolored and many of her teeth are either damaged or broken. More than half of SeaWorld orcas have died due to the lack of care, resulting in the infections. Malia’s father, Tilikum and her sister, Unna, have died in 2015 and 2017 due to painful infections.

Image of Malia’s infected jaw. Credits


I found a very interesting  article, written by John Jett PhD and Jeffrey Ventre MD, both former SeaWorld trainers. These doctors were also cast members of the documentary, Blackfish. Both Jett and Ventre are orca captivity activists and do amazing things to aid orcas. John Jett has participated in “The Orca Project”, which is a “small but effective non-profit corporation, collaborating with some of the world’s top marine mammal experts and caring professionals from diverse backgrounds,”, stated on their website. There was a section in the article where they discussed the interaction between Corky and Kandu, two female orcas living at SeaWorld. An artificial death that wouldn't happen in the wild. The two already had tension between them for a long time, but one day, right as the show was going to start, Kandu rammed into Corky. Because of the force of the impact, it severed her jaw and severed an artery. Kandu, who was eleven years old at that time, slowly bled out for 45 minutes, in front of the crowds at SeaWorld San Diego, and eventually passed away from the loss of blood.

Image of Kandu bleeding into her death. Here is a video of it happening.  Image Credits



For my original research, it was a difficult and long journey. In the beginning, I had big envisions to have multiple interviews with marine biologists who specialize in orcas, but it ended up not working out. I contacted PETA and had gotten some answers back by an animal’s rights activist, Melissa White. Her answers were not what I had hoped for, so I had sent many more emails to anyone I could find. I even emailed all of the SeaWorld trainers that had a voice in Blackfish. I would have never thought that any of them would reply.

A couple of days after I had emailed the trainers, I received one email back from Jeffrey Ventre. It was a genuine exciting moment because I was so pumped that I had gotten to interview with a former SeaWorld trainer and a Blackfish cast member! Not to mention, he is a Physician and a medical doctor too. Shortly after, I emailed him my 10 questions I had, and within 30 minutes, he replied back with his answers.

Image of Dr. Ventre in Blackfish. Image Credits, also click to know more information about Ventre.

Here is a doc with the questions I asked and Dr. Ventre’s answers.

I asked him a variety of questions, ranging from his research to his personal experiences with orca captivity. I wondered what an experienced scientist, who specializes in the topic, would think what would happen to orcas in the long run. Dr. Ventre replied, “The only orca population that is endangered is the Southern Resident orcas, the ones SeaWorld decimated. They now don't have enough fish due to dams on the Snake and Columbia Rivers. If the four lower Snake River Dams are not breached, I believe this particular group will go extinct in your lifetime.” SeaWorld have captured at least 80 orcas from the Southern Resident waters. When the orcas were becoming scarce, SeaWorld ventured to different oceans, up north, the perimeters of West Canada.  

Image of the Killer Whale range from California and up. (capture range)


Going back to something I had pointed out, SeaWorld employees were supplying uneducated people with false information. I thought it would be interesting to ask Dr. Ventre, a previous SeaWorld employee on his experience. He replied that  as a trainer, received PR lessons from SeaWorld company about orcas that could be said to the guests. The information was very misleading said Dr. Ventre. To give solace to my excitement, I asked Dr. Ventre about the filming experience of Blackfish. He answered saying that it was a super fun experience because he gotten to reunite with his former trainer friends, and film at a beautiful location. Dr. Ventre, I, and many other people who are against orca captivity agreed that, in order to support the cause, people should not continue purchasing tickets; henceforth, helping the business decline. Also to spread awareness, even if it is simply educating another person the facts behind orca captivity.

I have thought about what I, as a young teenager could do for such a massive cause. For my agent of change, I have many ideas in mind. I could do something creative. For example, making an illustrative book, posters, or create a film. I could also start a fundraiser and with the money, I would be able to donate to an organization helping orcas. I also thought about trying to march in a protest, but since I live in the Northeast, there isn’t  protests on orca captivity. Stay tuned because whatever my agent of change is going to be, I will make sure it does become an agent of change.

Click here for my updated annotated bibliography.


Bullying: My Own Research

Bullying: My Own Research


  Hello, it's me Christopher Jacobs again and today I, after some of my own original research. My last post was all about the research and some personal experience in a major problem all around the world. BULLYING. Now this is a big problem that I have already talked about but  I have some of my own data from my fellow SLA students.



    For those of you who haven't seen my first post where I researched about bullying. It was basically me giving statistics about bullying. As well as me giving my own personal experiences on bullying and how it affects me. Now for me I had 3 options for this post and those were a field observation, survey and interview. I could have easily done any other but decided that a survey would be the most effective thing to do.


   What I made is a survey to collect data on personal experiences of people and bullying in their lives.  What I found was very interesting to be honest. I found that out of the 29 responses I got 13 were of people who told me they were not bullied. While the rest said that they were bullied before. Here's a graph that I have of this info from different responses.




After looking through this I found some interesting responses such as what I mentioned before. So then for my next question I asked them about the current state of this and if they were still being bullied and overall a lot of people said no. When I saw this I was honestly really happy as it shown me that out of this survey the students that answered (which a lot were from my grade were not ever subject to bullying.). But from what I read from their responses a lot of them were victims of bullying during younger grades for their looks usually.



 

  I also asked a question that I felt was just as, if not bigger than your standard bullying. Cyberbullying, now if you don’t know what cyberbullying is bullying but digitally such as messages, and social media. So I was curious and decided to ask about it and see if people were cyberbullied. Again I got a positive graph. So now  21 people said they weren’t ever cyberbullied while 8 people said they were. Graph is here below.


   





        For my final question I decided to ask any long effects from bullying. I got what I mostly researched such as anxiety. Plus some other things like people not making friends as easy as they used to. Overall this survey really opened up my eyes and some more and better insight from current students as well.



  This really to me gave me a different look as my fellow classmates that are currently students showed to not be bullied as much but were before. So I did some more research for this and found 20% of high school US students report being bullied. This after I compared it I found to be not that close to my own percentage of kids bullied being a bit higher.



   Overall I really enjoyed this survey as I got to learn just a bit more about my fellow students at SLA in a whole. This survey to me really made me happy as a majority of my classmates never had to go through the pain and suffering of bullying. I truly believe that even if not many people took this this really helped me as well to see how true the statistical “facts” about bullying are.


The Sexual Wellbeing of Our Youth (Original Research)

In my first blog post, I discussed the lack of sex education on a national level, as well as within the city of Philadelphia. I also talked about what could happen to a teenager if precautions are not taken before sex. Pregnancy, STDs, STIs, and other issues can occur when the necessary precautions are not taken before sexual activity. I talked about our country has a really high rate of teen pregnancy, and that our city has a pretty high amount of STDs. Since that initial post, I have learned much more about this topic, thanks to a primary source.


I conducted an interview to contribute to my own research. I interviewed SLA’s health teacher, Pia Martin. During our short interview, she brought up multiple excellent points that I have never even thought of. She explained that teens with depression or low self esteem were likely to engage in dangerous sexual activity. She also explained that drug use was a huge issue with teens, and said that it contributed to the STD statistics for teens. I looked into this claim, and found multiple sources that explained that drug use increased the chance of STDs.


The new information gathered from my interview added to my pre-obtained knowledge by providing great insight that could be translated to new information to cite, and widened my own perspective of the topic of safe sex among teenagers. In terms of personal opinions, I think that although it’s irresponsible to have a child or engage in sexual behavior (without protection), it’s a problem that’s bigger than the child itself, and more can and should be done to prevent it from happening. I still believe that it is essential to provide a decent sex education to ensure the safe future of teenagers. I also think that the idea that mental illness is involved with this issue brings a whole new dynamic to what needs to be done. We should also be concerned of the mental wellbeing of our teens! It should be a no-brainer, but obviously, there still needs to be change.


For my ‘agent of change’, I wish to design and distribute posters. I would ideally put them inside the school, and around the city. On the poster, I would put some scary statistic in bolded red, such as “Scary STD kills 2000 kids a second.” (something like this). This would be an interesting endeavor because not only would I have to compile information that could be useful for the poster, I would have to design the poster in such a way that would attract people walking by.





























ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY




Image result for teen smoking] Teen substance abuse can increase your chance of STDs, and even teen pregnancy;

Something More Than A Litter Bug

Something More Than A Litter Bug


If you haven’t seen my recent post on litter, come check it out here.


My first blog post was diving into an online research about litter. I discovered that one of the contributors to litter was straws. I found that I had to go further with straws after seeing a video of a straw stuck inside a turtle’s nose. I visited many websites on how straws could affect wildlife, more specifically marine animals. And so my journey began and I am here today to take my research onto the real world.


For my further research, I decided to go out and observe the area nearby my neighborhood. I first needed to make a list of what I needed to observe and have my purpose to be clear. I was first thinking about only focusing on straws but why ignore the remaining litter because any type of litter is still endangering. So then I came up with my purpose of observing litter in general. Many questions occured around me and some were “How many people littered?”, “How did they litter?, “Why did they litter?”. The questions could go on forever


I decided that I shouldn’t focus too hard on finding one thing because I needed an open mind while doing this research. There’s so much to find and everything could contribute to my research. I simply took out my phone and decided to take a walk around my neighborhood. I found many places where litter could be hidden or tossed into. Strangely, there are many places where litter can be found but there is almost a go-to litter place around the neighborhood where piles of litter can be found. Whether it be leftover food containers or old household items, it is still considered litter and I took note of this.


A photo taken of large amounts of litter stockpiled in a hidden gap.

A photo of litter found in the corners of houses.


As I continued my observation, littering became more obvious. I had never sat down and watched if litter occurred as often as it does now. I like to relate this to cutting or skipping a lunch line. Many people still do it and many people hate it. It’s something that we all know and can relate to. Some methods could be “meeting with a friend” or just straight up cutting. This goes in the same way as littering because I find that people sneak a empty bottle around a corner when nobody's watching or they throw trash without caring. To add to that, others also openly litter by dropping off their remainings of their lunch from their car window.




Photos of straws found hidden next to rocks or within grass.


After I was finished with my observation, I continued my online research. Recently, a CURBED Philadelphia article has been published. The article speaks about a new map that users could test the litter around their neighborhood on a scale of 1-4. I recently test this on my neighborhood and found that the average score was about 2.5. According to my observation, I found this accurate because I wouldn’t say everything is terribly dirty but there is still litter. In addition, the map also shows that the deeper you’re in Philadelphia, the more litter you might find.


In the end, change needs to happen and it will. Currently, Philadelphia is identifying the problem using a snapshot of how polluted the city is currently. Knowing this, I am thinking of my agent of change to be something around my neighborhood and friends. I want to start small and I can do this by referring back to plastic straws. I have seen many organizations on plastic straws and I plan to help them out by possibly calling restaurants nearby to only give straws upon request only.


Check out my Annotated Bibliography for further information


Catcalling In Society

All of my research from post #1 has impacted the way I have continued to think about catcalling. My research before was about how growing up is not as easy as it may seem, especially if you are a young woman. Men have grown up in this society where they feel the need to make comments about our bodies without thinking twice about it. As women we do not appreciate theses comments. Obviously some women feel as though they enjoy the attention and feel as though men are doing nothing wrong going ahead and commenting on their bodies. They don’t think about how some girls can be 12 with a well developed body that makes them perceive as a woman at least 18 years old. So men believe it is okay to make sexual comments towards them without thinking that they may be under the age of consent.This is when catcalling becomes such a thing that needs to be seen and made aware to the world. When doing this second post I had did my own observations by making women take a survey and tell me how they feel about Catcalling.If you would like to view my first post the link is here.

Since the last post I have taken the initiative to dig deeper into the stories I have found on the internet and see what stories I can get on my own. At first I found some credible sources from women writing about what had done to make awareness of catcalling and their personal experience. As Rachel Hosie had said,“For me, it has always been more than an annoyance. It’s shaped my experience in public space. It’s affected my confidence and comfort walking down the street. It’s silenced me ― I’ve never felt comfortable responding to catcalls, as much as I’d like to tell these men off.” When I seen this article it made me think back into my 1st post and realize the connection between both. Each of the articles I had forund had a way of saying they needed something to change but neither one of them had done anything. They had just said they wanted to do something but writing about it was their way of getting something done. In this tense though this time someone wrote about how they felt and also even made a way to bring awareness. Rachel had put sidewalk chalk in bins in NYC where she let women right different catcalls they had received so, women and men were able to see that first catcalling is not a right thing but also to show to the women that they aren’t alone.




This article made me realize that if one person feels as though this way then multiple people may also so, I created a survey with a couple multiple choice and short answer questions that would help me get information for my cause from different age groups to be able to see how they view catcalling. This did take a little longer then expected trying to get responses since not everyone feels comfortable talking about their experiences or giving up about 5 mins of their time responding to this survey. At the end I had received about 80 responses giving me more than enough stories and their personal opinion about catcalling to write about. At the end of everything the results were very shocking. After all the responses I was still left wondering if there is anything that can actually be done to change and get through men's heads that catcalling is not okay.

The first question of my survey was How old are you? This was to get a general idea of the age range I was retrieving from survey takers. Majority of the people that had took the survey were between the ages of 15-16 making them freshman or sophomores in high school. With some of the data you can also notice that I had some survey takers that were between the ages of 11-12 which opened my eyes as soon as I looked at the data because it shows how not just adults receive sexual comments made towards them. This also relates back to the article in Post 1 about the statistics showing kids between the ages of 11- 12 recieve comment from men of all ages because of the way child may look may seem as though they are older then they truly are.

This was the second question of my survey was Have you ever been sexually harassed from catcalling? This showed how 77.5 % out 80 people which is 62 people have been sexually harassed from catcalling. Which is pretty intense that only 18 other people were not. This is showing to me how it is more likely to be sexually harassed then not so if you ask more people it would be more of a chance that they say yes then no which is such an eye opener to myself and I hope to everyone else too.

Now here is my third and fourth question: At around what age did you first receive a sexual comment made from an unknown male? And describe a time where you were the victim of Catcalling. This is when information received changed the way things were seen. When you look at the  the graph is is showing about what age did each women receive their first catcall. Majority of the people said they received their first catcall between the ages of 11-16. These were the 3 top age range that had gotten any type of sexual comment made to them. Then their is personal experiences given by 37 of our survey takers. Each of them gave a personal story they felt they would share for this project. This was the exact part that made me say wow. How can so many people have so many experiences with catcalling that could of lead to so many more serious problems; mental issues, low self esteem, and much more.

While looking at these two answer charts that I received from my survey made me realize that majority of the women feel as though catcalling is not a good thing and they really do not know exactly what to do to stop this situation because of the comments making women feel unsafe around their surroundings but also make them feels as though they are objects and not human beings and this is something that has been going on for so long that they feel as though that nothing that maybe thought of will change the mindset of a man to stop from making these degrading comments to women.

When looking at all this information I received It made me realize how many women go through catcalling on a daily. Also some of their stories showing how rude men or if you may want to call them boys degrade women with harsh comments that they feel as though will do no harm.This all adds to my research because I was able to see this for myself and not get this information online where I wouldn’t know if some of these stories were false, but when i had read some of my survey takers experiences it showed me that this is something that needs to change even if it isn’t a immediate change something need to give.

At the end of this all I am still left wondering what I could do for my Agent of Change because there are so many things that I could do to bring awareness. I feel as though if i put something together I can make a short film having women speak about catcalling and post it and see where it leads from there. Obviously this is one idea I hope to think of something more thoroughly.


Annotated Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1semQkUFkWIfrTt7-4D7wBLAFR4YS0_vT0ISagUwy2bw/edit?usp=sharing


Asian American Voting Rights Activists' POV

Before reading on...take a look at my first blog post, Where Are Their Voting Rights?

This will give you background information of what is going on with Asian American voting rights from the past until of now. From the Voting Rights Act to the changes that have been made and the ways people have helped in this issue.


According to CAAM, in 2012, eight million Asian American and Pacific Islanders were able to vote and only 47.9 percent of them voted. Even though, the population of eligible voters increased by 29 percent since 2010, voting for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is still a problem. Asian Americans that live in swing states like Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania is also a problem because it would take a longer and broader time of allowing them to in civic participation. Ways that they try increasing the population of Asian American voters are phone banking, going to door to door, and having volunteers to help out with voting registration and language difference.

For some Asian American voters, language is still a problem at voting polls. For example, Saurabh Das was not only able to vote at the poll, he was able to help other voters at the poll by translating the ballot in different languages for non-English speakers or readers. IN 2014, he was put in jail for translating for his mother at the voting poll and for not being registered to vote in Williamson County, Texas. Because he was put in jail, his mother wasn’t able to vote for the person she wanted to and mistakenly voting for a different person.


For my original research, I decided on interviewing Wei Chen, the Civic Engagement Coordinator of Asian American United (AAU) and Xu Lin, one of the board members of AAU and currently the owner of Bubblefish. I was also planning to send out surveys to seventh and eighth graders at my old school, FACTS because I thought that it was be better to have two points of view of Asian American voting rights, not only from experts but so young citizens because they will be making a difference in the community one day and from asking them for their opinions about Asian Americans will change knowledge of what’s going on and my perspective of Asian American voting rights. I wasn’t able to send out surveys because I thought of it as a plan b if my interviews did not work out as planned.

While I was interviewing Wei Chen, I learned that if people that are trying to make a change to voting rights for Asian Americans, it would take at least five to ten years to see little changes happening in the community. For elders or older generations from China, some may be unfamiliar with voting booths or polls because in China, there is no voting booths or polls.


For more information of the interview, take a look at the transcript below.

From the interview with Xu Lin, I learned that you don’t necessary need to be apart of an organization everyday to fight for the justice of the issue that you think is important. For example, Xu Lin is now an owner of a restaurant and since he would like to see a difference in Asian American voting rights, he is willing to allow GOTV volunteers to borrow the room in the restaurant for meeting and more.


To hear my interview with Xu Lin, view the voice recording below. I apologize in advance if it is hard to hear.


https://drive.google.com/open?id=1R9REslzVWUGLt8CAMCoKl_Ii2gUKkdM_


For my Agent of Change part of the You and The World project, I was thinking of volunteering at Asian American United (AAU) to help out with voting registrations or notifying citizens in Philadelphia to register as a voter. I also thought of creating a presentation to present to the class or a class at a different school while volunteering at Asian American United because if I present this issue to others in the community, more people will be notified about this issue and pay more attention to voting rights and helping out citizens that are non-English speakers or readers. This is only an idea so I am not sure if my ideas for my Agent of Change would change or not.


Annotated Bibliography


Make Wage Inequality a Thing of the Past


In my first post,I discussed how the gender wage gap is different for different types of women. It varies based on both age and race. Some of my research for this post included finding some more statistics about the inequalities between men and women in the workforce. I learned that a woman with a masters degree makes about the same as a man with a Bachelor’s Degree. A woman with a Bachelor’s Degree make around the same amount of money with a man with an Associate’s Degree. Women also tend to go for sub-majors that do not pay as much. For example, women hold 56% of jobs in biological and life science while they only hold 17% of engineering jobs.

For my original research,  I conducted an interview with Laura Mattiacci. She is a partner at Console Mattiacci Law. This is a law firm that focuses on representing people who have been treated unfairly at work. She got into this type of law because she wanted to be able to represent people who could not speak for themselves.




Laura Matticci
Laura Matticci

After school on the day of the of the interview, I went down to the office. I get down there and I  told the security guard in the building that I was there to see Ms.Mattiacci, the security guard called up to her office and they said that she is not in the building. I am then told that my interview was supposed to be over the phone. At this point it was around 4:25 (my interview was scheduled for 4:30), so I did not have time to go home and do this interview. After getting some advice I went back into the building and asked if there was office I could sit in to do my interview. They said yes and I went up to their offices. Once I got on the phone with Ms.Mattiacci she said that she had not been notified of this interview, and had no idea what she was supposed to be talking about. Below are my questions as well as a few notes.


Screenshot 2018-03-18 at 09.14.21
Screenshot 2018-03-18 at 09.14.21
These are the notes I took during my interview
These are the notes I took during my interview

In the interview, she told me about how the best way to prevent wage discrimination based on gender is by being transparent about how much people are making.If people know what others are making, they can know if they are being paid fairly.  One way to promote this is through unions. In a union, where everyone is fighting for the same cause. She said that many people do not know that they are being paid unfairly.

She also told me about the Lilly Ledbetter Act which talks about how long you can wait to sue for unfair pay. That was the last law passed about the gender pay gap. Ms. Mattiacci said she does not predict that any new legislation will happen until the current administration is not in power. Sadly, she said that as of now we are going back in time when with wage inequality. After my interview, I am still wondering what I personally can do. It does not seem like there is much of a movement about this issue.

To go with this interview I also read an interview with NPR where a woman from an Icelandic Women’s Rights Organization was talking about a system that they are using to prevent the wage gap. This system involves an audit for businesses that have  25 or more employees. This makes sure that these companies are paying their workers what they deserve based on how much work they are doing for the company. If a company realizes that they are not paying their employees equally they are required to fix it so that their employees are being paid what they deserve. This has surprisingly resulted in raised for men as well as women. Since the program is quite expensive they are starting with the biggest companies and are hoping to make there way down to smaller ones eventually.

For my activism stage of this project, I am considering doing something that is based on awareness towards this issue. This may include creating a website about this issue or maybe creating flyers or posters about this issue. I hope that I will be able to do something that helps the women of tomorrow be paid what they deserve.

Go here to view my annotated bibliography

Gang Violence - Not a Single Story

In blog post #1, I took an issue in the world and I further developed it to see what could be done to solve it. I focused more on why I was passionate about the topic as well as sources for information. I proved its significance as a valid topic and went into further depth about the issue. I explained the impact that it has on people and why it needs to be solved. Lastly, I had to explain what I wanted to learn going further, and from then I have learned a lot.


Since my last post a lot of new information has been discovered. In my recent findings, I found an organization who not only share my concern for gang violence but they are actually doing something about it. Philanthropy Roundtable is an organization that is combating violence with nonviolence. They offer a lot of programs and take in a lot of donations. I recommend checking out their magazine, Philanthropy Magazine and they have an excellent website as well. Another source that I used I actually reused the website and found a different article. It is an article about gang resistance education and training law from the site US Legal. It is about a program that teaches youth how to protect themselves from threats like gang violence. These programs are focusing on the same type of things that I am. Solving gang violence with nonviolence is the best solution when combating this issue.


In my original research I interviewed one of my classmates. Like me she lives in a neighborhood were gang violence is common. She is affected by gang violence everyday. This helped inform me on my issue because we both have different stories and different memories and live in different neighborhoods. We both have a different perspective on the same issue and are affected by it in similar ways. She informed me on how gang violence effects neighborhoods on a bigger scale. This helps me understand my topic better because it informs me that I am not the only one who realizes that this issue is an issue. It also helps me understand how specifically this issue affects others. With this interview, I am now very informed on the current issue that is gang violence.


After doing a fair amount of research and having a strong opinion on the matter, I feel as though the only way to protect neighborhoods and their citizens from gangs and gang violence is to non-violently inform them so that they can protect themselves. Also I think that putting more patrol cars in sketchy areas is necessary. After all of my research I still am left wondering what is the real reason for one to join a gang? Is there really one solution that solves it all? What can I do as a citizen and as a youth to inform people on this topic? I wanted to see if I could get this information from an expert. Along with my interview with my classmate I was supposed to interview a police officer who specializes in gang violence and gun violence, unfortunately the interview did not work out. Now that I have done all of this research I plan on looking into some of the programs about gang violence and developing my agent of change.


Annotated Bibliography


Light Pollution

Two  Sundays ago I walked around the city with my mom and took some pictures of the tall buildings.It was windy, but me and my mom survived, we walked to 30th street up toward the bridge on Schuylkill River to take a good  picture of the city.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lSvMeJUmNnhbMoaLe4A-UnbLe8hMga5wY_CxSxMvZsY/edit. I took like nine pictures on my phone. This is a hard picture to take because it was a hard angel because it was when we were walking to catch the trolley in 22nd street.Trust me,it was really cold it felt like 10 degrees I hope you enjoy this doc.If the lights look green, it is really blue.    


I learned that Philadelphia is one of the worst cities with light pollution. In fact, Washington, DC to Boston has the most light pollution in the United States. Germany has the worst light pollution in Europe which has the worst light pollution on Earth.  


Here is the link to my annotated bibliography.



Farms and Food Waste

In my previous post, I talked about food waste and how it is a major world problem that does not get the attention it deserves.  The good news is that food waste is an issue that can be solved. Eliminating waste would save all of the resources that go into making, processing and distributing uneaten food.  It would also diminish the amount of methane released into the atmosphere. As I continued my research about food waste, I started to focus on where the waste starts: the farms where food is grown.


Since I made my last post, I found out that 20% of all food never even makes it off of the farm. Like I said in my last post, farms don’t give their foods to big brands like Acme or Costco because they know that the food won’t be bought by consumers. They don’t give away the food to shelters because the farms don’t receive tax cuts, which means all food transported to different areas comes out of their own pocket. Because of this, many farmers just throw out any extra or misshapen produce and leave it at that. Many organizations are starting up in response to food waste and have started delivering farm produce straight to people’s doorsteps, but these companies are few and far between.


Most big time companies, like Costco, only buy the best looking produce available from farms, which starts the cycle of food waste

For my Original Research I wanted to interview two companies, one called Move for Hunger that moves produce from families moving out of their homes and gives the food to shelters. The other company I wanted to interview was Whole Foods, just to ask about how they deal with food waste since it is an issue that they are aware of. I ended up interviewing neither of these places, since both did not answer my emails. But thanks to Ms. Giknis, I was able to interview an organization called Imperfect Produce.  


Imperfect Produce is a company that imports fresh produce that otherwise would have been wasted from local farms in California and distributes the fruits and veggies to people in the state. People get major discounts if they’re buying it online, getting organic food for half of what it would cost at the supermarket. Although the Imperfect Produce started in California, the company has been spreading to major cities outside of the state such as Portland and Seattle. The person I interviewed, Anneliese, worked in a department called Brand Management where she made the logos for the company.  She also organies events to get more publicity about the company. I did record the conversation, but when I saved it to my downloads it saved as text file instead of audio, so I don’t have the transcript or the recording of my interview.


In the interview, I learned how Imperfect Produce ordered the food from farms and the basic workings of the company. The company is slowly growing, and it plans to become national and reduce food waste and the problems it causes. Since its opening in 2015, they haved saved over 15 million pounds of food from being waste and have saved 42 million pounds of Co2 from entering the atmosphere.


For my Agent of Change, I was thinking of looking at how much money my mom and I spend and waste on food in one month and then the next month see how much money we can save by being more aware of how much we spend on food. I’m not sure how I would calculate how much we spent, but I hope I can figure something out. If there is a significant difference in the amount of money we spend, I hope we can contribute less and less to food waste as the year goes on.



Here’s the link to my Annotated Bibliography


Exhilarating the Nation's Curiosity

Artist’s rendering of NASA’s SLS on the launchpad.  Credit: SpaceNews.com: http://spacenews.com/nasa-sets-december-2019-date-for-first-sls-launch/

“All three engines up and burning.  3, 2, 1, 0, and liftoff! The final liftoff of Atlantis.  On the shoulders of the Space Shuttle, America will continue the dream!”  Since the end of the Space Shuttle program, NASA has aimed for the much more ambitious goal of sending a man to Mars.  Currently, they plan to launch man to Mars by the mid 2030’s In the last blog post, I talked about how NASA’s funding has declined since its apex in the 60’s 70’s and the moon landings.  Since then, the Space Shuttle has expanded knowledge of living within space but it can travel no further than low earth orbit.  To do that, they need to build a new Space Launch System or SLS. However, it is already much more expensive than the proposed BFR from SpaceX who plan to launch more to Mars at just a fraction of the cost.  One possible reason for this is the change of power in the United States meaning change in plans for NASA’s programs, leading to progress taking a long time to be done with constantly changing goals.  

After having collected surveys from students at SLA, I would like to share my results, but before that, I will state the goals of my survey.  My plan for the survey was to ask people how much they believed that NASA receives, along with whether they should receive more or less funding.  As I continued my research, I began to add more questions based on companies like SpaceX competing with NASA. When it came to the answers, the common answer to “how much money do you think NASA receives?” was around the ballpark of 2-5 Billion, with some saying in the range of millions, and one answer saying trillions, but the trend is showing that people think NASA receives less money than they actually do,

which is around 18 Billion.

The majority of people believed that NASA should receive more funding, and they said that the money for that should come from the budget for Government or Military for the reasons of it being important for them to combat global warming and advance technology on earth with endless possibilities.  The people who said that NASA should receive less funding said that it should go to education, citing the reason that our school system is falling apart and would need the funding.

Another question that was added was on the topic of NASA’s manned Mars mission, which to me, would show the people’s faith in NASA to send humans to Mars within a decent time frame.  The majority had faith in NASA to land a man on Mars before their planned date timeframe of the 2030’s


For the next series of questions had to do with NASA versus private companies when it comes to landing a man on Mars first.  NASA plans to use the SLS to launch humans to Mars while a likely rival is SpaceX with their Big Falcon Rocket or BFR, who plans to get to Mars cheaper than NASA, but a timeframe isn’t clear yet.  This question was more split with slightly more than half believing that NASA would send humans to Mars first, citing that these private companies might not be reliable and the rest saying that Private companies will send humans to Mars first, with one reason being as they are cheaper than NASA.  

 

Annotated Bibliography here.

New Information on the Illegal Animal Trade

In the last post, I talked about my You and The World Project and how I picked illegal animal trafficking as my research topic. I learned how the rarer an animal is, the more demand there is going to be for that specific animal or animal product. Also, the reason why there isn’t that much information about the people selling these products is because they are big industries that provide financial support. Furthermore, illegal animal trafficking is also usually done by people who are local and who live in low income neighbourhoods, which is why they end up turning to illegal animal trafficking.


 Image result for illegal animal trafficking
Ivory being cut from a rhino to be illegally traded. © MICHEL GUNTHER / WWF-CANON

When live animals are trafficked, they can suffer from malnutrition, stress, depression, loneliness, and even death. According to an article from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,) animals have a mortality rate of 80-90%. From the same article, I also found that 90% of reptiles trafficked die within a year. When wildlife animal buyers realize they cannot care for animals, they abandon them by setting them lose to the wild or leave them outside of a zoo. This can cause animals to either die of starvation or to end up becoming an invasive species. Buying an exotic animal can not only be harmful to the animals themselves but also to humans. The article states, “Parrots and other exotic birds can transfer potentially deadly pathogens such as psittacosis, salmonella, and even avian tuberculosis to humans.” This shows how humans can gain all kinds of diseases from the wild animals they buy. It also says that “With the number of inspectors, we are able to physically inspect 25% of wildlife shipments.” Even with the regulations that are put to protect wild animals from being illegally traded, the laws are barely enforced.


Related image
Baby orangutan found in backpack being illegally trafficked. (Photo: WCS Wildlife Crimes Unit)

One of the biggest contributors to the illegal animal trade is people who buy exotic animals to keep as pets. According to the The National Humane Education Society, “For one, many owners do not have the knowledge or financial ability to adequately replicate a wild animal’s habitat within their own homes. Second, many exotic pets, such as hedgehogs and sugar gliders, are extremely small and can be easily crushed by furniture, closing doors, rowdy children, etc. Birds, specifically have the unique ability to fly away, only to die in temperate climates once the outdoor temperature drops in the winter. Third, not all veterinarians treat exotic animal patients.” This shows how just because people want to have a “cool” pet, they can end up hurting both themselves as well as the animal they are taking care of.


Related image

Tiger cub being smuggled in suitcase. Photo credit: "Wildlife Checkpoint, Suvarnabhumi Airport."


After all this new research, and learning so many new interesting things about wildlife trafficking, I decided to conduct my own research. I interviewed Susan Lieberman, the Vice president of the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society.) In the past, she had also worked for the WWF-International as the Director of the Species Programme. She also worked for the US Government at the US Fish and Wildlife Service. She has a PhD in tropical ecology. Dr. Lieberman has also worked on the intersection between science and law. This is why I thought she would be the perfect person to interview.


Susan Lieberman, PhD

For my interview, I really wanted to ask questions that would either expand my knowledge about a certain topic or teach me something completely new. From my interview with Susan Lieberman, I learned many new aspects of wildlife trafficking as well as got a more insider look on what things were really like and on how deep and widespread the problem is. Here is a transcript of the interview I did. I also learned more about the ways that both individuals and government institutions could help stop this illegal trade. Some questions that I am now left wondering about is why don’t people know more about this issue and why don’t governments enforce the laws more to protect animals?


Picture of interview questions during phone interview.

All of these new things that I learned make me want even more to help stop this horrible trade. Now I know that there is more that needs to be done because if we don’t do anything, animal species could become extinct. For the last step of this project, our Agent of Change, we have to physically do something that is going to help end the problem that we picked (illegal animal trade.) For this, I am not sure what I want to do. I am thinking of maybe posting a video or poster on social media to help inform people about the problem. Finally, I hope you learned about the problem of the illegal animal trade and you help spread the word because we can all help make a change.



Annotated Bibliography


Here is why colleges is so expensive

Here’s why colleges are so expensive

Annotated bibliography



In Blog post 1, I talked about why colleges are so expensive. They were expensive because of main reasons like inflation, the need of college, and popularity. Because colleges know you need and want them, they want to make it more because they can. Also, if non-popular colleges raise their prices the more popular and expensive colleges will raise theirs to make it seem like they are better.  These things are the reason colleges are about 33,000 a semester.

Some new information, coming from Quora, gives even more reasons. Another reason that I did not mention the cost of textbooks. Textbooks are extremely expensive not only because of the price but the quantity. A textbook is about $150, but you have to multiply that cost with the amount of classes you have. Another reason is the teachers. They get paid a pretty good amount, which the college has to give so the colleges need more money so they can pay for them. College professors get about 25K per course. Another source says that one of the reasons colleges are so expensive is because the state usually doesn’t give much support to public colleges. Because the State gives more money to private, because they know they will be successful, public gets less support. I interviewed some college students. I asked them these questions. I got many different helpful responses. Here is an example of what one student responded with. These responses gave me many different types of views like, whether college is worth the price. Some said no unless you get a good job out of it. Some said yes, no matter what college is worth it. I personally think after all this research that college is worth the price but the price is a bit extreme. One of the questions I asked was, “What’s the worst thing about college?” I asked that because I was wondering if price was the worst thing about it. I am wondering if people really don’t care about the price, or if they got used to the fact that it is really expensive. These interviews gave me many insights on how college is different for different students in different colleges. It’s also interesting to see the ideas they have to make colleges cheaper. For my final blog post, which is to make a change to the problem,I was thinking of getting money to via donations or fundraiser, and to give it to college student that are having a problem paying.

cost of college
cost of college

Heavy Eyelids

In my first blog post for the You and The World project, I have completed a lot of research on sleep disorders, specifically in teenagers. I mentioned insomnia, sleep apnea, and other causes of a lack of sleep. I have listed statistics for both disorders, and I have closed out with an original research plan.

Since my first blog post on the topic of sleep disorders, I’ve had a plan for the original research. I’ve researched a lot, and now it’s time go deeper into it.

My first original research plan was to put a survey in an advisory memo (you can take it if you want, it doesn’t matter anymore), or just send it to every freshman if possible. Most of the questions were about normal sleep, and there were some diverse answers from the few people I sent it to.


Screenshot 2018-03-13 at 10.48.24 AM
Screenshot 2018-03-13 at 10.48.24 AM
According to this chart, everyone who took the survey had said that homework and stress are two big causes of a lack of sleep, and I can agree to that.
Screenshot 2018-03-13 at 11.02.09 AM
Screenshot 2018-03-13 at 11.02.09 AM
The little amount of questions that were about insomnia and sleep apnea had their answers displayed through pie charts. According to these, only one person knew one of the facts mentioned (1 in 3 people have insomnia).

Onto my more SUCCESSFUL original research, I’ve interviewed three people in my school who have insomnia (my first choice was someone at Penn Sleep Medicine, but it was more complicated). Two of the people I interviewed are freshmen in the same stream as I am: Ashton Krause and Izzy Curtin. The third one, a senior, is named Malachi Johnson.

Q: How and when did you learn that you had this problem?
Izzy: I forget the age, but I realized I couldn’t really sleep, and asked my parents, and they said I may have insomnia, and so we got checked out.
Ashton: During the summer.
Malachi: This happened during a rough patch. I went to therapy, and they diagnosed me with clinical depression. From there, we learned that I wasn’t sleeping because of distractions like video games, but when I stopped, I still wasn’t sleeping, and it stuck from there.

Q: What support have you sought for your sleep problem?
Izzy:  I take melatonin, which is a hormone that your body makes. If you obtain a little more, than it helps you sleep.
Ashton: Not a lot, but I do occasionally take blood tests.
Malachi: I’ve mentioned therapy, and I also taken medications, which help you sleep, but it’s not the best sleep you could get.

All three interviews ended in this question:

Q: What do you wish other people knew about insomnia?
Izzy: It can harm you, but you shouldn’t be so scared that you make stereotypes about it.
Ashton: It’s a struggle not being able to sleep at night. Who doesn’t like to sleep? Not having the energy from sleep makes everything harder and slower.  
Malachi: It can effect you a lot of different ways, so it’s not something to tamper with. You have to be aware and understanding of someone not being at their full potential simply because they don’t rest themselves.

I also interviewed one person who has sleep apnea (it was harder to find people who had this than people who had insomnia). The person I interviewed defined sleep apnea the same way this article did:


Q: Could you explain what sleep apnea is?

Brent Hershey: Sleep apnea is a condition where a person’s airway becomes blocked during sleep. Breathing stops, then restarts again. It puts extra stress on your heart and you don’t get much restful sleep, so being extra tired during the day is a symptom.”.


Brent Hershey has slept better after he has gotten fitted for a CPAP machine. CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, which is a mode of respiratory ventilation used for the treatment of sleep apnea.


Q: How does this affect other parts of your life?

Brent Hershey: Since I’ve gotten a CPAP machine, I’ve slept tons better.  It difference during the day, not as tired, more alert. Not quite as sleepy at night. Feel more refreshed in AM.

 

Q: What do you wish other people knew about Sleep Apnea?

Brent Hershey:  Just that if you have it, getting fitted for a CPAP machine is worth it. It’s a bit of a pain to get used to but results have been great.  


Before I completed these interviews, I had done a lot of research, but I still knew very little about treatment.  I didn’t really know everything that was to having insomnia or sleep apnea. These interviews have given me a deeper insight on everything about those two sleep disorders. Three different people gave me three different treatments for insomnia: melatonin, blood tests, and therapy, and I’m sure if I interviewed a fourth person, they would have said something completely different as well. I honestly didn’t consider what treatment for sleep apnea could be like (partially because I never had it myself), and I’m sure there is more to the treatment than a CPAP machine (But what is it?). My thoughts on sleep disorders before the interviews (compared to my opinion now) seems a little broad, and as if I thought there were only few things someone could do to be cured.

So, what’s my next move? I need a way to publicize this problem so that everyone could see it. I honestly don’t have as much of an idea yet, but I’m considering publishing something in writing. So, does that mean some kind of article? Whatever I think of at this moment, I’m probably going to change my mind later, like I did with my original research survey.


My annotated bibliography is right here.





The Opinion on Pit Bulls

More Opinions About Pit Bulls

In my previous post, I wrote and researched on how there are many common misconceptions about American Pit Bull Terriers. What I found in my research is that the temperament of a pit bull is almost always reliant on its treatment from humans. If the dogs are handled with respect and their needs are met, there are fewer temperament issues. If any breed of dog, not just pit bulls, are abused or not given the care they need, problems start to occur. Sometimes pit bulls especially may have temperment issues because of post-traumatic stress disorder from previous abuse.

When I continued my research, I focused on statistics with pit bulls. One article by the Huffington Post gathers many statistics on causes of injury or death. For instance, common causes of death are compared to the likelihood of dying from a dog bite. An example from the article states, "Maybe more striking is the fact that you are FAR more likely to die from eating a hot dog (choking from inhalation of food) than from being attacked by an actual dog. Death by a real dog- 1 in 116,448. Death by a hot dog- 1 in 3,375." This reveals that there is always a possibility to die from a dog attack, yet there are many other things that are more likely to occur.

This shows how getting killed by a dog is a very small chance compared to many things

Sara L. Wilson, from the Canine Journal, has a blog post all about pit bull statistics. Similarly to the Huffington Post article, this post has a lot of information which puts pit bull casualties and behavior into perspective. One example is about how American Pit Bull Terriers are technically a “bully breed.” There are many other dogs on the list of over 40 breeds. Some of the other dogs on the list include Pugs and Boston terriers. One point this post makes is about canine behavior. Wilson writes, “What we do know from statistical analysis is that 86.8 percent of American Pit bull terriers have passed their temperament testing according to the American Temperament Test Society, Inc. This is a higher number of American pit bulls to pass their testing than collies, beagles, and even golden retrievers.” I think this quote proves that pit bulls do not have temperament as bad as we think.

Image result for list of bully breeds

Some examples of a bully breed. The quotation marks around “bully” show how those breeds are not necessarily rough.

For my original research on this topic, I created a survey to gather people's opinions on pit bulls. I chose to do this because in order to change people's view on pit bulls, I should know their opinions first. The survey helped me learn the surveyee's experiences with dogs in general, more specifically pit bulls, as well as what they think of pit bulls. Some people have had positive experiences with pit bulls, and some have had less positive interactions. Many of the people who took my survey were very open-minded; some said they had heard bad things about pit bulls, but they were sure pit bulls were friendly and kind dogs. This information lets me know that some people have similar opinions on pit bulls as me, but some people also have more negative views. Generally, more people had a positive outlook on the breed. My goal is to make sure everyone has a positive outlook on pit bulls.

(Top) Some responses of what people thought about pit bulls

(Bottom) People describing a dog- seen below

The dog that I asked people to describe

My opinion on this matter has changed a little bit. Now that I know some of the behavioral statistics, I have an even greater opinion on the matter. I am interested to see what specific experiences, positive and/or negative, people have endured. I am especially curious to see what the negative experiences have been. There is nothing I have been left wondering.

The final step of the project is called an agent of change. This is where we use all of the research we have made and act upon our community problem. I am not very certain what I will do for my agent of change. I have had a few thoughts. One idea I have is that I will collect some supplies (dog toys, dog food, treats, etc.) and donate them to a dog shelter. A second idea that I have is to put up images in my school of pit bulls and caption it "Does this dog look mean to you?" When I do pursue with my agent of change, I am sure it will be great.


Check out my annotated bibliography too!

Social Decline Continued....///// Vincent

Social Decline Continued



In my previous blog post I gave a brief description of my topic, the negative effects on social media. These effects vary from sleep, depression, and lack of communication skills. We also talked about the percentages of households that contain handheld devices, along with a prediction in the future of what the year 2020 will look like. I will go on into a little more details , listing and informing you, the reader, more negative effects of participating in social media.


So far we have talked about three negative effects caused by social media, Next I have another effect of social media, and it is kind of crazy how many non benefiting affects that I can find form the internet. So, the next one is the addiction aspect, and the time consumption, how it can eat up the time out of your daily life.


Doing some research on the topic I found some repeating patterns. Various ones showed up on different sites, one not loving technology so much, but what they really want to access is done through technology. What is one thing that requires a phone? That thing is communication with friends, and how they need to keep up with the “latest news”. One thing to notice is that with the addiction, it ties into the communication situation we discussed as said in a washington post “teens spend so much interacting with each other on social networks and phones that they are growing less comfortable with in-person interactions and not developing essential social skills.”  and this just proves my previous claims.


Adults are usually on there phones frequently, but they have a farther variety of reasons why to be on their phones as much as they are. Teens however are getting to the point where there phone time consumption is fit for an adult.


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6B18377491434BD4949D22C678EAB33A

In this image they are showing how withing the four year span of 2004-2008 that the time teens are on there phones now imagine 10 years later in 2018 and see who is on their phones more.


The next thing on the list that I am going to mention is something more generally about female teenagers. How social media has a huge influence on their self-image. Girls are constantly are self conscious even if they do not admit, I can say that guys are also affected by it, but I think that girls go to the father extreme of finding the level of satisfaction, or just to satisfy other individuals.


Being a student that attended three different school, each one consisting of both genders. During those years consistently, I’ve observed and would say 75% of the students are drained and focused into there self image, and social media just boost it to another level. A short passage from cnn states… it's not a law that you have to post a selfie before, during, and after every activity. But for kids, it's pretty much mandatory.  The resulting likes, thumbs-ups, and other ratings all get tallied, both in the stark arithmetic of the Internet and in kids' own minds. For some -- especially girls -- what starts as a fun way to document and share experiences can turn into an obsession about approval that can wreak havoc on self-image.”. Imagine a world without social media? Would you be better and healthier human being? Maybe you would get a more healthy amount of Sleep, are you obsessed? Those questions that I just asked were put to the test.


For the past month I have been thinking about what do do for my original research I figured why don’t ask our generation, the teens. So it started as interviewing teens, in person, for a quick five minutes. The process was smooth but I wasn't getting the information that I needed and I needed some insight where the person answering wasn't feeling invaded and was comfortable answering. So that is when i decided that I was going to conduct a survey. Answers varying from exactly proving my points to not so much. Considering both I cae to a conclusion, but first let's look at the results to  my survey.


Screenshot 2018-03-17 at 8.48.21 PM
Screenshot 2018-03-17 at 8.48.21 PM

Looking at this chart and with the results I can confidently say that the majority of the people who answered to the survey would be a better or a more improved version of themselves without social media. I can not say if they would be happier though.


In the first post we talked about the effects social media has one an individuals and one of those is the mass amounts of sleep lost to social media.


Screenshot 2018-03-17 at 8.55.58 PM
Screenshot 2018-03-17 at 8.55.58 PM

Going into this question I knew that sleep was something that was being taken over by social media or even Netflix( let's not get off topic) but at this point I think you get the point for this one Let us look at one last one.


The last one I will be looking at with you is how much time is put into your social media/cyber life. From how much I participate and noticing with my friends with how much they use it I can say that we are pretty consumed. One answer states ”I've become less attentive. Sometimes I go on it in the middle of class or something” Some though say that social media doesn't really bother them.. Let us take a look.


Screenshot 2018-03-17 at 9.22.37 PM
Screenshot 2018-03-17 at 9.22.37 PM

Some mixed opinions  but, with these varied answers it helps me come to a conclusion.

So my conclusion is a little bit of opinion and facts because I believe a lot of people can, and do experience negative affect, but there are some people who either can ignore the decent amount of bad or they just are lying. Anyways. This is a successful experience and I think myself have learned a lot. I am still curious about why people are so engaged into social media I’m into it a lot but I somewhat still don't have an idea why I am involved with it  so much. After all of the work I have done on this I still am not 100% sure about my Agent of Change but I wanna start small. People need to be aware before anything can be preached.


Anne Otated  and Biblee Ography


How much is the NFL really doing?

This post will continue about the issues with safety among the NFL. If you have not read the first post, please take a few minutes to read and then come back. Click here to read the first post. If you still did not read the first post, I am still going to summarize the first topic. I first started out talking about how many injuries there are per game. There could be 6 major injured each game! That is crazy. I also talked how pre-season is too long and super unnecessary, because they already have to play 16 weeks of football and 4 more games that don’t mean anything is unnecessary. I then started to talk about how CTE affects football players and the effects it will have later on in a football player’s life. I wrapped it by pointing out how high school students are our future and how if they play football at a young age, football could cause some very negative effects in the long run.

After the first post, I wanted to do more research about the different injuries in the NFL. I read more about CTE. There was a study where former NFL player’s brains were donated to see how many of them had CTE. What the study showed was shocking. The study showed that 99% of former player’s brains had CTE. That is a huge number. The sample might have been a bit too small to see if this trend is truly true. There were only 202 brains donated, but that is a decent sample size. That could also mean that some brains were in stage 1 while others were in stage 4, but that is still a huge number.


This is a chart that shows the number ACL tears from the 2012 season to the 2017 season. (https://www.playsmartplaysafe.com/newsroom/reports/2017-injury-data/)
This is a chart that shows the number ACL tears from the 2012 season to the 2017 season. (https://www.playsmartplaysafe.com/newsroom/reports/2017-injury-data/)
     A few other common injuries that I did not talk a whole lot about in my first post are ACL and MCL tears. ACL and MCL are ligaments in your knees and can tear if moved in the wrong way. An anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear can be in 3 different degrees of severity. It can range from being mildly damaged to the knee joint being completely unstable, and sadly most of the ACL injuries are complete tears of the ACL. Tearing your ACL can also happen over the tiniest of things like planting your foot the wrong way or stopping too fast. The main that people have to repair ACL tears are using other ligaments from other parts of your body. In the NFL there were a staggering 57 ACL tears each season for the last two seasons (2016 and 2017 season). That number is way too high as well.
This is a chart that shows the number MCL tears from the 2012 season to the 2017 season. (https://www.playsmartplaysafe.com/newsroom/reports/2017-injury-data/)
This is a chart that shows the number MCL tears from the 2012 season to the 2017 season. (https://www.playsmartplaysafe.com/newsroom/reports/2017-injury-data/)

A medial collateral ligament (MCL) tear is more common among people who play football. You can tear your MCL if you get tackled and land the wrong way, or if you jump and the land the wrong way. MCL injuries are more common than ACL injuries and can be treated in better ways. If the tear is just slightly injured, then you can just wait to let it heal. Surgery is not usually required even for more severe cases. It is only requested if the person wants the MCL to heal faster. Last season, there were 151 MCL tears in the NFL. Even if MCL tears are not the most severe injury, that is too many tears.

For this stage in the project, I had to interview or do a study about an expert on my topic. I tried and tried and tried. I emailed Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, 3 different times with 3 different emails and I have still gotten nothing from him. I then tried to contact some doctors that know a lot about concussions and injuries in the NFL and same deal; no responses.  I then went to plan B, and I was going to try to call the front offices of different organizations within the NFL, but that also did not work. I was starting to worry that no one cared about me. I then tried to contact local football high schools to ask for an interview with the players, and EVEN them did not respond. I then emailed back all of the people I already emailed, and someone finally responded! I then had my dad’s friend contact some high school football coaches and he helped me get more interviews and some survey responses.

The very first interview that I have was last friday (March 16th). The man that I interviewed was named Dave Kutzler, and he is a youth football coach. The reason why I wanted to interview him is because he would provide an interesting perspective about football. Below are the questions that I asked him and what he responded with. There is also the audio of the interview if you would want hear it that way.

Q: What do you enjoy the most about football?/What made you want to become a youth football coach?


A: “I played from a young age as well. I think I started when I was 8 years old, and I played till I was 16, and I have a lot of fond memories like playing with my teammates and stuff like that, so that is really what wanted me to coach football. When I was playing I always had fun, I never got hurt, never got a concussion. So, yeah that is why I like it.”


Q: How has the greater awareness of player safety changed the game and the way you coach?


A: “I have coached for about 10 years. Back when I first started coaching him, he did flag football for his first two years, and then when you are 7 years old, you can convert to playing tackle football. When I first started out coaching, I had to take a bunch courses that were pretty expensive. They are run by USA Football, which is endorsed by the NFL, and they have NFL coaches giving video chats that we would have to watch. The people who pioneered a lot of the ‘Heads Up’ stuff were the Seattle Seahawks. They had a defensive coordinator who taught this different style of tackling, more like rugby style, where it is called ‘Heads Up’ tackling or ‘Seahawks’ tackling where your head is always up, you never dip your head. It does not get rid of the concussion injuries, but it does eliminate neck injuries. What the Seahawks taught was that you wrap around the legs and roll, which is a different style of tackling than I learned early on. From the years that I have coached, I have seen it change. For the first 5 years that I coached, there were no instructions, there were no videos or courses to take. They just trusted that the people teaching the kids understood the game. But in the last five years, they started to teach how to do proper techniques regarding the neck injuries, spine injuries, concussions on how to take that out of the game. So there have been a lot of advancements in the youth coaching within the last  4-5 years. Before that there was almost nothing.”


Q: Do you think that the NFL should be implementing the “Heads Up”/Rugby style of tacking?


A: “They actually do. That is why you are seeing a lot of these dudes roll. Within the last year or two, a lot of the defensive back hits have not been anywhere near the head. I do not think that it is widely broadcasted, but I do think that this ‘Seahawk’ tackling is being used more often than you think. I think that a lot of people are starting to teach it that way, because the NFL changed the rules so much because if they do not, they will be penalized and will hurt the team more. If you do not see it a lot now, you will see it very soon (the “Heads Up” tackling”).”


Q: You said in the email that for the 10 years you have coached, none of your players have received a concussion. What have you done as a coach to make sure of that?


A: “When the kids are young, I would say anywhere between 7 and 10 they truly do not hit hard enough as far as concussions. So that has really never been a concern, and I do not think it should be a concern for any parent or any organization. They just don’t hit hard enough, they are just a bunch of bobbleheads walking around a football field. Now, at about age 10 or 11, you can start to see some of these kids really develop. They are really starting to understand the game, and really starting to understand the hits. That’s really when the teaching and the movement and the pushing towards that ‘Seahawk’ tackling (“Heads Up) football is put into place. We took that as coaches and integrated that. Football starts in August. Your biggest concern in August is heat exhaustion. So they taught us that as well. What to look for as far as heat exhaustion (symptoms, etc.), and the first week is no pads, and just allowing the body to get used to the heat, and the running, and stuff like that. That is week one; no hitting, just heat. The second week is really when you teach the kids basic fundamentals. What I mean by that is doing step by step processes of how to hit, and we do it very slowly. It is really two weeks of getting your body just to the heat and the second week is very step by step no large hitting. Not only that, they teach us that during practices, you should not have the kids tackling more than 3 yards part. In other words, you are not running 20 yards in full steam, bashing each other 20 yards apart. That contact is very close contact, so if the contact is very limited during practice, we do not have large collisions. Within the last 5 years, the NFL has really brought in a lot into the lower levels of football as far as training.”


Q: So, as highers schoolers go to college and might want to be professional football players, and they are not doing the 3-yard tackles, when do they learn that running 20 yards at full speed to tackle someone is not the right idea? When is the learning curve?


A: “What we also teach is this thing called angle tackling, and the ‘Heads Up’ tackling. You always have your head up, and you always have to keep your head out of tackles. When I played, you always had a coach who would say, ‘Put your hat on,’ or ‘Let ‘em up’. Stuff like that. We do not say stuff like that anymore. When you have a tackle, your head has to go across the body, the head is never down. During games, hopefully, that what we have taught in the 3-yard drills, does work. You are going to see concussions in any sport; soccer, cheerleading, gymnastics. The best thing that we can do is to keep emphasizing the ‘Heads Up’ to just keep your head out of the tackle. I do know that they teach the technique at high school level football. That probably is also probably only been out for 4/5 years, because when we (coaches) have to take the courses, there are high school courses. The high school coaches have to take the high school level courses.”


Q: Do you think that enough/too much is being done to prevent concussion in football?


A: “There is never too much. There can always be more, but do I think that they are going in the right direction and heading the right way as far safety? Let's face it: If people do not address this issue, football is not going to existent anymore. About 3 or 4 years ago, I would say that amount kids signing up for football was at an all-time low. But now that people are starting to see what we (the coaches) are doing as far as courses, training, stuff like that, the amount of kids signing up for football is rising again. I have seen within the last 2/3 years, the levels are going back up, but there was a time where some parents were reluctant about putting their kids in. But again, there is never enough training. I think that they are heading in the right direction. It is definitely a lot better than it was.”


Q: Have you received any concerns from parents regarding the safety of their child/children?


A: “I have not. I think they see us (coaches) the way we approach our practices. We have their their best interest at heart as far as safety. Let’s face it; these are kid are anywhere from 10 to 14 years old. Most of the kids who play football have been playing  a few years before that, and also the kids who play football are a different breed. Most of them are very aggressive kids. Most of them are very up-beat kids, very postivekids, not a lot of negativity. And honestly that is another reason why I love coaching football, just kids that can listen to discipline, kids that like discipline, kids that listen, kids who want to get better, kids gernalary a little more athletic. I love teaching kids football. They are a different breed - I can not explain it. Some of the kids that play baseball can play while others are just okay. If you can not play football, you are afraid to hit, stuff like that, you get weed out pretty quick. So you are dealing with a type of child that wants to be there, and wants to get better, and wants to learn teamwork, and wants to learn the game of football. That is another why I really like it (coaching football) as well. I loved dealing with the kind of kid that is really interested in it.”

Q: Any else that you think would help me?


A: “I know that we all want to keep our kids as safe as possible, I mean there are all kinds of sports that can be dangerous. Like I was telling you earlier, cheerleading can be dangerous especially if you are getting through 20 feet into the air. People can get hurt by that. That being said, you can not put your kids in a bubble. We can do all kind of things to keep them as safe as we can. But kids have to be kids and I hear parents say that they will never let their child play football, but if they want to? I do not want to hold my kid back. If he wants to play football, I will ensure that he is getting the best instruction as he can to be safe, but I would let him do it. I hear a lot of the conversation, ‘I will never let me kid play’....why...why? There might be another sport that you could not play because your parents would not allow you, you be upset? That is kind of how I feel about it. The kids are totally into it. Alright lets teach them the proper way to play and go by it that way.

After doing the interview with Dave Kutzler, I learned a lot. I learned that football is changing for the better. Youth coaches are teaching the kids the proper way to play without injuring themselves. I also did not know how much the NFL is helping out. They want the younger generation to be safer so they can play in the NFL as well. They want as many kids to enjoy football. The interview also many me think of my project in a different light. I thought that there was a lot to improve upon within football. You can never help out too much, but the NFL is working on safety issue more than I thought that they were. Dave answered all of my questions wonderfully and I was left with no questions.

The very next day after I had my interview Dave, Will Parks called me. Will Parks is a safety who plays for the Denver Broncos, but he grew up in Philly. My dad’s friend, friend friend, knew Will and set me up with an interview. I do not have the written portion, but I do have the audio that you can listen to.

After doing the interview, I learned a lot. Will Parks was lucky enough to have no major injuries, but has seen injuries. He noted that the last game of the season that he played, he saw one of his own teammate’s break a leg. His response to someone the questions were similar to Dave, in the fact that he said that football is football. There will be injuries either way. He also said that if you want to play harder, you have to more careful and watch out for yourself. Since Will Parks did not have any major injuries, I could not find out some information about players who had to go through the injuries process, but other than that I got all I needed from Will Parks.

For my project, I also did a survey. The survey is supposed to be filled out by high school football players to see how much they know about the risks of football. I have a few responds, but I want to wait a few more days for more responds, so I will post another post about the survey and what it said.

After doing all of this, I have learned a lot. Reading a bunch of articles made me think one way, and then doing my interviews makes me think another way. At first, I thought that the NFL was not doing a whole lot, but after doing the interviews, that is false. The NFL is trying to reduced injuries in football. The last thing that I have to do is “change” or fix my issue. I have some general ideas, but they are half-baked. I might try to design a helmet or pads to reduce the number of injuries, or I can make a website or powerpoint to have my reader know about the issue. If you have ideas please comment below.


The link to my annotated bibliography is here.

An Issue We Must Fix.

In my first blog post, I talked about how there is colorism within the Latino community. I talked about how the media only shows a specific “type” of Latino. They show the ones with light skin and straight hair. While they don’t show the ones with dark skin and kinky curly hair. I also talked about the common phrase “mejorar la raza” or “fix the race.” I got most of my information from the internet and from my family’s experiences with discrimination. As I was researching, I wasn’t completely satisfied with the information I got. I knew that there was more to learn and understand. So, I did my own research to get more information on people’s personal experiences.


At first, I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this. I couldn’t exactly interview one specific person about this issue because I wanted multiple experiences that people have dealt with discrimination. I came up with doing an online survey and they would fill out with questions I had for them. I made the survey on google forms so it would be accessible to them. I started brainstorming questions for my survey. I knew I didn’t want them to be yes or no questions. They needed to explain their experiences and make it personal. These are the questions I came up with:

  • Have you ever been discriminated against because of how you look by other Latinos? If so, how?

  • Have you been discriminated or “made fun of” because of your looks by family members? If so, how? What did they say? What were they talking about?

  • Have you ever seen anyone be treated differently because of their skin color/looks? Latino to Latino? What happened, where were you, and how did both parties react or respond? (quick summary).

  • Have you ever realized that there was colorism within the community? Do you remember the first time you noticed colorism? Explain your experiences.

  • Have you ever heard of the phrase “mejorar la raza” or “fix the race?” If so, by who, where, and why did they say that, and to who did they say that too? Please explain.



Pie chart showing that everyone who took the survey is Latino


I needed to get my survey out to Latinos of all different backgrounds and ages. I sent it out to kids in my school, outside of school, and a few family members. I got 10 responses, which is a good amount considering the specific group of people I needed to send it to (Latinos). When I got my results back, I was expecting for them to understand where I was getting that and know about the Colorism in our community. I was also expecting for them to say that they have been looked down upon for their dark skin. My expectations were based on articles I read. The one article I read was about how the one Latina’s group of friends would treat someone in their own community, who would also be Latina, different because their skin would be darker. I only heard about  discrimination within the community towards the darker skinned Latinos. This one video I watched was about darker skinned people talk about experiences where they have been discriminated against. The one Dominican woman talked about the phrase “mejorando la raza.” Which means to “advance the race” or to marry someone and have kids with someone who is lighter to make the race “better” because they are lighter.  My survey didn’t exactly reflect this.


As I looked over the responses I received, they didn’t align with all the articles I read and the videos I watched. It was the opposite. Someone responded to the question “Have you ever been discriminated against because of how you look by other Latinos? If so, how?” They responded with “Yes, I have been told I was too white.” While another responded with “I'm a pale Puerto Rican. My Latino peers sometimes never take me seriously because of it. Some think I'm lying and others think I'm so out of touch with my culture because I pass as a "gringa.” They were being teased and looked down upon for their lighter skin. With my previous knowledge and research, they only talked about discrimination to darker Latinos. These peoples’ experiences are telling me that they aren’t dark enough or “Latino” enough.


Responses to the first question on the survey

How would I change this issue within the Latino community? What would be my agent of change? I don’t have an answer or a definite way to change this problem but I have been brainstorming. I am going to inform people. We need to right our wrongs. Members of our community must change how we speak and talk about others. We should all embrace one another for our differences. That’s what makes us all special and unique.


Annotated Bibliography


Conversation

My first post is a long read and if you haven’t gotten a time to read it I will summarize it in this post. If you do want to read the post you can find it here. My original post introduces the idea of racial microaggressions. Racial microaggressions are racist things said or done that are rarely meant to be offensive. After introducing what they are I present and explain statistics showing how they affect individual people. These statistics come from a variety of sources that are all on my annotated bibliography found here.

Since my first post, I have interviewed six individuals and added two new sources to my annotated bibliography. I am going to breakdown the basic information given in each interview.

Horace Ryans is a sophomore and student advocate at Science Leadership Academy in Center City. The interview. The first question is “Have you seen any racial microaggressions in the SLA community?” His response is saying that racial microaggressions happen all the time. His example was normalization of the N-word. This gives insight into racial microaggressions in the SLA community and what students think about them and if they notice them. The next question was have you experienced any microaggressions personally? His example was in freshman year in African American History class people made jokes such as “slavery was not wrong.” The third question was do you think these microaggressions are common? He says that yes they are common in SLA, but only because they are common in the real world. The fourth question was have you reported these aggressions to any form of authority. He says no. The follow up question was does he regret not reporting these. His response is that he is using these experiences to learn and better himself as a person. The next question was what can be done to help stop racial microaggressions and he responded by saying was you always need to educate and advocate. He also said you cannot change someone mentality, but you can always educate them. The next question was how do you think the administration can help stop racial microaggressions in the SLA community. He says SLA is a community where students can take a problem and attempt to fix it themselves without the help of a teacher. He also says that teachers can be there to facilitate a conversation. This interview tells me that Horace has seen and experienced racial microaggressions, but he uses them to improve himself as a person instead of trying to get an adult to punish the student.

Londyn Edwards was the second person I interviewed. The questions and answers were typed out and they can be found here. The questions are the same as before. Londyn describes microaggressions that are much more personal. She describes when a classmate was discussing whether white people or black people get colder faster. When Londyn attempted to share her opinion the classmate responded with, “Well you’re closer to white anyways so your opinion doesn’t count.” This classmate was clearly talking about her lighter skin tone. This situation is a great example of what a racial microaggression is and why they need to be talked about. She has not reported the aggressions to any authority because they all happened with different people. She also says that she often questions the actions of non people of color in SLA. She then says she wants a gathering of the school to educate students on what racial microaggressions are why they are a problem. This is similar to what Horace said in his interview.

The next person I interviewed was Deacon Mackin, found here. Deacon is a student at SLA center city and a freelance artist. He has seen racial microaggressions in the SLA community and the worst has been the use of fake statistics to prove a point. Like one student claimed that mass incarceration is a myth. He says he has not experienced racial microaggressions in the SLA  community because he is white, but he has witnessed a lot of racial microaggressions in the community. His example is one of his black friends were asked what it is like to live without a father even though he has a dad that he lives with. The aggressor then made a fake statistic that most African Americans do not have a father at home. Deacon believes that these aggressions are common in the community. He thinks students can fight against these aggressions and call people out about these aggressions. He thinks that when aggressions are reported that the administration of the school acts well on the problem. So far all my interviews have led to very similar data. They all believe that microaggressions are a problem and that they need to be stopped in some way. Deacon is the only person so far to say fight against the aggressors instead of educate the aggressors.

My fourth interview is with Zoey Tweh, found here. I recommend listening to this interview if you only listen to one. It is the most insightful interview. Zoey is a junior at SLA center city and is also the president of the Black Student Union of SLA center city. Zoey says she has seen microaggressions. She is the first to mention the diversity of SLA and the intentional diversity of the school. She also says that since there is a lot of diversity there is also a lot of diversity in perspectives. She gives an example that some students believe that police brutality is not real. She says that she has not personally been attacked by a racial microaggression, but she has been offended by someone's lack of open mindedness. Zoey says she doesn’t tell teachers or staff about racial microaggressions, but she does ask for these topics to be brought up in class or discussed in class in some way. She says that SLA students often have difficult conversations and talk about problems with race and that's how you can stop racial microaggressions. Zoey also says that if the administration continues to strive towards having discussions about racism in class then they are doing a good job.


Two people having a conversation to understand each other. An example of what Zoey is talking about.
Two people having a conversation to understand each other. An example of what Zoey is talking about.

My final interview was with Ella Burrows and Kaamil Jones. Two seniors from SLA center city campus. Kaamil says social media is a major part of racial microaggressions. His example was in freshman year Harriet Tubman was proposed to be on the twenty dollar bill and a student said on social media “Harriet Tubman doesn’t belong on the twenty dollar bill she belongs ironing my clothes.” Ella agrees that social media plays a major part. She adds that outside the classroom racially insensitive comments are made. Kaamil says he has never experienced a racial microaggression in SLA. Ella says she has experienced racial microaggressions at SLA like “it’s cause she’s white.” She says she has never taken offense to the comments. Kaamil says that they are common, but they are rarely meant to be harmful. He says this is because people become too comfortable with what they say. Ella agrees that when people get too comfortable they say things that are not appropriate. Neither of them have reported anything to any administration at the school. Kaamil wants people to have a conversation about race to try to understand other people's perspectives. Ella agrees that conversations have to be had. They both say that many people do not like talking about race and that is a problem. They agree that the SLA administration does a great job with handling these topics by trying to get the students to have these conversations. This interview talks the most about why racial microaggressions occur. This is another interview that I think is great to listen to.


Major social media platforms.
Major social media platforms.

All these interviews have told me that racial microaggressions are common in the SLA community, but most common on social media. Most agree that a conversation is the best way to stop racial microaggressions. They all agree that the school administration does a good job handling race by having conversations.

The final part of this project is to make some change about my topic. Since most of the people I interviewed agree that conversation is the best way to stop racial microaggressions I will attempt to start multiple conversations in the community about race. I will add more to this idea when I get a firmer grasp on my idea.


Home For The Isolated

As you may remember from my last post , elders living in isolation is something that concerns me. Humans often start a new part of their life when they realize that they are getting old and that they are alone. As part of my investigation, I contacted Gail Kass, the President and CEO of NewCourtland Senior Services. Their mission is “providing affordable housing and services for low-income seniors in Philadelphia.” After the interview with Ms. Kass, I learned about the importance of helping others and how wonderful it is to make someone feel like at home.

Ms. Kass said that the first activity that the residents do is start their morning with a warm breakfast in the dining room. Then throughout the day, the residents do activities like play Bingo, got to the nursery room, exercise, work on music and art projects, or stay in their rooms as they wish. The building is divided into two sections with 60 beds in each section. There are double rooms and each room has the capacity of two patients per room, a little setup, beds, bathroom, and a closet Three warm meals are served throughout the day. I asked her: “To what extent did the patients leave the facility ?” She said, “There are three main reasons why the patients would leave our facility and it is to visit their doctors, go on trips, and when the families pick them up.” Ms. Kass said that they often go on trips to the museums, such as, the flower show, restaurants, outdoors, and their favorite place, the dollar store.


This is a picture of seniors eating at a dining room. That’s how it looks like at Germantown Home

I was impressed by all of the amazing activities the staff at Germantown Home do for their residents. It is clearly that Germantown Home is a safe place to live. In my interview, we also talked about how some of the patients had a tough life, a lack of education, and how some don’t have families. As soon as Ms. Kass told me that some of them had a tough life, I asked her “How do you think the majority of patients here feel about their lives? How would you describe their levels of happiness or isolation?” Ms. Kass responded, “They live happily, we provide them with what they need. They feel lucky to be here. Others feel miserable and angry with their lives.” I also asked her, “What was her hope for them?” She said, “Trying to give them a quality life, make them feel as independent as possible, make them feel safe and happy, and make sure they are part of a clean environment.”  

After the interview, Ms. Kass arranged a tour for me at Germantown Home. On Monday, March 12th, 2018 at 9:00 AM, I was at the doors of Germantown Home. As soon as I got there, the first thing I noticed was how clean the place was and the odor of the place was pleasant.  Ms. Kass told me that the Assistant Home Administrator, Ludmila Kovatcheva, would be taking me on the tour. I met with Ms. Kovatcheva and we sat down, she said the exact same words to me that Ms. Kass had said during the interview. I immediately knew that both ladies are passionate and respectful of their job. We started the tour on the second floor, Ms. Kovatcheva took me to the calendar, which was very specific about the daily activities that were going to be held each day of the month. The activities for that day were dance music and movement, puzzle club, soothing sounds, ball toss, table games, and a hair salon. Also on each floor, they have a command center that has a clear view from the hallways

As we continued the tour, Ms. Kovatcheva took me to the dining room, where the residents were happily waiting for their dance and movement activities. Then, she took me to the nursery room. I was surprised when I went in there. The room was spacious, it was filled with light, it had a fish tank, and a crib with dolls. Ms. Kovatcheva told me that most of the residents spend their time there. The experience was amazing, I loved it. Also, there are kiosks on the walls, Ms. Kovatcheva told me that all of the residents’ activities are recorded in those kiosks. The reason why they have that is to keep a record of the medicines that the residents take, the time they spend doing activities, so if their doctor or family want to see their medical record, it would be available for them all the time.    

In the outside of every room, there is the information of both residents. The information talks about their hobbies, family, and about their life before Germantown Home. After I read a couple, I asked Ms. Kovatcheva “What do you do for the residents who loved their careers and that now feel like they are not able to practice them again?” She said that they try to incorporate some of the activities they used to do. For example, if one of them loved horses, of course, they can not bring a horse to the building, but a solution would be to watch a show based on horses.

I was really happy to know that they also conduct a therapy with a dog. Studies show that pets can be really helpful for seniors who live in isolation. Living in isolation is something that Germantown Home is aware of, they try to keep their residents as busy as possible. They have a huge program known as the comfort and joy program. The program is allied with kids from the area that come in once a week and create beautiful murals that will decorate the building.

This is a picture of how pets can be helpful to seniors who live in isolation.

The tour was about to end and I could not leave without asking “How do you guys deal with the death of one of your residents?” It was a really hard question to ask. I was getting sentimental and Ms. Kovatcheva said that a funeral is held as the resident wished. They make a memorial time for the resident who passed away with their peers, staff, and family.  As I was heading to the exit, something caught my attention, there was a big blanket covering one of the beds, even when I did not know what was happening, I asked Ms. Kovatcheva, “What was going on?” She said that a lady had passed away that morning.

I left the place and felt really happy to know that there are senior homes like Germantown Home who really care for their residents. I’m not sure what I am going to do to make a change, but for now, I am thinking about bracelets of hope. I will try to give out as many as I can to spread the word that just like kids need from our society, seniors need from our society too.                     

                           

Annotated Bibliography                                      

Original research


    In my first blog post I talked about social media and how it can affect what people think about themselves. I also talked about photoshopped pictures and non photoshopped pictures and how people today want to be something else but there not. For my original research I did an interview I interviewed Jenny Mcquaile. She directed and produced the documentary straight/curve redefining body image.  For my research I also watched the documentary.


In the documentary they talked about a lot of things that I mentioned in my last post. The documentary focused on a lot of things like teenagers and body image and there self esteem how it affects them today. It talks about what people are seeing on social media and in magazines and how people remember pictures faster than anything else. How that affects people thought process about how they look. In the documentary they use a diverse number of models to speak and model so people can see that you can look good in anything and it does not matter how much you weigh and how you look.   


I learned a lot from the interview that I did with Jenny Mcquaile. I learned that clothing sites are actually listening and that they pay people to read the comments. In the beginning I was not focused on eating disorders but when I did the interview I learned about eating disorders. Like how people associate that larger people are not healthy when it really is that people need fat to be healthy. Jenny also mentioned in the interview that social media was a cause for this problem but she also said that social media can be used for good. For example she said that social media can be used as a voice and we can know tell people what we want out there on the internet. In my last post I never really said that social media could be used for good but know that I am thinking about this it can be used for good. You can use social media to get your opinion out there and to make sure that people here you.   



The documentary is not focused on one thing it talks about eating disorders, and teens and how self conscious they are. I think the main thing though that they were trying to get across was that beauty can come in all shapes and sizes. To do this they used different models that were different ages and races and they model to show this. The models also got to tell their experiences like what it is like to be a model today. They talked about what the requirements are to be a model today.


I watched a ted talk and it is a lady who runs a non profit which is dedicated to redefining body image and beauty. In the ted talk she talks about her experiences and what she had to deal with growing up. Something that she said that stood out to me was my body is an instrument not an ornament. I think she meant that once we stop looking at ourselves and trying to fix all the things that is wrong we can move on and become something better. I think that this quote helped me expand on the issue more.

After doing all this research I am starting to notice things that are affecting people self esteem and the way they look at themselves. Like on social media or billboards I am also starting to catch myself and notice when I judge myself because of the way I look. I believe that all these things are wrong and if people stop seeing just their body and the way they look then I think people can move on and stop focusing on the way they look. One thing I wish I focused on more is eating disorders. I believe that eating disorder are a major issue with this topic. I wish I looked into this problem more and discussed it more.


For my agent of change I think I might write letters to all the clothing companies that give the image that looking skinny is the right way to look. I believe that the interview I had with Jenny Mcquaile informed me on a lot of things I did not know before. I also believe that it helped me further my research on this topic and expand my thinking.   


   


Link to interview here

A POV of Poverty

A Unique Point of View of Poverty

A young child carrying grass for cattle. These are usually odd jobs any child can do for miniscule amounts of currency.

Image Credits


In my previous post, I introduced you to the topic of poverty in Cambodia. I provided immense research and information of why it's such a prevalent problem in the country today. One such factor was the effects of wartime, and another one is because of the deteriorating quality of education present in the country. After conducting a bit more research, I found out that the rate of poverty fell by almost 30% in recent years. In 2004, it was a high as 50% in the nation, before dropping to an astonishing but still troubling 24% in 2014. If the data was conducted in 2018, I would predict that the poverty rate would be around 13% if the poverty rate fell by 3% each year. As stated in my other post, Cambodia is backed by money from foreign aid. In my new research, I found out that such countries include the United States, and China. It is said though that China only looks at the potential resources and business that the country can offer, rather than pouring money in for the sake of human rights and living conditions. Over 70% of the country with a population of 15 million is under the age of 30, which is staggering for a country infested with poverty.


Houses on stilts that are deployed along the river are common sights to see in these kinds of areas.

Image Credits


Also related to the new information I found while conducting new research, is that while poverty is mostly in the rural areas of Cambodia (such as the countrysides and so), it is also beginning to appear in urban areas as well. Cities like Phnom Penh (the capital of the country), or Siem Riep (home to Angkor Wat), are slowly starting to see poverty rates rise. In my opinion, this is especially alarming because these are big cities and you should see people going to work and having conversations about the weather, not people begging for spare change on the cobbled and musty streets of Phnom Penh. The last piece of information that I found is that more than 25% of all households are led by a single mother, due to the wars and strifes that have occured during the nation’s bloody history. Combined with the existence of poverty, and an high rate of uneducated unemployed women, they often have to turn to the sex industry, which is another yet unofficial source of income for the economy. Due to this, there are a lot of question marks to whether or not the government should do something about this.


This graph shows the comparison between people in poverty and people who’s on borderline poverty. As you can see, the rate of poor people decreased, but the rate of people who are endangered to becoming poor is astonishingly high in 2011.

Image Credits


For my original research, I conducted an interview with my father. I produced a total of 8 questions, all relating to my topic. There was a lot of reasons for interviewing him such as time, accessibility, language barrier, and etc. But the main reason was that he is a person familiar to the country, with him growing up there himself. He to me is considered someone who lived through poverty. From my interview, I learned many things about him that I did not know or I knew but very vaguely. For example, my first question asked about how it was like growing up for him, and he responded by describing the hardships he had to deal with growing up. One such example included him saying that he would have liked to go to school, but instead he had to focus on working in order to provide for his family. A similar pattern I saw in his responses is that he believes no jobs and the government not caring are the main reasons to why poverty is so prevalent in modern day Cambodia. This leads me to believe that in order to extricate the root of the problem, the government must listen to their people more and there needs to be more jobs with higher paying salaries. These are huge additions to the understanding of my issue and I believe that learning from a person who’s gone through the same things as people I’m researching is invaluable to my knowledge. My personal opinion on poverty has not changed due to the interview, but rather it has strengthened. My opinion is that poverty is a major issue, and if it's not fixed soon, then the future of Cambodia as a nation looks grim and bleak. With this interview, this just confirmed my opinion and there is nothing that can even remotely change it.

The Interview


Here is the person I interviewed, which is my father who is pictured alongside my mother.


This brings my Original Research post to a close. I hope you find the interview interesting as it takes you to a point of view that is told by a person who experienced poverty first hand. Now for my Agent of Change, I plan to send at least 10-15 care packages filled with various amenities and cash. Said various amenities could include, travel sized bottles of toothpaste, shampoo, or instant foods such as ramen noodles or other various instant foods. Monetary values could range from $10-15 dollars which may not seem like a lot, but one  U.S dollar is worth 4000 Cambodian riel and most items in Cambodia such as clothing and food can be worth from around 2000-300 riel, which is a huge bargain. These will be delivered to my lesser relatives in Cambodia who I hope will appreciate it. This plan is tentative for now, but this is just a general idea of what I am planning to achieve for my Agent of Change. Thanks and remember, you can make a big difference to save Kampuchea ( កម្ពុជា)!


Take a look at my annotated bibliography!


Education vs Tuition

You can check out my first post HERE. In my first post, I talked about the role the price of higher education plays when students are in the application process. In my first post, I also talked hypothetically about how this could go on to affect the individual's life and any future careers. However, since my last post, I have done some further research mostly from interviewing. During the early stages of my original research, I conducted a questionnaire with the MIT admissions office and they provided me some informational and interesting answers to some of my questions. When I was conducting the questionnaire with MIT’s director of admission research and analysis, Rachel E. Kay, she gave me a set of links to various sources with information on my topic. One of the links I ascertained from Rachel led me to a page dedicated to MIT admissions there I learned that students from the class of 2021 who applied for aid in family income that was up to 90,000 dollars annually typically paid nothing when it came to terms of tuition. Rachel’s link also informed me of the percentage of students who graduate debt-free which is 72% of MIT entire student body and 91% of MIT’s student body receives financial aid. Over the course of my research, I learned that MIT participates in a program called questbridge in which the predominant idea is to recruit students who want to pursue higher education, I was also informed about how MIT awarded 97.1 million dollars in scholarships to undergraduates in the previous year alone. I was also provided a demographic of the 2021 class (HERE)  (HERE{for exact numbers}).

This directly relates to the issue I brought up in my previous post about the cost of tuition scaring graduating twelfth graders from applying to certain colleges/universities. MIT tries to challenge this issue by not accepting their applications based on what classes the individual took in high school but rather they accept their students based on what they know. So in my previous post, that student with the straight A’s and 3.9 GPA would be able to go to MIT without having to pay tuition if he gets into MIT. Besides my interview with MIT, I also interviewed my sister who is currently enrolled in a private university. I asked her a various amount of different questions such as did you ever think of studying abroad to if you had the option would you cut military spending to increase the U.S investment in education. Overall one thing that kept reoccuring in both of my interviews was that both the institution and the student believe that there are opportunities for those who cannot afford higher education. These interviews really added to my understanding of my issue because I now know that the issue isn’t there just waiting to be solved but rather it is being recognized and is on the process of being solved by institutions and individuals such as MIT and my sister. After this research, my opinions have differed from my original opinions for I thought that the colleges/universities didn’t really care and the individuals didn’t really either too. However, when you see different institutions going through the process of trying to revamp their tuition to make it more affordable for poorer students. It gives hope when you see major schools such as MIT awarding students with over 97 million dollars in aid so students can further their education without worrying about debt. One question still leaves me wondering and that is when will the U.S department of education effectively try to make the issue of the pricing of higher education a priority or will they ever try to do so? Not only does this question resonate in my head “what can the U.S do?” but also what can I do to change this issue? The answer to this question is fairly simple and that’s why for my agent of change I’m going to be contacting heads of government from Pat Toomey to Donald Trump I will try to solve this issue as best as I can.

To read original doc Essay with footnotes click here

Annotated Bibliography

Audio Interview

Question and Answers (MIT)