Blog 2 Child Sex trafficking

Stephen White Blog 2: 

My opinion on child sex trafficking is that it’s unacceptable. Honestly trafficking anyone is wrong. What joy do you get from taking advantage of a child? As they’re raping a child do they think that someone could be doing the same to theirs? Taking a child or an adult and using them for your own benefit is unjust. I learned that the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) is a federal law that criminalizes the act of human trafficking and was first signed into action in early 2000. In the U.S. the top 10 states that have the most children taken into the industry are: California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New York, District of Columbia, Ohio, New Jersey, Washington, and Virginia. 

Some new information I found was that an estimated $9.5 billion is generated in annual revenue from trafficking activities. Between 50 and 60 percent of children who are trafficked are under the age of 16. In Thailand it was found that 60 to 70% of child prostitutes are found to be HIV positive. The child sex trade is happening all around the world. The child sex trafficking is mostly in Cambodia, Moldova, Asia, Russia, Middle East, and rural parts of Brazil.

To add to my research I researched child sex trafficking more abroad. In my first blog I mainly focused on the child sex trade in America but in this blog I talked about where it’s mostly happening and my opinion on the subject. I’ve also found more charities that are here to help end the child sex trade that can be found here. Some things I’m still left wondering about is how the government plans on protecting children and adolescents from being traded internationally. I haven’t found the answer yet but I’ve been looking around.

My research has added to the understanding of my issue in many ways. I’ve noticed that people really are trying to stop this growing industry. It caught the attention of the White House and the world. MSNBC Dateline took a trip to Cambodia to find out more about the child sex trade. They found out that some children are born into poverty and their parents sold them into the child sex trade in exchange for money. Children as young as 5 years old are being traded. In Cambodia children as young as 12 years old are considered old in this industry. In Cambodia children are sold because of family struggles. Some are lured and kidnapped. 
If a child’s a virgin they can be worth as much as $600 because they’re pure. You’re allowed to keep the child for up to 3 days.

 

Here is the video of MSNBC Dateline’s trip to Cambodia to uncover the child sex industry.


Here is my the link to my bibliography

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Animal Adoption

 

     About 20 to 30 percent of cats and dogs are adopted from shelters and rescues. 26 percent of dogs are bought from breeders. At least one-third of cats are acquired as strays, and more than 20 percent of people who leave dogs in shelters adopted them from a shelter.  There are about 5,000 animal shelter nation wide. Why can’t people understand that instead of going out and buying a dog from a pet store for hundreds to thousands of dollars you can just go to a shelter and adopted a pet that needs a home for only about hundred dollars.

 

   The top 10 reasons people in America get pets are to Teach kids about selflessness, Pets can increase your sense of security — personal, private, and psychological, Personal growth,  Need an excuse to get physical, Preparing for parenthood, Looking for a constant companion, It's a great way to meet people, Getting and giving unconditional love, Take a stand on a humanitarian cause, and the number one reason Pets are a prescription for good health. People don’t understand that you don’t have to go to a pet store and spend a lot of money to get this. You can go right to a shelter and get a dog or cat that can do the same things as if you bought one from a pet store.

 

   When you adopt from a shelter your giving a cat of dog a second chance. There are an estimated 3.7 million unwanted pets wanted pets must be euthanized at animal shelters every year, many because they could not find families to adopt them. Some people choose not to adopt animals because they think the animal they adopt will have bad behavior. This is not the case there are a number of reasons why pets arrive in a shelter, from losing their owner to being abused and rescued.

Read more: 

Bibliography

To see my last blog post chick here
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Genetic Testing: Issues on Privacy and Social Injustice

​ To go to my first blog click here.

     A new age of genetic improvement allow us to decode our own human genome with less than a thousand dollars. It solves the problem for new efficient medicine that could cure rare illnesses and sometimes cancer. Biotech companies like 23andMe developed an odds calculator to track down an individual’s possibility to contact a certain disease. Tracing your ancestors could be just as easy. But, as this growing industry took a bigger step into the world, questions started to rise about the reliability and the privacy of personal DNA results. 

Recent discovery: 

Do you know that now scientists could eliminate some of the mutations in an embryo’s DNA? Don’t be anxious or boisterous about this news. We’re no in the stage to increase the intelligence, height, or the body structure of the baby prior from birth. But, will it happen in the distant future?   


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​Figure 1: A scientist was extracting a portion of the embryo to remove a part of the mutation.

Personalized medicine?

Thesis: The price of personalized medicine is expensive and is most likely to be used within the upper society. It is not realistic for the lower class to be able to afford it daily and it is only available for people who have a mutation in an actionable gene. 

     The value to develop personalized medicine is a new breakthrough in inventing new ways to cure. But, the current price for these medicine is too expensive and could most likely be used in the upper society rather than the lower class who could not afford about $294,000 per year (about $800 per day). Then, it will evolve into a social injustice that was primarily made to help the whole society. Even if the price goes down in the future because of the invention of new advance technologies, personalized medicine are only available to patients who have an actionable gene. Unlike all prescriptions from clinics that could treat people of all classes and almost all people, personalized medicine’s medical power could only be delivered to a selected group.  

Trustworthy results?

Thesis: The results of personal health risks should not varies from different companies, the results should be definite in order to prevent confusion and panic from testers. 

Different biotech companies have different methods in collecting DNA samples. Some companies, like 23andMe use saliva samples while deCode Me use cheek cell samples to sequence an individual’s DNA. But, all of these variety of different samples leads to results that varies from company to company. If the results depended on only a part of the whole DNA then the odds calculator will prevent the tester from contacting a certain disease but it could also create unnecessary panic and bewilderment of the testers if the company did not explain how to read the statistics in the right way. 


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​Figure 2: Biotech companies show their testers some of their genes based on their blood or saliva sample. 
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​Figure 3: Based on genes provided by the DNA sample of an individual, the odds calculator can show the possibility of an individual to contact a certain disease. 

The odds calculator is a great tool to help prevent and decrease illness. But, the biotech company also need to give the testers both the possibility and the definite facts about their health. Also, these biotech companies need to create a manuel to guide their testers to read their results properly so they will not mistakenly believed that all of the results shown on the odds calculator is true. Personalized medicine need to be created so it could target both the patients with actionable and non-actionable mutation genes or the cost needs to be lower so it would be affordable to all groups of people.

Personal Research: (Personalized medicine/genetic testing)

Based on the survey that I had conducted, 25% of the people said that personalized medicines are necessary in our society based on their expensive cost the rate of cure for all groups of people. 75% of the people said that the society need personalized medicine but it is not ready to be accepted as a major type of medicine in our society, yet. 

Also, 25% of the people are not interested in taking genetic tests, 25% of the people are interested in taking the tests and 50% of the people hesitated to crack their DNA.   

Click here to fill out a survey! 

For bibliography click here.

You and The World: Teenage Obesity Blog Post #2

Hey guys! Welcome to my second blog post about teenage obesity! I have been finding new information about this topic. I have also been thinking of ways to spread the word about this issue.

There is a rapid growth in the percentage of teenage obesity. 12% of parents feel that their children are obese. 78% of parents feel that Physical Education in school should not be removed. 27% of parents feel that their teenagers do not eat nutritionally. Also, 24% of parents feel that teenagers get less exercise more and more.

Based on these numbers, there needs to be a stop put to teenage obesity. Before I can prevent this issue, I wanted to focus on grabbing people’s attention about it.

Teenage obesity is becoming a bigger issue than any of us can handle. Clearly it's taking over, because it's affecting more teenagers each and every day. I get very heartfelt about this topic because I don’t like seeing people unhealthy or in bad shape. Not only is this an issue for physical reasons, but I also consider how a teenage obese person might be feeling on the inside. People are judged because of their appearances every day. So imagine how you would feel if you knew that everyone was staring at you because of your weight?  

I created a survey to collect some data. I want to see how many people have strong or weak opinions about teenage obesity; and their perspectives on the issue. I wanted to gain some opinions. I'm interested in seeing if anyone feels the way I feel about teenage obesity. Also, the responses from my survey will give me great inspiration to create a way to prevent teenage obesity from continuing. 

You should take my survey and help me out! It only takes a minute.  

Be prepared to see the results of my survey, and a way that I can prevent teenage obesity in my upcoming post! 

Click to this link if you want to read my bibliography and more updated information on how important teenage obesity really is!               

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​This is a simple structure to follow by for healthy eating! More people need to remind themselves that they don't have to starve themselves or do crazy workouts to prevent themselves from being obese.

Just remind, if you refer to the food pyramid and incorporate some exercises into your life.. You'll be living healthy and obesity will be the last of your problems! 

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This is a collage I made to show teenages what foods they should stay away from! They might taste good now, but it won't be worth it in the long run. 

Keep reading! 

School Closing #2

   Hello, welcome back. I’m just going to give a brief review over what I talked about in my last blog. (Click here to review Blog #1)

   In the last blog I talked about my You and the World project and what current event I was going to talk about, Closing of Schools in Philadelphia. I talked about how many schools would be closed by 2017 and what was the reason for the closing. I also told you a little bit of my opinion and I showed you two news reports on schools closing.

   I didn’t get as much information as I wanted but here’s what I learned:

·      Public school’s had lost 50,00 student because they all went to charter schools

·      The Philadelphia School District held community hearings around Philadelphia discussing weather to shut down the nine schools (Drew, FitzSimons, Harrison, Levering, Pepper, High School for Business, Sheppard, Sheridan West, and E.M. Stanton).

·      Their reason for closing Stanton & Sheppard is they are small, they educate on low in – come, and they’re both old buildings (the schools will need a lot of repairing to do)


   The only thing I have to say about this is, how is the future going to be for the next generation that come up and schools getting shut down?

   As you read this I bet you wondered, so how can we prevent this from happening? I only have one word to tell you. Protest. We could discuss with the school district how this would be a negative effect towards children (this is in the first blog). 

I also found a picture of how they are closing nine schools:

 

SPEAK UP! DON’T HOLD BACK!!!

Click here for my bibliography.

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CSheridan;Blog Post #5

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Conversation Question: What type of music do you enjoy listening to?


Pre-Conversation:


•  What will be your topic of conversation be?

I will be asking general questions about the different genres of music in their country. I want to know some good songs to listen to and any popular bands/singers.

•  What are 5 questions related to your conversation goal that you can think of ahead of time to ask your partner?

1. What type of music do you listen to?

2. What is your favorite song?

3. When do you most frequently listen to music?

4. What is your favorite artist?

5. Is music an essential component in your life?

•  What are you looking forward to about this conversation?

I am looking forward to getting to know the person I am speaking with. I want to learn about their every day life and some of the challenges they face. I would like to possible create a friendship.

•  What are you nervous about?

I am just nervous about my grammar structure with spanish and making sure that I correctly conjugate verbs so that the person I am speaking with does not judge my spanish speaking abilities.

Colony Collapse Disorder Blog #2

As I said before, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) can affect humans in a major way.  I never realized how many plants bees pollinate! I eat like, more than half of this stuff! These are your average every day foods! You will be shocked at how many of these foods that you eat are pollinated by bees. With out pollination from bees:

-The US will lose a little more than 15 billions of dollars in crops.

-It will take a huge toll on your diet 

-Food for the animals that we eat won't be available

-The balance in nature will definitely be off

- Once one major help (bees) die, other things begin to die, which will lead to us and starvation.
 
After doing some more research I had to sit down and realize that this is real. I didn't have to do anymore research to know that. This is very important to me because I love gardens and bees and nature life. I've experience what it's like without bees and it's pretty dead.  In my back yard, well my grandfather's back yard, he had a garden. It was beautiful. And I mean beautiful. Every time it would rain I would just sit outside and stare at it. At all the wonderful colors. God didn't mess up when he made nature. Before our neighbors moved in we had more space and we grew sunflowers. I usually would be scared to go outside because there were so many bees! As a young girl I never knew it was because of them that I have juicy peaches, delicious grapes, sweet melons and more! And then as the years went by, people started moving in, the garden wasn't being taken care of and the flowers were cut down (for the portion of my new neighbors back yard). A bee barely passes by anymore and all my grandfather's garden is, is a space full of leaves. 



Often I wonder, how can I save them. Because right now they matter more than anything. Because of them we have all these wonderful crops and we just slave them around. I wonder how I can help and how I as one person can make a difference. I don't think its fair to put bees through so much just because we need the food. By putting them through this we are actually killing them more. But it's all about the money and I want to change that. 


Here is my bibliography 


Here is a picture of an unpollinated garden 

Here is a picture of a pollinated garden

Here is my first blog 

The Pro-Choice Movement's Involvement In Politics: Part Two

This is my second blog post regarding the topic of the Pro-Choice Movement’s involvement in politics. First off, I would like to state that the point of this blog entry is “opinion.” If I happen to offend anyone, I am deeply sorry. I have done more research on this topic and I have found many interesting tidbits of information. 


In my opinion abortion and contraception should not be made illegal. There are things that are illegal that people still manage to do (i.e. Drugs, dog fights, jaywalking, etc) but because they are illegal, they do these things in an unsafe manner. If abortion were criminalized, people would still get them because they are necessary in most cases. I learned that 13% of pregnancy-related deaths worldwide are related to complications in unsafe abortions. According to Planned Parenthood, 1 in 3 women in the U.S. Have had an abortion by the age of 45.


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Some people believe abortion and contraception is a mortal sin because of their religion. In 1930 the Roman Catholic Church banned all “artificial” means of contraception like condoms, diaphragms, and cervical caps. According to the Church, tampering with the "male seed" was equivalent to murder. Not all people that are Pro-Life have had those opinions their whole life. In my research the most notable change of opinion was that of former senator Rick Santorum. In a statement made in a 1995 interview Santorum says, "I was basically pro-choice all my life, until I ran for Congress... But it had never been something I thought about." Santorum is now one of the strongest opposers of abortion and contraception. “Santorum is a product of the polarization of our politics," said Pat Ewing, the former campaign manager for Senator Harris Wofford, whom Santorum defeated in the 1994 election. "He has taken advantage of it. He understands it. And he will take a position to benefit himself to get a small group of people to love him adamantly. His personality hasn't evolved, his politics has."


People can change their opinions if they think it’ll make them more popular. Not just about their views on abortion and contraception. Anything. 


In my opinion, saying “Pro-Choice” is kind of pretentious. It may sound harsh but at the end of the day the reality of it is that you are “pro-abortion.” This doesn’t mean that you want to abort every child that is conceived. It just means that you support women's right to choose what they want to do with their body. In many cases, abortions happen because of rape or incest. If it is your opinion that abortion and contraception shouldn’t even be used in these situations then I guess our beliefs conflict. 


Through out my research I’ve been asking myself, “why would people be against this?” I totally understand the religious aspect but if you oppose abortion and contraception for a reason other than that, I’m left confused. In my next blog post I have to talk about change. I plan on looking into people’s opinions on this topic to enrich my knowledge. 


Sources

First Post

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STDs of STIs: The New Crisis Of Today's Teens Blog Post#2

In continuation of the topic of STDs or STIs it was discovered that there are about 10 million different cases of STDs every year in the U.S. Now if you plan on having any kids note that an STD or STI can easily be passed down to your unborn child and not only that it can affect the development and growth of your child while it is in the womb in the process of such. Not only that in this website it states that “some of the various other health effects that can be caused by an STD during pregnancy include brain damage, blindness, deafness, chronic liver disease, pneumonia and even reoccurring pink eye.” Please be mindful on the great risk and consequences that having an STD can do. It will not just cause you the person carrying it great pain but it will somewhat damage the people that you know and love.  

Doctors can try and fix or at least ease the physically suffering it contains but not the emotional and mental anguish it later brings. That you’ll have to deal with yourself. Using condoms are not completely ‘bulletproof’ from having an STD but use it any but before even thinking about having sex make sure that you are ready. As in physically, mentally, and especially emotionally and (if you are a teen) talk to your parents about this for one second can change the entire course of your life that you had planned. Then absolutely consider getting tested as soon as possible! Same for the partner.I don't personally know anyone dear to my heart that has such a disease but I have a big family and I'm not even completely know to half of them but learning about this came to my heart that any growing child/teen would have to deal with this. My personal thoughts on this are that parents should inform their kids about this massive issue. Even if it seems that they don't want to listen try and try again to tell them for they need to know. Wouldn't you rather them keep at least a piece of what you said rather than nothing?

The most common STDs among young teens is Chlamydia. Chlamydia the most fastest spreading STD among teens ages 14-19 in Philadelphia. It can really mess up the private organs of a women and other health problems. It can lead to a women not being able to have any children that how serious it is. The tricky thing about chlamydia is that you can have it and not even know because it has no symtoms whatsoever. This why so many urge for many youths to get tested! Good thing that Chlamydia can be cured and treated with antibiotics, but do you really want to go through all of that? Is encountering an infectious disease a part of your plan in life?







For more information on my resources please click here.


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This is a picture of what chlamydia would look like on your tongue if you'd have had it.
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This is from 2005 think about the rate of female teens having it now... Also of the the pain that they have to dealt with.

Rape In Africa Blog post #2



Hello again readers! If you have forgotten who i am, my name is Sophia DeOliveira.What my research has been identifying is the topic Rape in Africa. Now, i have definitely looked more information about this issue and i just wanted to share my updated study of this issue.



Also, if you have not gotten a chance to view my first blog click here

I have gone deeper into the topic, and found out that A Medical Research Council study found that 28 percent of men in South Africa reported having perpetrated rape; three-quarters of first-time rapists are like Rebombo - under the age of 20."This violence, there is violence elsewhere in the world, but you don't see the staggering numbers of rapes that are seen here in South Africa," Rebombo says.


Now lets talk about mainly this particular scene in which Rebombo was in.After Rebombo had done what he did,he eventually left his village and joined first a religious organization and later an aid agency. He learned about respecting others, but oddly enough he did not even think twice of raping that girl.As time went on, he told others about his emotional stages and then he thought of the girl.As i had mentioned before, he apolgized many years after, and the girl swelled up in tears.Not only did he want forgiveness, but the anger inside of him just was to much...So he did what he felt like he must do, inorder to have a clean conscience.He made time to for change.He went into more detail of his life with many, and he joined more organization in the topic he focuses on.Everyone wants to do something, or atleast spread the word of this grand circumstance.


A woman is raped every 26 seconds in South Africa, according to People Opposing Women Abuse, a nonprofit group for the eradication of gender violence.The sexual violence is strong because of what some have said repeatidly.Some say it is the country's strong culture of violence.It may also be the fact that men do not realize the rights of woman, of not recognizing them necessarily as being full human beings compared to men themselves.There are many cases of multi aged- rape. There have been many news stories of 70 year-olds raping 3 year-olds, as odd as that may be.


There are many organizations trying to stop this horrible,rapid-spreading tragedy that goes on in not only africa, but also where i live too.Sexual assult, or also known as rape can be anywhere, infact all over the globe.We have for example, Rombombo,working with the "One Man Can," a project to promote healthy relationships between men and women. As such, he is out to change the national mind-set so that men will no longer think it cool to disrespect women. Violent acts must stop, he says. So must the silence of men who witness such acts.We have family service centers that are known as “havens”.There is not much that i can do to stop people from abusing others, but i can do the small things that mean a big part in my project.What i can do is increase the self-awareness about this issue.Wait for my next blog for more information !
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You and the World Blog Post #2

Throughout my first blog post, I addressed the issue of gay marriage. This blog will go further in depth on the new research conducted.

Many different factors play roles in the debate over gay marriage, such as religion, beliefs, the Government, pride.

Some religions view homosexuality as a sin. Some go so far as to protest the funerals of gays with signs that read, “God Hates Fags”.

On political terms, recently Vice President Joe Biden came out in strong favor of gay marriage.

President Obama soon also came out in favor, stating that his view on gay marriage has been evolving.

Reports say that Biden apologized to Obama for the timing of his statements.

Now that I have talked about political and religious standpoints, let’s talk social standpoints.

I created a Google Forum asking four questions; two were multiple choice, and two were text response questions.

A total of 60 legitimate responses were given over a two day span. Here are the results:



As shown above, the mass majority of those who participated in the survey are those who are in favor of gay marriage and homosexuality in general.




Of those who took the survey, the majority of them are teenagers. The majority of the teenagers in today's society favor homosexuality and unions between gay couples.


A survey on homosexuality from an online quiz website shows that the majority of those who took the survey favor gay marriage, and are teenagers.




As shown in the screenshot above, over 80% of the participants in the
survey favor gay marriage.






As shown in the screenshot above, 54% of the participants are ages 14-16, and 23% are ages 11-13.


The information and data presented thus far has a great effect on someone’s opinion on the topic, and this has happened with me.

As I said in my first blog post, I fully support gay rights, gay marriage, and all forms of unions between same sex couples, because I think every human being should be able to be happy without other people's beliefs getting in the way.

As I delved deeper into the topic of gay marriage and gay rights, I noticed that the debate over whether to legalize gay marriage is very similar to the debate over whether to legalize rights Civil Rights.

Both topics have similarities:

  • When Civil Rights among African Americans were finally acknowledged and respected, it had a huge impact on America, both positive and negative. It is better known for its positive impact. Gay marriage is argued to have a huge negative impact on America, but many believe gay marriage being legalized we would become an overall more accepting country.

  • America became more of an accepting country once Civil Rights were legalized. Gay marriage being legalized would likely result in the same.

  • I believe that the worst things that would come from the legalization of gay marriage are merely some tax increases and tension. This is similar to what happened when Civil Rights were legalized.

  • Both issues violate our human rights.

The religious aspect of hatred among homosexuals confuses me. Sure, someone has the right to have an opinion, but why must that opinion interfere with those being judged?

Yes, those who believe in that are entitled to their beliefs, but should they have say in the beliefs and decisions of those who think and feel differently?


The answer is no. To elaborate, here’s a quote I found on the internet.

“Claiming that someone else’s marriage is against your religion is like being angry at someone for eating a donut because you’re on a diet.” - Anonymous

Thank you so much for reading. Feel free to take a look at where I got all of my information for the first blog post and this one here.

Stay tuned for my third and final blog post, this time on how we can start to make a change. Thanks!

Ybrownlee blog post 4

This blog post is a bit short since i was not able to talk to my person after it disconnected. But my goal fo this week was to find out how to ask about college and what someone wanted to do in their future it turned out quite well and i learned a bunch of new stuff. (It won't let me upload a screenshot just yet though..)

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Take Two - The World As I See It: Technology

In my first post I spoke about robots existing as their own entities. 
However, what happens when we begin to incorporate inorganic, manmade, and (dare I say it?) super high-tech objects into our body systems? Right now, for example, there is a lot of hope riding on a new model of artificial heart. It doesn't pump which means the patient has no pulse - the pulse usually being the first vital sign checked - and looks nothing like a real heart. 
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Would you want a heart that looks like this? 
It's not just organic hearts being booted. A plethora of other organs are having mechanized versions of themselves made to take their place. Body parts such as eyes, legs, arms, and even ears have been remade with plastic and metal. Actually, I think this is great. So far people have only received these transplants if their lives or livelihoods depended on it. 
   
Society is riddled with new health problems that a greater number of people are developing, it is possible that these robotic organs will become conventional. At that point, what is to stop someone from going out and getting a body part removed and replaced for kicks

I think that the moment something that was originally for medical purposes suddenly becomes an item of vanity, a fault in the community has developed. As an example think of plastic surgery. Yes it is used for reconstructive purposes after an accident, but it is more well known as something cosmetic. It creates a fractured body image in people without, and it is very possible that people getting their surgeries can take it too far. 

  

Cyborg
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Mixing man and machine has become a common place occurrence in society - fictional society, at least.  
Making new arms and hearts is fine and a good thing (snazzy, even) but what can be said when the basis of a being is tampered with - the brain? 

In a rat whose brain was damaged, scientists implanted a computer chip that restored motor function. It takes information from the spinal cord and successfully relays it to the rest of the brain. On the opposite end, rat brain cells were grown and stimulated enough that they could move primitive machinery. These two experiments have the potential to make life better for a good deal of people; people with paralysis, or those thought to be catatonic or comatose. Already there are plans for computer chips that can be inserted in human brains. There is a chip designed for the part of the brain that controls learning and memory, likely to be used for people with damage or delayed growth in that area. 

If that technology is perfected, what is to stop people from having their learning capabilities enhanced? It definitely doesn't sound legal since it's a little like steroids for your brain, but even worse is how it will affect business and education. It's possible that people won't be hired if they can't get a brain chip, or kids won't be allowed the same opportunities.




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I'LL BE BACK. 
There is a genuine part of me that would love being a cyborg... but shouldn't we put certain parameters and boundaries in place before there is even a possibility of these enhancements getting out of hand?
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Alaina Silverman, Martian Dictator extraordinaire
​For further reading my sources can be found HERE.
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For those interested, please feel free to fill out this survey. The results will be posted in the third and final blog, as well as my funincredibly distorted, and Martian view on what it could mean. 

SLA Students in the Art in the Open Festival!!

​For the fourth year in a row SLA students are collaborating with the Leah Stein Dance Company to create site specific performance pieces. The pieces are part of the Art in the Open Festival and will be performed on Friday, May 18th between 1:00-3:00.  All performance sites are within four blocks of the school. As always, the process has been stunning to watch...

Click here for a printable performance schedule. (This will also be at the front door of the school on May 18th.)

Enormous thanks to all our collaborators and for all of the wonderful collaborative energy everyone is bring to the project!

Hidden City Festival 2009

AiO Publicity Video (can you spot the SLA student?)
Armory
Armory

PJAS State Science Fair 2012

This past Sunday, a group of SLA Students departed to represent Philadelphia and Bucks Counties at the annual PJAS State Competition. There, the students presented their Science Fair Projects to a panel of judges at the Pennsylvania State University. Sophomores DeSean McLoud and Jalisa Smith were honored with Third Awards. Ellen To and Owen Grzywinski's presentations earned the two sophomores Second Awards.

SLA Junior Manna-Symone Middlebrooks returned to her second PJAS State Fair to present a project on a Local Pollutant's Effect on Dissolved-Oxygen Producing Algae. This earned her both a First Award and a $2000/semester Scholarship to the Pennsylvania State University!

Finally, Senior Jeff Kessler earned a total of five awards at this year's competition! Jeff's study of the ElectroMagnetic Fields Emitted by Cell Phones not only earned him a First Award, but he achieved a perfect score of 5.0 (an additional distinction earned by less than 2% of all participants)! At the Special Award Ceremony, Jeff was also recognized for three years of participation at both the Regional and State levels, and won one of five Oerlein Awards for Outstanding Senior High School Science Student.

In total, SLA took home 10 State-Level awards and over $16,150 in monetary prizes! Congrats to all SLA PJAS State Participants!



PJAS picture
PJAS picture

Spanish Blog Post Five Ideas


For my fifth and final week I want to focus on the system of education. This time I will be using sharedtalk, as I found it more effective to use than live mocha or friends. My question for this week is "how is education structured?" I don't have anyone from a particular country or background that I want to talk to answer this question, as I'm open to any place to learn.

-What is the system of academic progression in your country like? E/i are there grades?
-How is secondary education structured?
-Are there mandated test?
-What is the structure of college?
-What's a popular field of study in college?


Que es la sistema de académico evolución en tú país como? Son ahí grado?
Cómo es secundario educación estructura?
Son ahí mandato grado?
Que es la estructura de universidad?
Que es un popular campo de estudiar en universidad?

1960s Primary Source Doc Stories

In the comments, post your story.  Then... read through other stories and build on it with another one of the primary source documents.  Keep the stories interesting and relevant.  No shenanigans, please.  Goal is to represent a story line that creatively incorporates the primary source docs in a building story.

Communism in Vietnam Blog #2

   Since the last post what I have found is so surprising I can’t describe it in words. The information that I found was about people protesting about communist rulers in Vietnam is selling the country over to China. These protests in peace.Some of them protest communism by writing songs expressing their feelings. One out of the many songwriters this person’s name is Việt Khang, his real name is Võ Minh Trí has been locked up because two of the few songs that he wrote was talking against both the Vietnamese and Chinese government.

  The songs are called “Anh la ai” ( “Who are you”) and “Vietnam Toi Dau” are both songs that have a strong message to the world, even though the Vietnamese Community wasn’t paying attention at the time. Soon the community found out about his capture and decided to take action. Now Vietnam has three problems, one is about the Catholic church being taken over by the communists rulers, two about the communists ruler selling Vietnam to China, and the final one is about Việt Khang’s capture. During the research I have came up with several questions. What can the citizens of Vietnam do now?

   Is the communist going too far with their plan? If the communist sell Vietnam to China, what would happen to the citizens of Vietnam? What would happen to their lives? What terrible events would occur after this exchange?
VietKhang
VietKhang
This picture is a picture of a guy name Viet Khang who wrote songs expressing his feelings towards the situation of Vietnam trying to sell themselves to China.
   Well now I’m well aware of what the people of Vietnam are going through and I understand that there has to be something that I can do to change it. My personal opinion about this topic is that the communism’s power over the people is expanding. I think they have gone too far about not letting their citizen have the freedom to express their feelings towards that problem.  I still wonder if I can do something about it. To help the people over there who are in search of democracy instead of communism. My plan is to go out and talk to people and inspire them to help the citizens over in Vietnam, but in the third blog post I will talk more about my plan of change.
​Here are some of the newspaper articles that are about this topic in this blog.
Here is the google translator to translate these articles.
1.1250783573.catholic-church-in-quy-nhon
1.1250783573.catholic-church-in-quy-nhon
These are one of many churches in Vietnam who are taken over by Viet Cong.
​Here is the hyperlink to my first blog. I hope you will enjoy reading my article

SLA Bike Week!

SLA BIKE WEEK!

If you plan on participating fill out this form. 


Hello everyone! This is Sam Sirochman, I am hosting SLA Bike Week, it will be happening from May 21st - 

May 25th. It is my Senior Capstone and I am doing this to promote a healthier and happier community at SLA. My goal is for everyone to ride their bikes to school, although that may be unlikely, I would like for as many people to ride to school as possible.

Why should you ride? Well because exercising in the morning is a great way to
lose weight, increase brain function, and increases overall happiness. Now if you are planning to ride in the mornings, I highly suggest that you take a look at the Preferred Commuter Routes. I must also ask that if you plan on riding, please wear a helmet! We at SLA, are all very bright people and I would hate for any of us to fall and get seriously injured.


Now the best part, if you plan on riding and are interested in getting a PhillyLove’sBikes Sticker. Let me know and I can save you one. (I’ve got 250, they will go fast!) Finally, the SLA Bike Week Raffle, we will be raffling a $50 Modell’s Gift Card. Everyday you ride your name will be entered in the Raffle. You ride once, you have one chance. If you ride everyday, your name will be entered 5 times. There will be a spreadsheet by the bicycle rack, you must write your name and bike model, I will put a check for everyday you ride.



Please remember to use the Bike Rack!

Thank you for your time, I hope to see you all riding!

Read up on some safety guidelines!

Blog post #4

This week I spoke with a guy who lives in Spain in an effort to compare the violence and criminal activities between a first world country and second or third world countries. I found out that the government has made drugs illegal in Spain so, most people stay away from them. This is similar to the way the America government has dealt with drugs. As far as the idea that Spanish speaking countries are highly dangerous and full of drugs, Spain seems to be the odd one out. I tried talking to my partner about why this is but he went offline. However, I believe that Spain is different because it has other European culture to influence it's decision. In other Spanish speaking countries most of the countries around have drug or violence problems so there is no positive influence. For my final post I want to speak to some one from Brazil or another large Spanish speaking country.
4
4
44
44

Ybrownlee Blog post 3

This blog post is a bit short since i was not able to talk to my person after it disconnected. But my goal fo this week was to find out how to ask about college and what someone wanted to do in their future it turned out quite well and i learned a bunch of new stuff. (It won't let me upload a screenshot just yet though..)

Blog #4

  • Who you spoke with and why you chose that partner

    I spoke with Looghan de Rubens from Mexico.
  • What did you learn about them? What did you learn from them?

    While talking to this guy he spoke in english to help practice his english. He also told me a little bit about himself, for example he worked in an office. 
  • How did this interaction help you move towards achieving your personal goals?

    In general my goal was to enhance my spanish and be able to hold a conversation with someone. The more I chat with these people the closer I think I am to this goal. 
  • What specifically did you do well according to your goals/expectations? What specifically to you need to improve on? (Quote specific things you said or did and what you would have done or said if you could do it again)

    Something I have done well that I continue to do is keep a conversation going as well as being able to interact more with the person I am having a conversation with. I had more with this person but something happened with my computer and I lost the other conversation me and this person had, but I uploaded everything that I do have.
Screen Shot 2012-05-16 at 12.39.39 PM
Screen Shot 2012-05-16 at 12.39.39 PM

Blog Post #4

  • Who did I speak with and why did I choose that person?


    I spoke with my best friend Nicolette who's native language is Spanish. I chose her because she knows spanish very well, and it's easier to talk to my friends for this project rather than random people .

  • What did you learn about them? What did you learn from them?


    I learned a lot about her taste in music. Although she is my best friend, this isn't something that I know pryer to this project. In a way, this strengthened our friendship.

  • How did this interaction help you move towards achieving your personal goal?


    Well, I guess in a sense it didn't. I expected to get more from this conversation, and really just realized it wasn't as good as a question as I expected. 
  • What specifically did you do well according to your goals/expectations?


    I mean as far as expectations go, I don't feel as though this conversation went as well as it could have. 

  • What specifically do you need to improve on? (Quote specific things you said or did and what you would have done or said if you could do it again)


    I need to improve on having more in depth conversations. Maybe I could find another topic that have created a better conversation.Screen Shot 2012-06-06 at 11.38.49 AM

Screen Shot 2012-06-06 at 11.05.35 AM
Screen Shot 2012-06-06 at 11.05.35 AM

Bloggy Thingy

·       Who did I speak with and why did I choose that person?

I talked to a Charles in my conversation, and obviously I chose him because he responded.

·       What did you learn about them? What did you learn from them?

I learned that he loves anime, and speaks English pretty darn well.

 

·       How did this interaction help you move towards achieving your personal goal?

He is the first one to correct me, so it helped me in more then one way!

·       What specifically did you do well according to your goals/expectations?
Since my goal was to learn about him and life there, I’d say that this Dominican republic guy was pretty helpful!

Screen Shot 2012-05-16 at 11.24.17 AM
Screen Shot 2012-05-16 at 11.24.17 AM
Screen Shot 2012-05-16 at 11.24.23 AM
Screen Shot 2012-05-16 at 11.24.23 AM