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In my last Slate Post, I talked about the interview with a former hunter Matthew Ossowski. This time, I went bigger. The last post was all about poaching. I did even more research and learned new things about poaching. Most of this information is local. I surveyed 58 people, and these were my results.

For this post, I was wondering how much people actually know about poaching and how they would answer. I got my results by making the survey. These results helped my research because I saw poaching through other people’s eyes.  What people don’t know is the poachers feel. I found a website that interviewed an actual elephant poacher about his experiences. This is what I found:

The poacher (I will call him “the poacher” because I don’t want to intrude privacy) said that he only went hunting at night. He said that he did it for money for his family. He also said that he felt inhuman, like he didn’t want to but felt like he had to, so he did. He said that his family didn’t know he did this, that could never know. The only thing they knew was that he had a job, he then went home like nothing happened and was a normal father. The jail life changed him. He wasn’t allowed to go outside. They said he had done the worst crime than anyone else in there.

After he got out, he knew things had to change. When he did get out, he went straight to the wildlife authorities to get a job. The interviewer asked about what he would do to stop the elephants from being poached, he had the same idea that I did, to teach people the importance of the animals that are being poached.

Now that I have seen through the eyes of a poacher, I see why he did it. Although it was a bad choice and there were other options, I understand why he did it, not saying that I would do it, because I wouldn’t. However, my opinion has changed a little. Like Mr. Ossowski said in my last slate post, “ however if you're doing it to feed your family because you're poor, you know legally yeah it's wrong, if you're just doing it to eat, okay. But if you're doing it just to kill something or make money or something. I don't agree with that.”. This poacher was doing just that, making money for his family, any money he made would go straight to his six kids and wife.

Although I have done all this research over the course of this project, I am still wondering how cold hearted people have to be to actually start poaching. Unlike the poacher I wrote about who acted upon family, some people do it for other reasons such as to sell them to companies, some people work for the companies and people make them into jewelry.

For my “Agent of Change” portion of my project, I will set up a group to talk about the subjects of animal poaching, and the importance of just some of the animals that are being poached. Or I will make website so everyone can see it, and talk about the topics I mentioned.

If you want more information on these websites, please visit me Annotated Bibliography.

For my capstone, I teamed up with Jared Bauer to teach a class at Science Leadership Academy Middle School (SLAMS) on sports statistics.  Jared and I are co-founders of the Sports Statistics and Analysis Club at SLA so we wanted to do a capstone together based around our club.  We decided that we wanted to teach middle school students about sports statistics.  Studies have shown that students that have a hard time learning math in the early stages of their education career, will have a harder time learning math later on.  Jared and I believed that sports statistics is a fun and easy way to learn basic math skills so we decided on teaching sports stats as our capstone.  After trying to reach out to our respective middle schools, we decided that we wanted to teach our lessons at SLAMS because of the connect the two schools already had.  We worked with Mrs. Hamilton, a math teacher at SLAMS.  We coordinated with her for lessons and when we would come in.  We also worked with Mrs. Bushnell, our in-house mentor, do help us make lessons for our classes.  Our capstone was made up of 4 classes.  We also created a project for our students to complete during the classes that they would then present to us on the fourth class  The first three classes were us teaching them different sports stats and allowing them time to work on their projects.  The project was them calculating different stats of their favorite MLB or NBA player.  On the fourth class, all the students presented their projects to us and then we ended with an ice cream party to celebrate their projects.  

Link to Photos https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B7A7F0ZYyhrrYUNIMUV1aHltckk?usp=sharing

Link to Project Description

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MM7lFjwAXWp5o9QNQi35hdaNxYYuUkJjC8AOLYq6DfI/edit?usp=sharing

Link to Lesson Template

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sxks3MuOejhPRwo_01tttaUKPNMtp7eGXkp-xlgtqEw/edit?usp=sharing

Link to Annotated Bibliography

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EBvSg6shXTOKPBEm4PKCiaS1k3h1HZ9IvvYB6FUJN-o/edit?usp=sharing

In my first blog post I talked about my personal experience with domestic violence as well as someone else's. I talked a lot about my father and my step father. My mother's father was an abuser  so she married another abuser thinking it was normal. I talked about another woman who went through an awful relationship where she was abused both physically and mentally. She was kept away from her family and friends for what she thought was love  

This is a picture from 2003 of me, my dad and my sister

For my original research I did an interview with  my mother. I saw her go through a lot of domestic abuse and I wanted other people to know her story. I asked 5 questions about her experience and the long lasting effects of domestic violence.

The first question I asked was “What’s your experience growing up and being married to an abuser?” She said that growing up with an abuser she made it seem normal. In her eyes everything wasn’t good or bad, just normal. She said she hated yelling and the constant anger around her house. “I hated the yelling.  That was probably the worst part as it never seemed to end and happened all the time.  Nothing was ever good enough for my father.”  Then when she grew up she married a man who was similar to her father. He yelled and threw things. Nothing was good enough for him either.  SHe had to lie to her friends about bruises and she wasn’t allowed out without his permission. She said canceling plans was a regular for her. He didn’t allow her to go out when she wanted to. “I routinely had to cancel plans with friends because I wasn't allowed to go out and I remember one time that we were supposed to meet a friend out for lunch and he would not even let me call to cancel because he was so angry, so I had to just have her waiting at a restaurant and us never show up.” She had to leave her friends waiting in restaurants because he wouldn't let her out.

The next question in my interview was “Why did you stay?” She said her main reason for staying how long she did was that she wanted a 2 parent home for me and my siblings. Her mom stayed with her father until all her kids were grown. My mom thought maybe things would get better. She thought that having a 2 parent home was better for us and she relied on the hope of everything getting better. “ My mom had stayed until we were grown and I thought that it would be better for you to grow up in a two parent home.  It had been my experience and I wanted that for my kids too.  I really normalized the experience and thought that in time, it would get better.  Clearly, that didn't happen.”

The third question was “How did you get out?” She said that she got out when my father left. He left once and came back. My mother being thinking things could still change she let him back. He then left again. This time she didn’t know where he went, she didn’t know when he would be back. Almost a year later he came back. My mom had been on her own for almost a year. She got her confidence back and knew she could do this on her own so she didn’t let him back. After that he was gone for good.

The fourth question was “What do you think now about your actions and choices then? What advice do you wish you could give yourself?” My mom said that looking back at everything she knows life was hard but she wouldn’t change it. After all this she has me and my siblings. She just hopes that we don’t have relationships like that in the future. She hopes that everything is better in the future.

The last question I asked her was “What were the long term effects after you you got out?” The main effects she mentioned was self esteem issues. “Depression and self-esteem issues are definitely long lasting impacts of the experiences I have had.”

I did some research about the long term effects of domestic violence. Many people experience depression. A lot of people feel unworthy of real relationships and healthy relationships. Other people experience post traumatic stress disorder. They suffer from flashbacks and nightmares.

There was a woman who was in abusive relationship for years. She was not only physically abused but she was verbally abused as well. Her abuser called her things like “whore” or “slut”. It took  her a while to finally recover after she was out of the relationship. She felt unworthy of a good healthy relationship. ALthough she finally got her life back, she will have to deal with these feelings of depression and anxiety for almost the rest of her life.

My Annotated Bibliography

Hello! Welcome back to my blog. If you didn’t read my first post, please read that first, so you will understand more about the topic that I am going to talk about. In my first blog, I talked about industries harming animals, for example, puppy mills, fur farms, pet stores not taking care of their animals. I talked about what secret industries do to animals and that they don’t tell anyone what they do to the animals. I am going to talk for them, to be the animals’ voices. This is important because a reasonable amount of people that took my survey knew about this, but not everyone. I am going to show what people know from looking from my survey. I want to show the world that animals are being harmed. I made a survey so it will help me see if people really do know if they know about this. The result were quite shocking.  

For our project, You and the World, we get to decide if we get to do a interview, survey or a field observation. For the past 2 weeks, we had to do an interview, survey, or field observations for our topic. For my topic I chose to do a survey. In my survey I asked questions like…

• If they are aware industries harming animals?

• What do they know about it?

• What do you know about puppy mills?

My results were surprising, not a lot of people know what puppy mills are or what industries are really doing, some of the results were just unnecessary or unhelpful. Here are the results below if they heard about puppy mills.

Results of ‘Have you ever heard about puppy mills?’

The survey that I made gave me a different perspective on what other people know about industries harming animals. I thought a good amount of people knew that industries are harming animals, but they didn’t know what is truly happening to them from looking at the results I received. It was proven that 84% of people were aware of industries harming animals and 16% of people didn’t know about it. In my survey, I asked a question “What do you know about industries harming animals?” lots of people said they don’t know, but there were a few people that went deep into this, “I know the fur industry can harm/injure/kill animals for their fur. Factory farms abuse animals and give them no room to move around in and have the animals live in their own filth. Puppy mills inbreed and leave dogs in small cages. I also know that zoos and circuses abuse animals to do tricks for them.” “I know that a lot of farms and and other industries that produce meat often times are where animals are sent to be slaughtered, and while they are there they are tormented, starved, squished and crowded together and have no relief. Their necks are broken, and many are fed things that make them larger but are unhealthy for their systems.” I was happy to see these informational result, but that is only a few people, I want more people to know about this problem.

I asked a question on my survey if they support industries harming animals and the results is above. As you can see 8% of people supported industries harming animals. 10% is neutral and 82% does not support industries harming animals. I want to change that and I need a solution.

Agent of Change is what is a solution or how you are going to help this situation. My Agent of change is I will be fundraising for a animal shelter. I want to do this because the government actually does not provide money to shelter which is crazy and sad. I am going to step up to provide money, by doing a fundraiser to a shelter, Paws.

Hopefully, this will be a trend, helping shelters. We will start off small then go on and help all animals around the world. I can’t do this alone so we can work together to stop this problem. For more information click here for my bibliography.

Capstone Bibliography

• Catarinella, Alex. "Our 5 Favorite Emerging Designers We Saw At Berlin Fashion Week."Grailed: Dry Clean Only. Grailed, 24 Jan. 2017. Web. 29 Jan. 2017. <https://www.grailed.com/drycleanonly/berlin-fashion-week-fw17>.

• This source is important for me specifically because of the fact that I am the creative director for our upcoming brand. The main goal for a creative director is to ensure that designs that are going to be showcased are ahead of current trends. They have to be ahead of multiple trends and this list from one of the most trusted menswear catalogues and sale site explains why these new designers are so great. This can be used to base multiple future designs on what clothing connoisseurs look for in order to gain attention the most attention.  

• Ginsberg, Allen . "Sunflower Sutra by Allen Ginsberg | Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 1955. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49304>.

• Our first project is dubbed, “The Sunflower Project”. There is an untold energy and art that the sunflower gives off that not everyone realizes. This is the piece in which our first release is based off of. Without this poem and the insight from Nigo, the sunflower project would have not sprouted.

• Haywood, Emma. “Painting on Textile Fabrics.” The Decorator and Furnisher, vol. 11, no. 5, 1888, pp. 180–180. www.jstor.org/stable/25585466.

• This source was extremely helpful even though it was about painting on furniture. Emma Haywood describes how to paint on fabric with oil paint. She states the dos and the don’ts very clearly. This was sourced because we plan on doing hand-painted merchandise as a promotional release before the first official release.

• Kiper, Anna. Fashion portfolio: design and presentation. London: Batsford, 2014. Print.

• Anna Kiper does a great job of covering the main components and concepts of designing apparel and a fashion portfolio. Most of the research conducted was about how to make a quality garment that will end up being successful in the real world. It is not as easy as it looks but Anna Kiper does a great job making it seem less difficult than it is.  

• Lengwiler, Guido. A History of Screen Printing. Cincinnati, Ohio: Cincinnati, Ohio : ST Media Group International, 2013.

• After multiple meetings, me and my partners have come to the conclusion that we want screen printing done on our shirts for the first couple of releases (no more than 3). There are many different ways to to screen print though and it is completely different from regularly printing a graphic on a shirt, one difference being that it is done by hand. Screen printing is much higher quality and that is what we want. This book explains the history of screen printing and covers multiple different techniques. This is essential for finding the best way to screen print since we only want to release high quality products.

• Mcquarrie, Edward F., and David Glen Mick. “Visual Rhetoric in Advertising: Text‐Interpretive, Experimental, and Reader‐Response Analyses.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 26, no. 1, 1999, pp. 37–54. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209549.

• Edward Mcquarrie covers the same topic that the Small Business Administration does except this looks at the art of advertisement through a more conceptual lens. This provides a more artistic view on what advertisement is and how do it successfully. This allows me to creatively grasp the concept of advertising in order to start creating more simple but original and creative ads.

• NIGO. Atorie bai nigo. N.p.: Magajinhausu., n.d. Print.

• Like Sunflower Sutra, this is another piece of writing that was an influence for me specifically. Nigo is the reason why the sunflower came into my mind in the first place. Atelier gives readers a peek into Nigo’s vast collection of, well… collectables. They are what influences him and draw out the genius that is Nigo. This book is also essential because it was another huge factor to starting The Sunflower Project.
  
  

• Sartain, William. “Thoughts on Art and the Art Collector.” The Art World, vol. 1, no. 4, 1917, pp. 276–278. www.jstor.org/stable/25587749.

• The art collector section is one that contains the most importance to me. Reason being that me and my colleagues want to, in the future, have many of our pieces be considered art. Why do collectors collect and why are collectors important? This source explains it. It talks about why collecting art is important and the type of art that typical collectors go for. This is very useful to me specifically because, like the Grailed article, I can base certain designs off of what collectors look for in art. Mixing fine art and great design with a great business plan ensures sales.

• U.S. Small Business Administration Editors. "Advertising: The Basics | The U.S. Small Business Administration." Advertising: The Basics | The U.S. Small Business Administration | SBA.gov. U.S. Small Business Administration , 2017. Web. 01 Feb. 2017. <https://www.sba.gov/managing-business/running-business/marketing/advertising-basics>.

• This source is important because it covers the basics of advertising. Whether it be food, a device, or clothes, advertising is crucial to getting the world to know about your products. Me and my partners have had no prior experience in marketing so being able to get tips from a trustworthy network is extremely helpful. We have not used all of the advice that this site provided but we have begun to implement multiple tips into our own advertisements.

• Wagner, Eric T. "10 Rules To Build A Wildly Successful Business." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 07 July 2014. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2014/01/14/10-rules-to-build-a-wildly-successful-business/#42671bfde287>.

• This Forbes article contains a lot of valuable information for me and my partner. Although this is from a tea company owner’s perspective, this can be very useful because it touches on the business world in general. Applying some of these rules is essential in order for keeping a healthy business whether it be tea or anything else. Art and business are already a great mix, it is just a matter of being original and these business rules do not interfere with creativity and or originality.

In my first blog post, I introduced the topic of my You & The World Project, which is bullying LGBT+ children in schools. You can find that blog here. I talk about the types of insults children use, the statistics behind insults, and who people hear them from. I also talk about where bullying stems from, and how it affects children from a young age. That’s all in my first blog post.

I found a new source, talking about being openly gay in high school, and still hearing homophobic slurs from a water polo team. Tony Covell still heard homophobic slurs from his teammates in the locker room. The team would jokingly use the words and look at Covell, he would blow them off and ignore their ignorance. These boys knew their teammate and who he was, but day after day they continued to use these words. So why do people continue to use slurs and hate speech, even if they know someone's sexuality? Covell says it’s about the hate behind it. That being called a “faggot” is supposed to be offensive. Covell says “The term “faggot” is degrading — it gives a derogatory term to a word that in most cases are being used as a synonym for “gay.”

GLSEN, sponsored by Celebrating Kindness, created a “no name calling week”, to reduce kids in high school from using homophobic or gay slurs. This week has no set time, and schools and does it whenever they feel necessary. They propose ideas and things to do to keep kids from using these slurs, and how to celebrate LGBT+ students in their schools.

For my project, I had to do original research to find out more about my topic. I did a survey, which you can find here, and sent it out to children who go to my school.  My topics asked about how students felt about the LGBT+ community if they’ve heard slurs against it, if they’ve witnessed bullying, and if they’ve tried to help it. It was an anonymous survey, so no information was recorded about the students.

I learned from the students that most people thought the slurs were moderately hurtful, mostly heard them from students, and heard them in school. None responded that they disliked the LGBT+ community. This information helped me understand how a group of high school students feel about the LGBT+ community. It also helped me see that people sometimes don’t think that the slurs are hurtful, and some even said that they don’t hear the slurs at all. Personally, I think that the “hurt” of the slur depends on the person. It all depends on your experience with the LGBT+ community, your supports, and the type of people you’ve been around. I’m not affected much by homophobic slurs, but I do know people who are bothered by them a lot.

This image shows if people have seen bullying towards people in the LGBT+ community, taken from my survey results

For my agent of change in the real world, I’m not sure what I want to do yet. I was thinking of fundraising and giving the money to organizations who help prevent bullying or make safe spaces for teens who are LGBT+ and not supported. Or I wanted to fundraise and give the money to organizations that make “care packages” for Transgender teens who can’t afford, or whose parents won't let them buy clothes that make them feel comfortable. Those are some options that I have.

Hi, it’s Kai Payton again. In my first blog, I introduced my You & The World project which I’m doing on premature births. I gave basic information about premature births, such as about 380,000 babies are born prematurely a year in the U.S. A premature baby is a baby that was born 36 or fewer weeks from their initial due date and can cause many problems. Some of those problems were stated in my previous blog post so if you haven’t read it check it out. I also talked about why I chose to do premature births and it was because my aunt had a premature baby and it was a hard experience for her.

In this blog, I wanted to know more about the experience and how other families felt so I researched some stories from other mothers that had premature babies. The first story I found was from Catharine Aboulhouda’s family. Catharine was born weighing 1 pound and 11 ounces with a bleeding brain, a heart defect, and a heart murmur. She was due in October but was born in July. Catharine came home from the hospital after 113 days of being hospitalized there but she still needed monitors and oxygen. Now she’s a healthy little girl that is traveling around the country to share her story to help others understand how serious premature births are.

Another story I read about was from Tyler Jameson’s family. Tyler’s mom said she “developed preeclampsia with her first baby and was hospitalized on complete bedrest.” Tyler was born by emergency c-section at 26 weeks due to placental abruption. Placenta abruption is when the placenta detaches from the womb and it’s rare for it to happen. He was born with “respiratory distress syndrome, apnea, anemia, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, intraventricular hemorrhage, patent ductus, arteriosus, jaundice, and infections.” Some of the infections he was diagnosed with were sepsis, pneumonia, and bacterial meningitis. Due to his prematurity he had to get 2 surgeries when he was 6 months. Tyler has grown since then and shows no signs of disabilities that are common in premature babies.

I also did an interview with my aunt recently (The one who had Jase). She went deeper into her story about the experience of having Jase and the difficult times she had going through it. It was helped me think back to when Jase was going through his struggles. She explained that the experience when she first had Jase knowing that he was premature was like an “out-of-body experience,” and she didn’t realise how severe the experience was until later on. She also said that one of the things that got her through the experience was gospel music and praying. This adds to my understanding of Premature Births because I got  personal opinions from a mother that had a premature baby. It still amazes me how premature births can happen to any mother and if they want to do something about it it’s very expensive.

-Picture of The Interview With My Aunt and The Interview Questions

Overall with this blog post I wanted to get real stories from other families that experienced what my aunt experienced because some cases are more severe than others. I also wanted to share some of my personal connection to the topic to show why I care about it.

In my first Blog post, I did my best to inform you on what my topic was. I discussed the possible dangers in how technology has/will advance, the theories behind these dangers, and a proposal on how to delay/stop it. I looked at opinions from some of the world’s leading minds such as Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk. I looked into the way computers process information and how they could be integrated into technologies such as smart eye contacts. Since that post, I’ve sent out a survey with 41 responses (so far) and conducted an interview with SLA’s own Mr. Kamal. The interview was recorded on video and is planned to be integrated into a longer video in the future.

The Survey showed me a few things. While most people have computer technology heavily integrated into their lives, few of them feel an emotional connection to it. In my responses, I found a few incredibly in depth answers from people I could tell cared a lot about the subject.

Earlier in the year, I decided to take on the lead the Spirit Committee and I can tell you, I did not expect it to be this challenging. What I wanted out of this project was a growth from myself. I realized that I used to always stay in my comfort zone- which was allowing others to lead- and I never realized that it started to get boring. I was tired of the norm and I found that being that it is my last year at SLA, it would be the perfect timing to do so. I wanted to step up and see what I can do. I wanted to leave a mark that spoke about the person I am and that is a young woman who enjoys life. I believe that although school is important, so is a person's’ social skills. We all need to let loose and enjoy what is around us.

With that being said, throughout this school year I hosted the Halloween Costume Contest, Ugly Sweater Contest, fundraised for the school dance, hosted the SLA Dance, and lastly held a Pep Rally. The challenges I faced along the way was communication. Being that there are a handful of members on the committee, we had lots of ideas contributed. At one specific event, it was postponed twice. It was a stressful process and at times, I wanted to give up. But I had to think of the students and what worked best for all of us.

Improving The Care For The Youth

Hi, I’m Niya and for some time now, I have been doing some research on Problematic family. Basically I am going over the problems that happens in family homes such as abuse. It talks about how children are affected by the family homes and feelings they may come across while in a group or foster home. We aren’t really aware of what happens when no one is around. What if these problems are still going on in the oster or group home the child is staying in? Some people don’t really care or think about it as much as people like me. This can become a bigger problem and here is nothing changing to make sure children are safe and in a great group or foster home, To read more about go read my first post.

In my first post, I didn’t include something which would be very important to this project which is DHS. ( Department of Human Services) DHS is a child care system what protects children from bad parenting or abuse in homes. These people are big responders to any type of harm to children in their homes. Social worker play a big role in taking children from abusive homes and putting them into new group or foster homes. If you are interested in child welfare, there are people that will come to your home to see if everything is fine for a child to stay there with a gurdan.

Yes being in a group or foster home can be very stressful. So me children don’t believe that they should be there and they choose to run away from their foster or group home. In Oklahoma City, children were sexualy asstulted and after running away from state custody. You would think, why? Why would they run away just like that? This says that something is going on that others who care are not aware of.  Check out this situation about the abused runaway children.

I have recently interviewed a friend of mine named Orlando. Orlando is 15 year old  has been in 2 foster homes in his life for about 3 years. He says he has never liked foster homes . The first time he has ever stepped foot in a foster home was when he was only 6 years old and he says he didn’t feel comfortable and they didn’t not treat him like he was wanted there. He was also scared and had lots of problems that he can’t explain. While in foster homes, the only person he said he could count on was his sister who was also in a foster home but at the age of 17, it wasn’t required for her to stay there so she had left. Orlando says if he was one of the most important people working for the foster care system he said he would “Talk to kids privately and see if they are experiencing any problems in the group home. Mainly just talk to them and see how their foster parents and siblings are treating them.” You should see more of this interview with Orlando.

Also if you are looking for more information, I suggest you go check out my annotated Biography!

Hey everyone, I’m back again to tell you more about eating disorders. For an overview about what they are, see my last post. To recap, eating disorders are a medical issue when a person’s diet and relationship with food is severely damaged in some way. There are four categories of eating disorders: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge-Eating Disorder, or Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorders (OSFEDs). They can cause a person’s body to rapidly deteriorate to the point of death, if not treated.

Last post, I didn’t talk much about treatment for eating disorders, so that’s what I’m going to talk about now. According to Akron Children’s Hospital, treatment for eating disorders “focuses on helping kids cope with their disordered eating behaviors and establish new patterns of thinking about and approaching food.” This means that the affected person is being coached to think more positively about food and its purpose as nutrition, not to be abused or deprived of. There are different types of treatment: short-term inpatient, partial inpatient, intensive outpatient, and outpatient care. These can be combined or used one after the other, like a timeline. First is short-term inpatient, which is used when the patient is too physically or psychologically unstable to be home, and needs to receive medical help and/or therapy everyday. Then there’s partial inpatient care, where the patient needs to be at the hospital often, but isn’t a danger to themselves if at home. After that comes intensive outpatient, which means that the patient is home full-time, but receives medical and therapeutic help on a regular basis. Finally, there’s outpatient. This is when the patient has reached a much more stable relationship with food and life, is becoming much healthier, and is just in therapy, usually once or twice a week. Throughout the recovery process, it’s estimated that about 168 hours per month are invested in healing. However, sometimes treatment for these disorders are hard to get. In fact, less than half of people with eating disorders actually get the help that they need, with the statistics going as low as only 6% of patients getting treatment (this rate for bulimia, specifically). Part of this is due to people’s unawareness of what eating disorders are and how dangerous they can be. It’s also sometimes due to lack of health insurance to be able to pay to get checked into inpatient care, for the sometimes required medical tests and medicine, and therapy.

There also seems to be a stigma around eating disorders due to a lack of knowledge. I conducted my own survey, distributed to SLA students via the advisory memo and direct confrontation, and asked about how much the students know about eating disorders, how aware they are of their prevalence, how they learned about eating disorders, and how they see them in our community. The answers were downright dreary. Of the polled students, almost 70% have known someone with an eating disorder, and 22% have had one. That’s crazy, that eating disorders are so common, even in our own community. I also asked about what eating disorders people have heard of, the majority being Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. This shows that awareness for eating disorders is low, to the point where only one or two disorders are widely known. Wake up, anorexia isn’t the only eating disorder! To see exactly how people think, I asked the recipients what comes to mind when someone says “eating disorders”. The most popular answers were: “Anorexia and Bulimia”, “skinny girls”, and “overeating”. This shows that people have a very one-dimensional view of eating disorders.

To see how students felt about eating disorders in our community, I asked about what they knew and felt. On a scale of 1-5 (1 being “I disagree completely” and 5 being “I agree completely”), students were asked to rate how much they agree with a statement. Most rated a “4”, for whether or not they feel eating disorders are a problem in our community. What’s outrageous is that not a single student said that they completely disagree that eating disorders aren’t a problem. That means that every student to take my survey thought that eating disorders are at least a little bit of a problem in the SLA community. Most people also rated a “2” on the statement “Students are well educated on eating disorders.” Therefore, the majority of students who took my survey think that we should learn more about eating disorders. I agree with this, because I have never, in any health or eating course, learned about eating disorders. I was never talked to about eating disorders, I learned about these disorders from a book and the internet, like a large number of my surveyors. Most of the people who took my survey also agreed that eating disorders aren’t talked about enough in our community, which I personally agree with.

As you can see, I and other members of the community feel that eating disorders are an under-communicated about problem. Eating disorders aren’t talked about much in our community, meaning that the only information people get about eating disorders, if any, is from their own research and the internet. Shouldn’t we be learning about this stuff in school, or from our parents? How can we know how bad these things are for us if we barely even know what they are. If someone finds out about bulimia, but doesn’t know all the consequences, they may think that it’s okay to get food out of your system in those ways. This needs to change. Therefore, I am going to raise awareness for my Agent of Change piece of this project. I intend to make one or two posters to hang up in our school, talking about eating disorders and their statistics, and to make a video. This video will talk about my own experience with eating disorders, as well as what they are and treatment for them. I will also include help resources for any struggling. I intend to show this video, perhaps at a grade-wide advisory if possible. Tune in next post to see how this all goes!

Hi again! As you may have read in my first blog, my name is Asnain Khan and I am currently working on a project called “You and the World” for my English class. This is my second blog post of the project, and I am here to inform you even more about the environmental pollution in Philadelphia. If you are reading this and haven’t read my last post, you can access it here. In my first blog post, I talked about what environmental pollution is like in Philadelphia and what some of the main causes and effects are. I also talked about the different types of pollutions. In this blog post, I will informing you about the original research I have done and some new research I found about pollution in Philadelphia. Without further ado, here’s my post!

Since my first blog post, I have done more research, and conducted my own original research. As part of my own original research, I created a survey, which I sent throughout my school. My goal with my survey was to see if the SLA students were aware of the environmental pollution encasing Philadelphia, and what they thought about it. The questions I asked were: What grade are you in? Are you aware of environmental pollution in Philadelphia? What do you know about environmental pollution in Philadelphia? What do you think are the main causes environmental pollution? How many of these types of pollutions have you heard of? Did you know that Philly is the 10th most polluted city in the United States? Did you know that each year in Philadelphia, an estimated 126 lives are cut short and 284 people are hospitalized due to excess air pollution? Did you know that Philadelphia area's pollution earns an “F” from American Lung Association? Did you know that ozone and particulates exacerbate chronic obstructive lung disease, requiring more than 280 Philadelphians each year to seek hospitalization or treatment in an emergency room? On a scale of 1-10, how much do you agree with the following statement? Environmental pollution is a major problem in our community. On a scale of 1-10, how much do you agree with the following statement? Environmental pollution is often talked about in our community. On a scale of 1-10, how much do you agree with the following statement? Students are well-educated about environmental pollution? Finally, do you think that people should know more about environmental pollution in Philadelphia? I felt that these questions would be helpful to determine everyone’s knowledge on this topic.

For my survey, I got exactly 50 responses. The majority of responses were from freshmen (72%). From the results I got, 86% of the students in SLA are aware of pollution in Philadelphia and 14% are not. This was kind of surprising to me, because people don’t really talk about pollution at all. When I asked what people knew about pollution in Philadelphia, many answered that it is very harmful to humans. Following this question, I asked what people thought were the main causes of environmental pollution, the majority of the students answered “people.” This shows that many people believe we are the main cause of the pollution. I also asked about what type of pollutions they have heard of, the majority being air and water pollution. This shows that the awareness of pollution, and types of pollution, in Philadelphia is low.

*This image shows the percentage of people that answered this question. 86% answered “yes” and 14% answered “no.”

*This image shows the answers to the question, “what do you think are the main causes of environmental pollution?” This shows that the majority of the students answered “people.”

*This image shows how many of these types of pollutions the students heard of. As you can see most of the students picked “air and water pollution.”

After that, I wanted to see if people knew the facts about pollution in Philadelphia, so I wrote down a couple of facts and asked the students if they knew about them. The questions were “yes or no” questions. The majority of the students answered “no” for all of the questions. I wasn’t surprised by this at all, because I knew that the awareness of pollution is low, so we can’t expect people to know that facts. To see how the students felt about environmental pollution in Philadelphia, I simply asked how they felt. Students were asked to rate how much they agreed with a statement from a scale of 1-10 (1 being “definitely disagree” and 10 being “definitely agree”). Most of the students rated a “10,” for whether they felt like environmental pollution is a major problem in our community. I expected this, because pollution is a major problem in our community. Also, the majority of the students rated a “4,” for whether they felt like environmental pollution is often talked about in our community. This makes sense, no one really talks about pollution in our community. Finally, most of the students rated a “4,” for whether they felt like students are well-educated about environmental pollution. I definitely agree, because many people don’t know about pollution and they aren’t taught about it in schools. The last question I asked was, “do you think that people should know more about environmental pollution in Philadelphia?” 98% of the students answered “yes” and only 2% of the students answered “no.” I would answer yes to this question as well, because I feel like students aren’t taught about environmental pollution as much as they should be.

*These are all images of the facts I wrote and asked the students if they knew it or not. As you can see for all of these questions, most of the students answered “no.”

In addition to conducting my own research, I did some new research online. In my last blog post, I didn’t go deep into the effects of air pollution in Philadelphia, so that’s what I am going to do now. I am also going to include new facts about air pollution in Philadelphia. Air pollution in Philadelphia makes people sick and cuts lives short. It irreparably damages lung tissues in ways similar to secondhand tobacco smoke, leading to a wide range of health impacts. Air pollution also triggers heart attacks and strokes. It causes diseases like chronic bronchitis and lung cancer. Air pollution can even send people to the emergency room with respiratory problems, cause asthma attacks, and contribute to respiratory illness in otherwise completely healthy people.

Most people think of air pollution only on days when the news announces an air quality alert, warning about high levels of smog and advising citizens to limit outdoor activity due to the health threat posed by smog pollution. Unfortunately, people in Philadelphia aren’t exposed to air pollution just a few dozen times a year on bad air days. Philadelphians breathe polluted air day in and day out throughout their entire lives. Much of the pollution comes from burning fossil fuels for energy, in cars, trucks, power plants and industrial facilities. Many of these pollutants are invisible, but they are everywhere.

Air pollution in Philadelphia is a serious and persistent problem. The American Lung Association gives 28 neighborhoods in Philadelphia an “F” for air quality, and that’s just for smog pollution. Philadelphia as a whole has the second worst chronic air pollution problem, worse than every state but California. Air pollution poses major health risks for Philadelphians, especially children and the elderly. Air pollution shortens lives, sends people to the hospital and the emergency room, and triggers asthma attacks. These are merely the most visible signs of the health threats posed by polluted air, as this pollution affects every individual in Philadelphia by reducing lung function and increasing the risk of illness.

Nor are we safe on days when air pollution levels are below those recognized by the government as meeting federal “safe” standards. Ozone smog and particulate soot can cause health problems even on days when pollution levels are within the “safe” standards set by federal officials. This is especially true for people who live, work, or play near busy roadways. Pollution from traffic can be high near roadways, even when overall air pollution levels are relatively low. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics notes that, “In numerous cities in the United States, the personal automobile is the single greatest polluter, because emissions from millions of vehicles on the road add up.” Scientists are now finding that children who live or go to school near major highways are more likely to have respiratory problems, including asthma.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Congress adopted the federal Clean Air Act in 1970, it established the goal of setting and achieving air quality standards protective of human health by 1975. Nearly three decades later, Philadelphia’s air still fails to meet established health standards—standards that may not even be fully protective of human health. With the rollback of key air pollution policies at a federal level—and with increased motor vehicle traffic population, and overall energy use threatening to undermine the progress we have made toward cleaner air—Philadelphia has reached a critical juncture. Solutions do exist. From modern emission controls for cars and power plants to effective transit systems, we have the technological know-how to significantly reduce air pollution in Philadelphia. By adopting public policies that put these technologies to work, Philadelphia can reduce air pollution and help millions of its citizens to live longer and healthier lives.

For my Agent of Change, I am going to raise awareness. I am going to make a video about pollution in Philadelphia to inform more people about it. I will make sure the video is set to public, so that people can see it. I am going to post the video up on facebook and even show it to people in school. The next blog is on it’s way, stay tuned in!

Check out my annotated bibliography for more information!