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Micah Carrera        English 9

You & The World                                                                                                  Agent of Change

My topic is Nursing Home abuse. I have two main goals for this project. First, I want to raise awareness to people who do not have an Elder in a Nursing Home so that if they see it in a Nursing Home or hear about it, they know the situation and how to handle it correctly. I researched an organization  that teaches you how to correctly/controllably handle a situation in reporting Nursing Home Abuse. Secondly, I want people who do have an Elder in a Nursing Home or plan to place their Elder in a Nursing Home to be aware of events that could be potentially happening or potential to happen.

For my third checkpoint of the You and the World project, we were given the task of creating an  Agent of Change project. Our task in this was to find something we could do to accomplish our goal of the You and the World Project. We could host an event, create a poster, make a presentation. For my Agent Of change, I created a presentation that I hosted in the conference room. I presented on my topic for the You and the World which was Nursing Home Abuse. I have discussed about Nursing home abuse in Slate post #1 and Slate post #2. I also created a Survey  which I would love for you to fill out. It would help me so much. So for my presentation I created a slide show. The slide show basically described what my topic was and my main goals were in making this project. I also explained the most common types of abuse in these nursing homes. These types are mental abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. My presentation was very successful and I feel that I accomplished my two main goals. I had about 18 to 20 people come for my presentation. Three of those people had a Elder in a nursing home. So it was great to let them know about events that could potentially be happening to their Elder. I also introduced the survey that I created in Slate post #2. My audience was very interested in the types of abuse and they had many questions about how often they occurred and if they really occurred. People were really stuck on how Elders are sexually abused, which is the sad truth. These are the moments that touch people to care more about these things and be more aware and spread the word. So in conclusion, I am very happy with my You and the World project and my Agent of Change section. I believe that I reached the goals that I set myself to achieve.

Annotated Bibliography

Siarra Cummings

Feeding Starving Children

Making A Change

I decided to name this blog making a change because in this post I am making a change in the world. Feeding starving children is a very serious thing and I’m glad people have started to take action on it including myself. In my last blog post  I stated how there were many organizations making a change and finding different ways to help children all over the world. One organization I am affiliated with and know the most about is what this project is basically based off on, Feed My Starving Children Organization. Some things I have done for my project is get my family and friends involved. Working with this organization has been a true blessing am I am glad to still be working with them in the future.

This is a picture of some of the volunteers making and putting the food into boxes. After we made 32 packs of food we would pack them into one of the boxes and “whoop” when we were done. It was actually really fun to see everyone be so enthusiastic about packing food for starving children and be willing to do something like this. I also really enjoyed talking to the people there while packaging the foods. Some people were volunteers just like me but have been working with them for years.  The people there were amazing though, no one complained everyone had smiles and was happy to help.

When I was there I had to remember simple steps such as remembering to put the food in our: vitamins, vegetables, soy and then rice. It was something so simple but after doing it for a few hours it kind of got mixed up sometimes. The people there were so nice though so I wasn’t shy or bored, it was actually really fun to talk the people. Most of these people are from my church and some of them are volunteers who help every year. Everyone had great attitudes that day it was such a fun experience.

Each of these boxes were 700lbs and it took a crew to help load it onto the truck. The whole togetherness and vibe of the place really made me want to do it again.  I really believe these people are a true blessing and they are doing something really great for these children who sometimes believe they don’t have someone there for them. I also would like the chance to visit these countries with them in the future and see all the children they have saved. I think it would be so cool to be apart of something like that it’s something I do see myself doing in the future.

My element was gold, the atomic number is 79. Gold is primarily used in jewelry and aesthetics, it can also be used in food, and money. In old stories dragons usually guard piles of gold, and my picture is a dragon on-top a pile of gold.

Mrs. Hull taught us how to sketch into our foam, flip it over so it’s backwards, then roll it and make a print of it. I would spend more time working on the stamp part and painting it correctly, so it looks better. I enjoyed drawing the dragon the most, because it was fun to do.

This is my element Fluorine, the atomic number is 9. In 1886 a french chemist Henri Moissan discovered Fluorine. He was the first one to isolate Fluorine. Fluorine is very toxic and can reacted very easily. Since it reacts easily it is hard to store. But why did I put toothpaste to represent Fluorine? Because it is made from fluorine. I choosed toothpaste because I did some research and I was inspired by it. I put the atomic number as the floss, I thought that was clever.

The process I did is to have my design, put it on transparent paper or wax paper, then trace/transfer that onto foam plate. Finally put roll paint on the foam plate that has the design and ‘print’ it on paper.

If I got to do this again I would be more neat and organized to make sure that it would be clear to see. What I enjoyed about this project is making my design for Fluorine and printing it.

Hi everyone, so I’m back for my final post for this project about eating disorders. For an overview about what they are, see my first and second posts. To review, eating disorders are a medical issue when a person’s diet and relationship with food is severely damaged in some way. There are four types of eating disorders: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge-Eating Disorder, and 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. I did a survey within SLA’s student body to see what people knew about eating disorders, and the answers were not positive. People didn’t really know much, and agreed that they aren’t talked about enough.

Before going into what I did to make a change in the world of eating disorders and awareness, I’m going to talk about what things are already being done. There’s an organization known as the NEDA, the National Eating Disorders Association. They provide a lot of information about eating disorders to raise awareness, and give a helping hand to those who are going through the process of getting better. They give free eating disorder screenings, host walks and other awareness events, suggest good treatment facilities, have support groups, and even have their own “NEDAwareness Week”. During the NEDAwareness Week this year, the NEDA’s goal was to get as many people as possible screened and to talk about their experiences with eating disorders using the “#NEDAwareness” hashtag. The NEDA also has a program called “The Body Project”, where they get a few groups of candidates and give them weekly workshops on body acceptance. Results show that these people tend to feel less unhappy with their body.

Now that this project is over, it’s time to reflect. Overall, I feel like I did well on this project, and I feel good about it. I learned a lot about myself, and how I feel about talking about my experiences. I also learned a bit about eating disorders in general, especially OSFEDs, and about how people’s brains work. If there are things I could do better, it’d definitely be being more organized with time. There were times when I procrastinated a lot, and other times where I felt I was doing so much my head might explode. However, I do feel like I’ve learned a lot and made a change by making others learn a lot. There is still a lot left to do to have eating disorders no longer exist, and it’s a long road, but it’s one that may eventually happen. What’s left is for people to feel good about their bodies and to not feel that food is a way to cope with life, not all the time, anyway. Unfortunately, that may be an idealistic view, but one can hope. I sincerely hope that you’ve learned from reading my blog posts, and have a great summer!

Hello and this is my last post for my Y&TW benchmark. In my previous 2 blogs I talked about internet addiction and one of the physical effect that can happen if you have an internet addiction or if you use your hand for anything non stop. In the first blog I talked about symptoms and how internet addiction is related to other addictions. Another thing from the blog is how some people had different views of why people are addictive to the internet and one of them was connectivity to other people. In my second blog I talked about Carpal tunnel syndrome as it was one thing on my survey that most people had no idea about. Only thing that would raise awareness that I know of is just websites from treatment centers that talk about internet addiction and contact lists for treatments. For my agent of change I did a phone free advisory. At first most of the class hated my idea but soon lightened up as my advisory did good news and shout outs. Then we spent the rest of the day planning a party on thursday which we did had to let a few people take out their electronics so we can figure out the prices. I originally had no idea and asked for help with ideas from my classmates and Ms. Giknis. At first it was stressful because I didn’t know how my advisory mates would take it but it went great so now i'm more calm about my own Y&TW. It was effective as everyone followed along with what I hoped they would of do and i'm glad it went well. At first I felt a little mad that we were getting this benchmark after we just finished another one. After I took it serious I sort of enjoyed it. I learned that people are addicted to both their phones and the internet as Ms. Giknis once said in class that she also seems to be glued to her phone and how she always just turns it on for no reason. I learned I also have an internet addiction that I can control but I always get distracted as last night I wanted to work on this but I just kept watching videos on youtube and as low as I could I yelled at myself at how I have to work on this. I can think of a few ways I could of done my project better and that would be planning it out as I wanted to try and get my agent of change done with all freshmen advisories but the teachers said they had other plans and that I should of asked earlier so time management is one thing I would of changed. Another thing would be me asking for help as most of class I just stayed in my seat thinking about what I would do for my agent of change that I didn’t do the second blog post till the day before it was due. I hope you learned a lot from this so good bye for now.

Donald Moses

Annotated Bibliography

This is the last of the three blogs you can find the other  two here and here. When I start first started this project it was a suggestion from ms. Smith because she knew that i was an athlete and she thought that it  something with college was a thing I would be interesting. At first I didn’t want to do it, it wasn’t a topic that I found interesting but because my other topic was picked I did it. From this project I learned a lot from this it was something that was meaningful to me without me knowing it. From researching  about college athletes I learned about how  what a college athletes have to go through in order to pursue and education and do what they love.

When I started thinking about what I want to for  my agent of change I originally wanted to go  make an instagram account and interview college athletes and let them tell their story but because of complications with getting in contact with athletes this wasn’t going to work. Then the idea came to  me to have people wear college gear like hoodies, shirts, hats, etc. which was easy to do and post the hashtag #fortheathletes sadly the hashtag didn’t catch on but luckily I had people bring in college gear which was very helpful. This was very helpful because people that didn’t know about compensation for college athletes started to ask me about it and people started to be aware of it.  I started to notice my message was able to get out and reach more people. I notice more people wearing gear and knowing about the problem with college athletes.

For me compensation for college athletes was a real problem maybe not as big as homelessness or female rights but nevertheless it is a problem. For a college student money is something extremely important that is essential to live comfortable. Having to deal with the playing sports with is mentally and physically exhausting to do. To me someone that goes through all this just for education should not be worried about being able to perform with no energy  even though they earn money for their school.  I believe that NCAA should think more able there athletes just because this isn’t on the pro level doesn’t mean the athletes aren’t giving it their hearts, they deserve not to worry about Money.

Hey it’s Kai Payton again. In my previous two post I introduced my You & The World Project. For my topic of the project I chose to focus on premature births. In my first blog post I gave basic information on premature births. I also discussed some of the more serious topics of premature births. In my second blog post I discussed stories of other families that had premature births. I also included the major parts of the interview that I had with my aunt where she talked about how she got through the experience.

In this blog I’m going to be talking about the Agent of Change portion of the project. The Agent of Change portion of the project is where you go out and do something to make a change to your topic. So since my topic is premature births I did the March for Babies walk. The walk was on April 30th and it was ran by the March of Dimes Foundation. For the walk there are teams that raise money for the foundation to help with premature births. My aunt’s team raised a little over a thousand dollars to go to the foundation. I love doing these walks every year because it’s a good way to see family but because it’s for a good cause.

At the walk there was so many people from different walk teams and I thought it was so cool that so many people support premature births. Each team gets a custom shirt to represent their team. This year my team's shirt said “Fight Like a Preemie.” In my opinion that’s another reason to go to the walks every year because every always has cool different shirts. My team is called “Chasing Jase,” and it’s made up of family and friends basically whoever comes out to support Jase. From this walk it got family members to come together to support Jase. During the walk they gave Jase a purple cape and it was really funny to see him run around in it.

- Picture of Jase with his cape

-Picture of the shirt

- A picture of the walking team

While doing the walk you meet a lot of other families that share a similar story to yours. The experience creates a way to be active and meet new people who all support each other. There was a lady we met and she had a daughter that was the same weight as Jase when she was born (1 pound 11 ounces). My aunt and her had a heart to heart in a way because their children were in the hospital for about the same amount of time. I wish I had a way to thank the March of Dimes Foundation personally because the walk is always a great experience when we do it.

Before we started this project I didn’t know what direction I wanted to go with it. In the beginning I was thinking about choosing littering as my topic. Then as time went on I realized that I could choose premature births a topic that people know about but don’t know the major facts or how they can help change it and I had a better connection with it. This project helped me gain a new understanding of premature births because before I did this I didn’t know too much myself.

So in conclusion, I want to thank Ms. Giknis for allowing us to do this cool project. It helped us go out in the world and make a change big or little to a problem we connected with. It helped us learn more about each other and connect with our classmates on a deeper level.

You can check out my Annotated Bibliography here

1. Lithium is my Element and it’s atomic number is 3.

2. Lithium is used in batteries and fireworks.

3. I searched for things that had Lithium in it.

4. It took a while to sketch it and carve it into a print.

5. In the second print. I used less paint.

6. I loved rubbing the paint on the stamp because it felt satisfied.

My element is Technetium (Tc), its atomic number is 43. My element is man-made by two scientists, one of them was a photographer. It is also radioactive and a small amount is found in stars. I chose my imagery by thinking it was radioactive, i figured if i was radioactive, then i could have the numbers and symbol surrounding the radioactive symbol. I went through this process with difficulty. I had many ideas surrounded by the radioactive symbol, however this was the most interesting one. Then i put the picture on a wax paper then put it on a foam board and indented everything that i wanted to be white. After that i rolled ink on it and put 6 copies on pieces of paper. I then let them dry and picked 3 of the best ones, cut them down and cut out 2 pieces on construction paper for the background of 2 of them. I then put the construction paper as the background of two of them and left one of them with no background. I glued on the backgrounds and i was done. I i did this differently, i would’ve done the prints better on the white paper because they can out weird. I liked the printing the best because it was really fun to roll the paint onto the foam board then rub the wooden spoon on the back of it for all of the paint to get onto the white paper. I just really like painting.

My element is manganese. Its atomic number is 25 and its symbol is Mn. Manganese was discovered in Magnesia, Greece. It is mainly used in steel production. Manganese is mixed with iron to produce corrosion-resistant steel.

The image I created is a replica of the island Magnesia. Written in the corner is the word "manganese" in Greek. I decided that this design was simple and straightforward. When I was making the print I took many steps. I began by brainstorming several design ideas. Once I chose my final design, I redrew it, traced it, transferred it, and finally carved it into my plate. After this, I rolled paint over the plate using a brayer, and then I layed it on my paper.

If I were to do this project again, I would spend more time gathering information about my element so that I could produce a more creative design. Despite this, I did enjoy this project. I especially liked the actual printing because I got to see my sketches become real prints.

​What is your element? Name and atomic number

Nitrogen, 7

Tell the reader about your element, history, function/use and so on.

In 1772, Daniel Rutherford sucked out the Oxygen and Co2 out of the air and examined what was left. It can be used in dyes, fertilizers, and as an explosive. Found in Ammonia, Cyanide, and Phosphazene.

How did you get the idea for the imagery you chose?

It’s most commonly a gas, so I drew a gas floating into the air in the shape of the atomic symbol and number. My favorite print was a little under-inked. I liked it because it looked more airy, and the blotches of ink only add to the effect.

What process did you go through to make this print?

I drew the design, traced it on to paper, etched the design into foam, rolled ink onto the foam and pressed that onto paper.

What would you do differently if you did this print a second time?

I accidentally etched the design forewards instead of backwards the first time and I had to re do it. I would make sure to do it right the first time if I did again.

What part of the project did you enjoy the most? Describe the step and what you liked so much about it.

Drawing the design. It was the most creative part, thus the most fun.

Has anybody ever realized that everyone has problems? That every single person on this earth is going through some tough situation. It may not be so bad, but to the person it is. Sometimes a person just needs someone to just be there for them. For my fourth quarter English benchmark we had to choose an important topic and make a change. I chose Addiction. I realized not many people talk about it or really see it as the problem it really is. To make that change I first started with a lot of research on addiction and how a person becomes addicted and how it affects others. Then I did a survey to see how common addiction was. After getting those results I wanted to make sure the people who were affected by addiction knew that they weren’t alone.

At first, I wasn’t really sure on how I can make the change that I wanted to make. I wanted people to understand why addicts are addicts, and why it wasn’t their or the addict's fault. Knowing that there’s nobody to blame can save a lot less trouble, and can send some help to the situation. I didn’t want people to feel this stress from what I chose to do that would cause them to realize “Oh that’s me I don’t care.” I mainly didn’t want to say my opinion or phrases like “It will get better”. I wanted people to know the facts, so I took all of my research from my first and second blog post (including my survey) and made it into a brochure.

Pictures of Brochure

My brochure took a bit of time to put together, but it turned out great! I was targeting the audience that knew an addict and was affected by it, and the addicts themself. I made over 70 copies and handed them out to the students who go to Science Leadership Academy. One thing I was worried about was putting people under pressure. I was worried handing out a brochure to one specific person would make them think I was implying something. When I handed these out I made sure to go to groups of people and say, “Hey guys. do you want a brochure?” That left a lot of mystery on what it was, and if somebody really wanted to read they didn’t have to do it then and was able to save it for later. My brochure turned out to be a really good idea thankfully! I had a few students come up to me and say, “Thank you for making this. I struggle with this problem and I love what you wrote about.” That made me feel really good and helped me realized how truly important addiction is.

Picture of me handing out Brochures

I was really curious how much awareness is being raised for addiction so I decided to do some research. I ended up finding a website that gives you the 9 best charities for addiction. I personally think these charities are a great way to help with people who have an addiction. The main things these charities donate to is research on addiction, rehabs, and scientific methods to help cure addiction. Rehabs try to help people stay sober, but it is known that if you only go one time it is likely not to work compared to going 2-3 times that really helps a person to realize that it’s time to end the situation they are in. It is really great that there are charities out there to help, so donate now to help.

Overall, this has been a great experience, and I am really happy that I did it. I myself know some addicts and one has actually recently relapsed. With my new gathered information on addiction I was really able to help the person. One thing the person said was, “It was really easy to talk to you about this, and I’m really happy you understand.” Something I could have done better was my annotated bibliography because I fell a little behind on it. There is still a lot to be done on addiction. Hopefully there will be more people to help addicts, and some thing to help cure it. I have this feeling of success when I think about this project and hope all my readers enjoy reading and learning about everything I discovered. I also hope it has made an impact on everyone as much as it has on me.

I had literally had so many plans for my agent of change in the begging of my process in my previous blog post I really liked to talk about helping others understand what it’s like to help your friend or child/teenager to a complicated situation in their lives as struggling inside of theirselves, fighting against themselves and have a conscience that will either trick or yell to them for help even most people who don’t know how to scream for help when they feeling like they are lost. https://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/helping-someone-with-depression.htm

Being there to listen to a fellow a friend about their story and how they expressed their emotions, listening and being loyal is a big part if they push you away from you because really they care deep down when you actually are still there when say it does not mean that they meant it at all. Resentally I did a article on depression and a fundraise for notebooks at my chruch to help out for those  that suffer from depression and that really help this me and the other I’ve helped this week.

Sara Frunzi

One of my interviews and the second one is Autumn Harvey. She said she has shown lots of improvemnet with expressing her feelings like dancing and songs drawing or even writing, either I has change for not just me but for others people who actually really try their best to get better and work for it is a bigg thing for most and to see that results of that change is very heart warming.

   The thing with being there for the person whole time, just try not to smother that person even as much as you care give that person a space for just enough to breathe. What I did was talk and ask questions to that person and relate to these two people and be their to har the most amazing safe stories that break your heart but still have that to bring you back from most.

My experience with this project and this opportunity to have it with these two most bright young women who have had it hard and actually looked up to people and others in the eye and lie but had the courage to tell the ones they trusted to be the ones to listen in great moments in their life to be happy with all dure with respect it was the most amazing experience in my life to have be apart of both of their stories (reader) of the memoir.