Blog Feed

This is the third and final segment of the three part blogging project my class was given for our final project of the year. In my first post I introduced my topic and gave information about it so that even those who know nothing about it could have an understanding of what I researched. The purpose of my second blog post was for me to express my opinion openly and in detail. 

This post is being called “the post for change” because we were assigned to create a piece of original content geared towards informing people about your topic and possibly changing their point of view at the same time. 

I decided that the best way for me to raise awareness was to make a video. In the video I interview four seniors at my school who are all 18 and registered to vote. I chose that demographic because the Pro-Choice movement’s involvement in this upcoming election could be a large deciding factor for them. I plan on showing kids that have just registered to vote this video to inform them about the candidates they will be voting for. Young people around the world are holding protests to fight for their rights.

I think this method of eliciting change is good. I think protesting for the causes you care for is an important part of democracy. Some people in the occupy protest were attempting to raise awareness of the Pro-Choice movement but in my opinion the protests were too unorganized and there wasn’t a clear enough ideal system to make a huge difference in our country. 

This topic is strongly rooted in opinion and theological beliefs but I believe that the government should not take away a person’s right to choose what to do with their body. If you think about it, our government has taken a long time to grant minorities their rights. It’s the land of the free yet freedom still hasn’t been legalized. Thank you.        

Here are my sources.          

For my 10% time project I focused on Alzheimer's and stem cells. 

This keynote is on Breast Cancer and the various treatments used to maintain and or cure it. It was created as my 10% time final project which was self-chosen due to my personal relationship with breast cancer. I aim to inform my audience on exactly what breast cancer is, how to look for it, and the process after finding out one has breast cancer.

Week 1 Abstract Emotion

I didn’t know what abstract emotion was until the week that we were supposed to do it. I’ve heard of the word abstract before this but I’ve never really knew what it meant. So this week would be my week of learning something knew. I found out that this project wasn’t so bad that I thought it was going to be.

The only hard part that I had with this project was deciding what to do. I wasn’t sure what to do so I looked at some examples. I then decided to do a picture of a face with mixed emotions through and around it. I made the face faded so it wouldn’t look like one. The colors I choose to do were red, purple, yellow, black, and blue. Red represented anger, purple represented pain, I made yellow into a lighting bolt that went with anger, black represented death, and blue represented sad. After that I smudged the colors together so it would blend.

​

​Week 2 Abstract Motion

I wasn’t sure how to do abstract motion because I never did it before. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out but after doing them, I found out it wasn’t that hard. I decided to do multiple pictures so I can get better at it. I did a drawing that was blue and it looks like the colors are moving like water. Another one is with many colors looking like it’s moving fast. Then there’s one that has colors smudged in together. I was proud of my work because I got a lot of work done then I expected and they turned out nice. And if I was to do this again I would make them more creative then the ones I made before.

​Week 3 Abstract 

I didn’t make a big deal out of this week because it was just abstract and I have did artwork that had to do with abstract in the last two weeks. So this week projects would be easier than the others. Then I decided to do multiple drawings.

There was two big drawing that I did, one with spirals and the other with curve lines. With these I made them with charcoal and with different colors, then faded it out to make it more abstract. Another one was with different colors that went in different directions.

​Week 4 Close Up Drawings

    With this week I decided drawing four close up pictures. I decided to do this because it makes you get every little detail in an object and it makes a person make more detailed drawings. And with every detail of something, you can make your drawing look realistic.

            There was one drawing that I spent almost all of my time on this week and it was a close up drawing of my laptop. With this drawing I got every detail of the computer even the windows that was open on the screen. The rest of my time went to the three birds I drew, which are the blue jay, the sparrow, and the cardinal. I decided to draw these birds because I feel as thought they are cute and I like looking at them fly around and look for food.

            Throughout this week, the hardest drawing that I did was the computer because it was difficult trying to get the correct number of keys on the computer and trying the laptop to look the right way. The easiest drawing was the cardinal because it didn’t that much detail as all the other ones did.

​Week 5 Close Up Drawings Pt 2

    For this week I decided to do some more close-up drawings because I feel as though I can still do better with drawing objects up close. There are also some things that I drew that were landscape and one I did electronically.

            I drew three pictures close-up and they are a bird and a mask. The last picture I drew was of a cup of cider with a bottle of sparkling cider and cherries next to it. With this picture I drew a table and two chairs in the background so it wouldn’t look like the cup, bottle, and cherries were floating in mid air. With the bird, I decided to draw it from the previous week when I few a couple of birds before. When I was drawing it, I wanted to draw a bird that I’ve never seen before. I decided to draw the mask because I didn’t know what else to draw and also that’s my favorite mask. There was a picture that I drew with pyramids and I got this idea when I was looking at TV and someone was talking about Egypt. Then I thought it would be cool to draw somewhere in Egypt so I looked up some pyramids and decided to do pyramids. And lastly, I wanted to make a make something that looked like a poster so I took a couple of my aunt prom pictures and made a poster out of them but first I made all the pictures look black and white.

            At the beginning of this week I had artist block, which is when you can’t find and don’t know what to draw. But to get over this, I asked a few of my friends to give me ideas that I could do and this is how I got what I did this week.

​Week 6 Landscape

    I was a little nervous about doing landscape at first but then I just decided to o it anyway because I wanted to get better at it. I wasn’t sure what type of landscape I wanted to do so I decided to get some ideas from Google.

            I decided to do two landscape drawings because one of them took a lot of time to do. The first one I drew was one that looked like a grass field with a pond in the middle and mountains in the back. Another drawing was a ocean with a city in the background while water is splashing onto rocks.

I wish I could move to Florida and leave Philly. If I were to live in Florida, I could be tan all the time and wear shorts and go swimming everyday. I wish I could make everyday summer. I would be happy all the time. I wish I could sing well because there’s times when I just want to belt out but I want it sound well. I wish I was rich so that way I could buy anything and everything I wanted and never have to worry about running out of money. I wish I could meet any famous person I wanted and be friends with them. I wish I could bring my great grandma back to life. I wish I could bring back all my family from the dead especially the ones who I was to young to realize who they were when I was little and just have one more conversation with them. I wish I could eat everything and never have to worry about calories!

“This past summer my friend”

 

This past summer my friend Briana and I have become really close. I consider her my little sister because we’re only months apart! We practically live over each others houses we go back and forth every weekend and she comes over my house every Wednesday, in the winter. In the summer it’s a whole different story its sleepovers every night, beach everyday and boardwalk every night together. If her mom is going back to Philly she stays with me. The funny thing is no matter how much time we spend together we never get annoyed with each other. All we do is laugh until we cry and our stomachs hurt. I can tell her anything and it goes for her too. We never will judge each other no matter what the situation is. She will always give me the best advice does not matter what the topic is. If I were to call her at three o'clock in the morning she would talk me through what ever I was going through. I would be so lost without her. She knows everything about me and I know everything about her. She’s not my best friend, she’s part of my family. 

One quote that I really agreed with was about how he is better at doing everything when he has feelings under control. This immediately made me think of every single time I get angry and start screaming. I do get mad at the most pointless things and I should learn to brush them off and not let the little things bug me. But even though that’s really hard to do I need to take Ghadi’s advice and not get so angry because more things will get solved when you can talk them out like human beings and not like animals. Also when I shout there’s so many feelings going through my body I find myself stuttering and then I cant even get my point out. Not only do I stutter but also when I walk away from the person sometimes I’m really shaky and I cry. Thinking about this all right now I realize how dumb it is to become so heated and it’s a waste of energy. Life is to short to be anything but happy.

Hey everyone it’s Raekwon again and I’m bring you my final blog post called post for change. Thanks for reading my blog posts and I hope they touched you in someway or form. If you are ready my post for the 1st time I will summarize my last two blog posts but here are the links to them 1 and 2 if you missed them. Ok so my first post was info on my topic Government Spending on Prisoners vs. Students. Some things I covered were the spending and alternatives we could do to prevent how much the Gov. spends on prisoners costing taxpayers more money. I talked on the statistics and other graphs on the topic. In my second post I talked about my opinion on how I feel about the spending.

I also touched on some info I find on private prisons. I talked about my ideas and how I think we can fix this problem that is going on. All right now that that is out the way, I want to talk about this post for change. I’m going to tell you what I’ve done to make something happen. So far I’ve asked some adults if they could address the town hall when they have those meetings and bring this topic up or if they could talk to government officials for me. What’s left to do is see if change will happen. If they consider making a change then that’s a huge step forward that they even considered the idea. 

 Now we were suppose to make our own piece of original content which I chose on make to make a poster with prisoners and students on it telling people to make the choice on who they would rather support which I’m hoping people support kids who could create a better future for us and help the economy. I also made little cards with facts on it about the topic to help raise awareness. Now I would like to take this time to acknowledge everyone that helped me in this process, which includes the following people: Mrs. Dunn, Julia Boyer, My Dad, My Mom and Science Leadership Academy school.

 

This is my Bibliography

 

Hello people of earth!!! My name is Betty and this is my last blog post on STDs Or STIs (if you prefer). If you click here you’ll see my first blog post on this issue which talks about why I’m discussing and interested in this topic and some information on it. If you click here you’ll see my second blog post on this which is mainly about more new information that I found out about this topic and graphics that show you more about the risks of it.

  But even with all of this the one question that most certainly needs to be answered is What has been done about with and What can we do today to make it better? 

From what I know to raise the awareness of this issue in each school in Philadelphia there is the health class that teaches the  about the causes and effects of STD, HIVs, and AIDs and it is mostly required that every student in the current school must take this class. But as I have researched about this and lately it says in this article that was posted this year on April 16 that lately schools have made little progress in teaching students about these issues. Which I am very disappointed in. I have just recently learned that April was STD awareness month. It says that it was made to call to the attention of young teens about the impact that STDs or STIs can have on you and there are some people that campaigning to raise the knowing knowledge of STDs and the importance of having safe sex. 

In making a stand and a change I made a collage and two poems that I will print out and post around my school and as my teachers politely if I can hang it up in their rooms. The collage are for the ones that are more images that speaks to them and the poem is for the poem who feel that words are what has more impact and power and will actually read it.

I would like to acknowledge my close friend Yourcenar Destin with the collage and for reviewing my poems.

For more Information on my resources please click here.

 

In these pictures the term Y.O.L.O is a youth slang word in a song by an artist named Drake referring to the saying "You Only Live Once". As you can see within the picture many teens take it the wrong way and end up making a big mistake that can change their life forever.

Please excuse the language within this for it doesn't matter what really matters is the meat and message behind it.

I made collage to reach out an explain the impact STDs can have on a young persons life thought pictures for people who are more about visuals than words.

​Here is two poems. The first poem is what you can easily turn into a song if you like. It tells about the effects and STD can have too. The second one goes into more of a deep emotional term in which STDs take.
Its Called ...

"That one night"

that one night

who knew it could bring such a fright

at the time it felt so nice , so fun

now i have rashes all over my buns  

STD aint got nothing on me , 

STI I have to say goodbye , 

because it happened to my ex

I surly wont be the next

so you say wanna live YOLO  , 

the next place you'll go is a doctors office for herpes oooo 

I hope you take this seriously 

because STDs are a pernicious mystery

Be careful of who your dealing with

for it is like taking the risk of tipping off a cliff

before you get yourself into a mess , 

go to the doctors office and take an STD test 

"It was just for fun"

It was just for fun
nothing wrong
at least that was what i thought
he said he loved me and that i could trust him not matter what
am i Believed him
so Slowly i fell
i fell
down hard
so deep into a pit of darkness
I was so blinded by his sweet words of empty nothingness
i didn't pay attention to where i was falling too
After it was done
After we had sex
I convinced myself it was alright
everything was fine
I used a condom
or so I thought
Something in me told me it was wrong
but i didn't listen
But  just in case i went out
and bought a pregnancy test
And to my failure i was with child
i went to the doctor to see what i could do
and because of my stupidity
I also carried an STD
And because of me
My Baby
Will Have to Suffer with me

I buried my head in my face

Silently crying
 “Oh Lord Save Me”

 

 

When students search for math help on google, they can only search by the topic they want help with. Content varies widely, and students have to waste time trying to find types of content that work for the way they learn best. For my capstone, I wanted to design a website that would make this process easier. At first, I considered making content myself, or crowd-sourcing the creation of new content – all organized by learning style as well as by topic. I realized, however, that I could be far more effective by organizing the math help content that already exists online. I designed the site and learned how to write code so that I could build the site. I began the process of indexing content from a variety of math help websites, such as Khan Academy and Purplemath. Although I do not have a polished and fully functional website to turn in for my capstone, I will continue to work on the site over the summer and possibly the next few years. I believe that my capstone could turn into a useful and popular site for any and all math students.

Take a look at the site here!

This blog is last in a series of three that discussed and explored the ethics and judicial standings of copyright infringement, namely, internet piracy. In my last two blogs, I gained a knowledge of the topic and did some investigations of my own. Piracy and You is mainly about the acts SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA. Internet Piracy and Morality is about how to make the decision yourself and about the lack of information given to the public. Doing this research has exposed me to a wide array of opinions, bills, laws, and movements. But are these different acts making a change? And if so, in which direction? The problem is awareness. People need to know, and we need to be the ones who tell them.

This piece of original content is an example of how a question or statement can invoke thought in a person. The goal of this poster is to make the viewer think about piracy in a new light. It allows them to take a step back and question what they are told. I think that piracy is a decision. It is up to the pirate to decide if they are breaking their own moral standing. With this poster I am getting the word out, spreading the knowledge and asking each viewer to look inside themselves and think about their actions or standpoint.

I conducted my own research which gave me interesting results to work with. Many who were surveyed admitted that they or someone they knew had committed internet piracy and were against censorship laws, while another large portion of these people were severely uninformed and had no clues as to the specifics of the topic. This shows us something. There is always a need for information and learning in our communities. We need to be the ones to teach and inform the peoples of our communities about this diverse topic. The way to go about doing this is to talk to the people we work with, play with, and live with in order to spread the word.

This picture pretty much sums up my opinion on piracy. I believe that it is a crime, but a much lesser one, and deserving of much less punishment. While I'll admit that copyright infringement holds much weight in the way of theft for some, for me it does not. But as always, the decision is up to you. You decide how you will live your life, and don't let anyone take that away from you. This is Gabriel Musselman. I hope you have found my blogs both thoughtful and intriguing, and I hope to  bring my opinions to the world at other times and in other ways. Thank you.

 

I think that finding your voice comes from living life and see things differently. Everyone has a story and every story gets told.  I feel like finding your voice is saying what you feel and saying what you know. And when you find your voice you can do that. 

I want to write about life and how nothing goes as planned. How a tool for learning turns into your worst nightmare. I want to write about me. And how no matter what great feats I get to I give myself no credit. No matter what feats or falls. I want to write about writing and how long it takes. How it cramps my hand and opens my eyes. How it all ways knows the right words. It lets me shed my pain. I wan to write about you. And how I never thought I deserved you and how you are to good for me. I want to write about the ocean and how I have missed it. How being in the vast body of water makes me feel but you never have a pen when you’re in the moment. I want to write moments and how they never last. 

The sun is up. Its warm but the wind is blowing part me the colors of yellow, orange, and brown dancing through my mind as I sit here. It’s as interpretive dance. The colors are dancers and they are chasing the red-hot sun blue ocean and yellow lemonade away bring the color of baked leafs and sawn costumes. I watched as the wind directed around me. One step two step three step four. They all seemed to go along with flow and the wind carried all their troubles. Wondering aimlessly around, looking for a new journey. The song stuck in my mind. It didn’t have lyrics but a melody for ballerinas, peaceful, delicate, and beautiful. The sun inform of haze that surrounded orange, brown and red leaves. Such wonderful colors that comes once a year. It’s so much more beautiful then the crystals of snow, because these colors aren’t just on the floor but every everywhere. Fall is very beautiful and that is what I love. 

How do Ibo gender roles compare to gender roles in our society

-Woman has a say in discussions

-Women can work

-Women are considered impatient

-Women are responsible for themselves

-Women are more respected

-Women are not sold off to men

-Women don’t have to take care of men

-Women are independent

 

 

Finding your voice is where you don’t care about anyone opinions and just say what you honestly feel or think

 

-Honestly telling your story/speaking honestly

-Realize who you are

-Finding peace with oneself

-Happy place

-Learning to express

-Not caring about other people thoughts

-Not being taken advantage of

 

Janie finds her voice when she loses her husband. She doesn’t’ have a man physically abusing her anytime she wants to speak her mind. No one in the world to tell her if she is wrong or right. She finally learns to think and love herself for who she is. But losing her husband was the best and worst time of her life. But she was taught one lesson throughout all losses, She need to love herself before any man loves her. 

I want to write about food…

 Food. Food is awesome. Food is good. Food helps you live. Food is beneficial to your health and life overall. Food makes you happy. Food is your best friend but also you’re worst. Food is so good and can make you so happy. Food just can lift up your sprits and brings anyone and everyone joy. Food is your best friend when no one else is there. Food will never turn its back on you.

 

After Simon Death…

-Simon dead

-One less person in the group

-They still think the Beasty is there

-They are murders but they try to justify what they did.

-Jack steals Piggy glasses

-Groups are divided

​Above is the endoscope neurosurgeons use in the Endoscopic treatments. 

The fact of the matter is is that Hydrocephalus IS curable...with the right procedure. There are usually two options when it comes to surgery and treatment of the infants in sub-Saharan Africa. Endoscopic is the first option. Endoscopic is when a camera is inserted into an incision at the most swollen part of the head. Then as the endoscope travels deeper and deeper, the doctor will slowly puncture a hole in the chambers that are holding the water to drain the fluid naturally. If the endoscopic procedure fails, then the neurosurgeon moves onto a move traditional treatment of placing in a catheter from the head to the abdomen to drain the "water" in the brain.

Both procedures are very tedious. But multiple studies have shown that the endoscopic treatment, performed in both developed and developing countries, have a lower success rate in developing countries. There are many variables to why this maybe. What is thought to be the leading cause is neonatal infections. This is also the leading cause of Hydrocephalus itself. 

In the next blog, action is going to be taken. 

Now read Blog #3!
Bibliography if needed. 

            My final blog post is about change. The Post For Change is the last of the trio of blogs for the You And The World Project. In my first blog I talked about the DREAM act and it’s impact on many students and the country. I talked about how helpful it would be to the eager students who want to become part of America and their first step being getting an education. In the second blog post I focused on the youth group Fuerza and it’s several Latino members. I talked about our mission and the things we do in our struggle for equality and immigrant rights.

            With the first two blogs being informational posts I was able to introduce my topic to several people. Although bringing awareness is part of the mission of gaining immigrant rights in our country, there is much more that can be done.

            One of my first steps was joining Fuerza in order to better educate myself in the controversial topic of immigrant rights. Through this organization I will be doing several things including going into the streets of Philly in order to get signatures for petitions, or maybe even participating in protests such as the one on May 7^th. This group is a great opportunity to become a young activist in the movement towards equality and rights for immigrants. A second step I took was posting a formal petition through Facebook, in order to get enough signatures to urge our representatives and legislators to vote against the anti-immigration laws. I also recently sent the email to the 9^th grade streams.  My final phase for change will be to e-mail the Senator of my district of Philadelphia, Sen. Shirley M. Kitchen. She is the representative in the Senate for my district (District 3) of Philadelphia. I met her on a previous occasion in 8^th grade and along with other members of the school government. I was able to remember her, and I made a plan to send her a proper e-mail stating my point of view on my topic and how I would like her to help.

            

​I want to remind you that change can’t be done alone; supporters are needed to help fight for a certain cause. The petition or Fuerza alone can’t change the country. We have to branch out to other people, to organizations, schools and city representatives. We must let our voice be heard. Thank you Ms. Dunn for an awesome idea that let me put my mind to something that I really cared about. I would like to thank the people who have helped me with signing the petition, Nomi Martin-Brouillette, Nia Hammond, Julian Makarechi, and Wendy Tepoz. I would also like to thank my cousin Jessie Tepoz for introducing me Fuerza and their community.

         

There is much we can do to help the country advance towards the dream of equality for all, where man is truly free. There are ways we can become better people, by helping others and becoming aware of the world we live in. There are other issues where are interest and support is needed; we have the power and choice to aid the people who strive towards something greater. We must think about how we, each of us as a unique individual, can partake in a route to a better Earth. It all starts with an idea, it starts a choice, but most importantly, it starts with You.

My bibliography can be found here

If you haven't already, be sure to check out my first and second blog posts before reading this one!​

So far in my research, I’ve noticed that there are many campaigns working hard to raise awareness about the issue of human trafficking. A lot of them are actively working to rescue trafficking victims on a daily basis. It’s incredibly wonderful that there are already so many people working hard to end human trafficking across the globe. However, the problem still remains that they can only help people, if other people know the issue and what’s going on.

This being our final post about our topics, it’s time to help make a difference. I think the first step to ending human trafficking is informing people on what it is, and how big of an issue it is. To do this, there are several steps to take. Two organizations that are actively working to end Human Trafficking have released documentaries on their work. I will be hosting a showing of these documentaries, and informing people on the issue of human trafficking. After showing the documentary, there will be a short panel of discussion about the topics shown in the film. This will take place shortly after the school year ends, and will include people from a variety of age groups, from all around the city.

 

I did an informal survey, which I mentioned briefly last week in my second post. Here is the data that I collected:

This graph shows that the majority of people between the ages of 14-18 do not know a lot about the topic of Human Trafficking. One person I interviewed, Meghan McClain, said this. "I'm so shocked that this is a world-wide issue. I always thought slavery was in the past."

The first step to change, is AWARENESS.

​In order to raise awareness of the issue of Human Trafficking, I decided to make a flyer-type thing that essentially just states the main issue. I will be posting this picture on my facebook page, tumblr, and twitter account. It's really just to get the word out that human trafficking is an issue, and if people have any questions they can ask me about them. 

 

This brings me to the conclusion of my blog post series. Be sure to check out my bibliography here!