Small step to ending Captivity

Previously, you may have read my two blog posts on orca captivity, (post1: Mistreatment of Orcas) (post2: Extinction of Orcas). I was curious about any news on orcas that I might have missed for my blog post 2. In an article by National Geographics, Sarah Gibbens (the writer for the article) writes about another one of the captive born orcas dying at a young age because of infections that stem from the captivity pools. Kyara, a 3 month old orca was pronounced dead at the San Antonio Seaworld after it was confirmed she died of pneumonia. 60 percent of captivity orca deaths are caused by the infectious diseases from the park, according to the investigation done from San Antonio News. SeaWorld has since then officially ended its breeding program for the killer whales. It is a good step because the movement of the people has begun to work. Recently, Seaworld has announced to shift their park from the live whale shows into more education and animal conservation. Although, these are huge steps in ending captivity, there is still so much to do.

Picture of Kyara with her mother Takara.

Another news that had been very big was that the state of Florida planned on proceeding with a bill that would end captive orca breeding. The bill has many rules to change shows or parks like Seaworld  into a more educational environment, and slowly putting an end on the live orca shows. Many have argued, and even I have spoken up about the dangers of force breeding, stopping captivity born orcas would be a miracle. Also, from the bill, “An orca located in the state on July 1, 2018, may continue to be held in captivity for entertainment purposes  until December 31, 2019, and may be used thereafter for educational presentations only.”, this means

by the end of 2018, in the state of Florida, there will be no more orca entertainment shows. If this bill proceeds successfully, it could inspire other states to act the same.


As I ventured deeper into my project. It has hit me that I could not easily solve it in two months. The next best thing I believed that I could do was to raise awareness so that people can get their knowledge on a topic that is not thoroughly discussed. I decided that I was going to do a fundraiser for a orca conservation organization that aids orcas. I decided on the OrcaConservancy, they are a non-profit organization that help the wildlife and environments where orcas live in. They also act to help orcas get out of captivity by organizing marches and signing petitions. They also have programs where young people can be educated on orcas and help out with volunteering.

I contacted them through email to see how they are, why they should be the one organization out of many other ones to donate. They replied in a day and said that they would appreciate a donation very much.

Picture of the response of one of the Orca Conservancy spokesperson.


I thought what a better way to spread awareness than to show a documentary to young people. I had chosen the documentary Blackfish because not only is it just a heart touching, beautiful documentary. It conveys the message of what is wrong about orca captivity, it hits many points, scientific and even personal scenarios. My goal was to have at least 10 people attend and donate. But I had actually surpassed that number which was amazing. I would charge the admission fee be $4 for each person to come to see the documentary. I also gave attendees the option to purchase a rainbow loom bracelet for $1, all proceeds of the event would go to the organization.

Planning the event was very fun, but also very stressful. The constant thought of “what if it doesn’t work out? ran through my head. Planning an event like this was all about the participaters, if there would be enough people to attend and seeing if the money raised would be even a good amount to donate. I made flyers and created my own Google form for people to take the survey so I would have a good idea of how much and who was coming to the screening.

The google form for my screening. (tinyurl.com/blackfishscreening)


After weeks of promoting, emailing, messaging, the day had come. I also moved the time from 4:00pm to 12:30pm because I had seen that on that day, was a half day. This way people didn’t have to stay super long in school. I had friends who were helping me set up the room. These friends whom I appreciate so much. There were other people that were supposed to show

up, but things happened and some people weren’t able to attend.  

Setting up, when it was about to begin!


Moving around chairs and such..

Me giving a quick hello, introduction before the movie was going to start.


I sat through all of the one hour and half with everyone else. There were times where I saw some audience members could not believe what had happened in the documentary. I could also tell that people were genuinely intrigued in the documentary. Rewatching the movie for me was nice because I had miss some stuff when I had watched it for the first time. Seeing everyone’s reactions to the movie was eye-opening. I hope everyone had the opportunity to watch Blackfish. By the end of the movie, there were some people who had tears in their eyes.

Some of the audience members during the movie.

Peter Keo, someone who watched the documentary, “it was very gripping..seeing orcas go through this treatment was unsettling”

Izzy Curtin, another viewer, “it exposed many corporations like SeaWorld, it brought light to the topic.”


Caleb McCreary, viewer, “interesting to see orcas, their emotions and how they feel”

After the screening, I was still waiting some people who said they would donate. I raised $50 exact, I donated all of the $50 to orca conservancy. I was so happy that the fundraiser went well and successful.

I had the most amazing experience with this project. Although it was a very stressful project, it taught me so many things about not only orcas, but about being professional. The logistics of planning an event. I will never forget this project, I will hold it to be one of my fondest memories from school. I think I also am pretty proud of myself for the project, I worked very hard for every single part. I made friends with Jeffrey Venture through this experience, donated to a good cause and taught many people about my issue. I think I could have done something else like a bake sale or something to raise even more money. Learning and devoting my focus on orcas in the last months, gave me a new love and respect for animals. I learned that even though it is really cool to see these orca shows, or see animals in theme parks, it might not always be safe for the actual animals. At the very end of the day, animals are a part of nature. Humans have no right to forcibly take them out of their environment and use them for entertainment. My change was a baby step to end captivity, there is still a long road to go.


annotated biblography


 



Making A Difference With Food Waste

In my first post, I wrote about how food waste was an underrated problem and how if we solve it,  multiple other problems in the world can be solved, including world hunger and climate change. In my second post, where I did my Original Research, I did an over the phone interview with Imperfect Produce, which is an organization that targeted food waste at its source, farms, by sending people the produce that the farms were unable to sell to name brand supermarkets.


Recently in the U.K., stores like Morrisons have been getting involved in helping to solve food waste by implementing a program called Wonky Veg, where stores sell less aesthetically pleasing fruits and vegetables for a cheaper price. The only reason this program was put in place is because it was recently revealed that 13 billion pounds of edible food is thrown away, with an extra 3 billion of food being wasted by grocery stores and supermarkets. If the Wonky Veg program was enforced in the U.S., then this would greatly diminish the amount of food that goes to waste each year.


For my Agent of Change, at first I was unsure of what to do in order to truly make an impact on this issue. I had a half baked idea of taking all of the leftover lunch food from the school and donating to different homeless shelters but in the end, I decided not to pursue this because I thought it would take more time in order to set everything up. I eventually chose to do an experiment of sorts where I would calculate how much money we spent and wasted on food in one month and then in the next month would see how much money and food we could save if we just paid attention to our food budget. I choose this option because I felt like if people could see how much money is needlessly spent on food, they would be less inclined to spend it all over the place. After taking in the results, I would present the results to my mom and a couple of her friends in order to try and get them to see the benefits of not wasting food. At first, I was going to make a website, but it was a couple of days before this was due and I realized I had no idea what I was doing, so I made a presentation of my data, which was targeted towards adults.


In March, when we didn’t budget at all, my mom and I spent about $760 dollars on food, while in April, we spent $535, saving $225 just from budgeting and shopping at places like Whole Foods, where they have gradually put uglier produce in order to combat the issue of food waste. We also took up the habit of looking at expiration dates more closely so we could keep an eye on when certain foods went bad so that we weren’t throwing out as much uneaten food. In fact, in April we only threw out 10 dollars in food, while in March we threw out around $50 worth of food. After I showed my mom these results we both decided to be more frugal when it comes to spending money on food and to save the extra money.  

This graph shows how much money was spent in the months of March and April


While doing this project and looking at how much money we spent and wasted, I realized how careless we were when buying food, especially fruits and vegetables since those expire the fastest. I also learned how easy it was to ignore the food you had in your fridge and pantry and instead go out to buy more food, which would lead to food being pushed to the back of your fridge until it’s expired. If I did this again, I would have people calculate how much money they spent with me in order to get more reliable data and so that other people could see how much money their family was spending, since writing down how much money you spend seems to make the numbers add up quicker. Although this did raise awareness to a couple of people, in order to solve food waste many things still need to be done in order to properly combat issue.


Here’s the link to my Annotated Bibliography

y&tw: what is safe sex? (reflection/conclusion)

I’ve come a long way since when my research into sexual health in our city began in February. In that first post, I breezed over how there is a sparisity of inclusive and helpful curricula explaining how to execute safe sex.  After that initial research, I started collecting information concerning how teens can be affected by the word around them, ultimately being detrimental towards their sexual health. During my original research with SLA’s Sex-Ed teacher, I learned that mental health and drug use strongly affect whether or not you practice safe sex, and furthermore get STDs. That research opened up new possibilities on how to create an agent of change, as there are many perspectives in this city, each dealing with different issues in their own world, and each possibly having different views on what safe sex is. That realization made me decide that the only way to realistically talk about Philadelphia’s teenagers, and how they think of safe sex, is to ask them. I cannot speak for all of them. So, I decided to make a short film, consisting of multiple answers to the same question: “What is safe sex?”


I wanted to create a short film because it would allow me to explain a subject in a broader way, when compared to a poster or a petition that would be created by me. A short film, presented the way I am presenting it, is what it is. It’s not open to interpretation, it’s just a number of perspectives answering a question. My experience actually creating the short film was interesting, as I thought it would be. The structure I created for the film would be a screen with the question, and then the students’ multiple answers to it. In between each question, would be facts I have collected throughout my research which connect to the theme of safe sex. I would try to make it look as visually attractive as possible, not unlike a Buzzfeed or Insider video, so that people are more inclined to keep watching, When I actually went ahead and started finding people to record answers for, there were plenty of people interested in providing a short answer. It was, though, pretty awkward for them. Most students provided a similar answer when I asked them to talk about what they think safe sex is: Use a condom so you will not get STDs. Only one student I talked to mentioned consent , and only one student talked about birth control.


If I could do this project over again, I would definitely spend more time planning the actual short film. I was faced with a bunch of possibilities for the movie, and I should have been more prepared, and I should have made the movie a few days before the due date, if not a whole week or more. I procrastinated, which ended up screwing me over towards the end, but I am glad with how it ended up.


VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obDhDbxCBmI
ANN BIB: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b2tMgsii_VGshl2c8VESa0NVSok9jylLz_kFTDxCXcM/edit
lionsong
lionsong

Helping College students

Helping college students

Blog Post 2 Blog post 1


For my You and the World project my goal is to help college students pay their very expensive college fees. In my last 2 post, I talked about the expense of college, why it’s expensive, and ways we can make it cheaper. I’m hoping that with these post you can understand the problem with colleges. It’s important because lots of people want to go to college and get a good education but can’t because of fees.


My check to drexel


Drexel University

Main Building





This post is about how I contributed in helping this cause. For my Agent of Change, my goal was to obtain money and the give it to a scholarship fund. This will help future college students because it means that colleges can give more scholarships to students which means cheaper tuition for more students. To get the money, I have worked in different jobs in my neighborhood for friends and family. I have mowed lawns, babysat, and more. I have raised $105.

This will all go to Drexel University because the tuition there is really expensive. It’s one of the most expensive colleges in Philadelphia. Donating to a scholarship fund isn’t hard. If you want to support the cause this is a way you can do it.

I decided to obtain money this way instead of a fundraiser because working more than likely gets you more money than a fundraiser. I did still tell friends and family about the cause. My experience was excellent because I was gaining a lot of money and I knew it was going to a good cause. I was effective in making a change because I helped pay for a scholarship that will go to a future college student that might be struggling to pay the fees. With my small donation, I can make a big difference in someone’s life.

I really enjoyed this project. I enjoyed it because it helps me, a simple person, be able to call out a problem with the world and make a difference. I learned that anyone can help others and feel as good as I feel now. I also learned that anyone can have that feeling. I feel like I could have done a better job getting this issue out to everyone. My goal wasn’t awareness, it was helping and I feel like I should have done both. If I were to do it again, and I might, then I would definitely make it more public to everyone. Whether it’s posters or social media. Just because this project is over, doesn’t mean I’m done helping and it doesn’t mean you should forget this project. Anyone can donate and anyone can help this cause.


Making a Difference in the Pennsylvania Economy

Ethan Friedman

May 2018

Throughout the past couple months, I have been researching and revolving the minimum wage issue in Pennsylvania. I researched issues regarding minimum wage and living situations in Pennsylvania. I conducted a survey among my classmates and other kids my age that live in and around Philadelphia that focused on personal experiences with minimum wage. Finally, I wrote a well thought out letter to Gov. Tom Wolf providing supporting evidence on why the minimum wage in Pennsylvania must be raised to $10 if not double.


The 2017 minimum wage by state in the United States. Pennsylvania is tied with many other states for the lowest minimum wage.

According to the Huffington Post, you would need to make just under $60,000 to support a family in Philadelphia and $15,000 certainly isn’t enough. America ranks 11th in the world for the highest minimum wage according to OECD. Australia's minimum wage is over $15 an hour and 80% of the country makes over 5% more than the minimum wage.

Pennsylvania is 1 of 3 states who host one of the 10 largest cities in America who have the minimum possible wage. When growing up and going to inter-city schools, I notice how some kids can’t go out with their friends, because they don’t have the money to. The government is limiting the amount of money people can make, and it is causing children to be unhappy with their lives. Everybody deserves to spend time with their friends, to go get pizza or see a movie.

When working on issues regarding income, it is important to take other factors into account, such as location, opportunity, and sources of income. When I conducted a survey with students in Philadelphia, I found out that 1 in every 9 students only lives with 1 adult figure. Forms response chart. Question title:  How many adult figures live with you?. Number of responses: 18 responses.

Source: Google Forms: Original Research Survey


When you only have one source of income which is that adult’s job, it is very difficult to support a family. The population of Pennsylvania is approximately 12.81 million people according to the United States Census Bureau.  That means that about 1.4 million families in Pennsylvania are ran by a single parent. There is clearly a problem in the system if 11% of families can’t afford to live.

To combat this issue, I decided to write a letter directly to the office of Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania. I introduced the issue and my personal experience with people who are affected by the issues, and I proposed the idea to double the minimum wage in Pennsylvania. I hope that he understands what families have to go through to support themselves.

In order to make a difference, more people need to stand up for what they believe in. If the governor receives 200 letters that speak from the heart on increasing the minimum wage, he is going to notice that there is a major issue. Throughout my work over the past couple months, I have built up evidence and reason to make a difference. He will not believe somebody who claims that we need change if they can’t provide a reason to make change.

Throughout this process, I have learned about issues in my own community and peers that I had not understood before. I believe that change is unavoidable. It is impossible to survive on $15,000 a year whether you’re alone or living with multiple kids. I am glad that there are politicians like Bernie Sanders who have spoken publicly about raising minimum wage as a country.

The letter that I mailed to Tom Wolf.


Annotated Bibliography

Mission Accomplished

Mission Accomplished

In my first blog about littering, I wrote about  how I felt about issue of littering and provided statistics, facts, and consequences that it gives. Then, my second blog post talked about the age difference and what ages litters the most, and I talked about what I observed from my neighborhood. After researching and telling how I felt about the issue I was passionate about, I took matters into my own hands and went to go clean up a park called East Poplar Playground.

The park is located in North Philadelphia on 8th and Poplar street. I decided to have my family help me with the clean up. The clean up was a success, we collected a lot of trash off the ground. We had a rake to get the trash out the grass, we had a broom to sweep up the trash into the bag, and we had gloves to pick up the trash. Here are some pictures of us cleaning up:

       

My  original idea was on Earth Day I was going to the FDR park but the plan didn’t go right so I canceled it. Instead, I decided to go to the East Poplar Park because it wasn’t that far from me,  so from there that's where I did my agent of change. My experience while cleaning up was I felt like I was a big help to the environment because majority of people don’t care about the environment but I do, and taking my time to clean up the environment shows how much I care. It was a great experience having my family coming to help fix the issue that I am passionate about. I felt like I was effective in this agent of change because as I was cleaning up, people were walking and driving past seeing what we were doing and probably in their heads they were probably glad that my family and I were doing the right thing for the community. It seems like it was a impact on them because the people that was looking were probably thinking of having their kids do the same.


The Project Overall

The project was overall a great journey for me as a teenager. During this period of time this generation is full of open-minded kids, but there are other kids who doesn't care about anything do anything they want. I feel like it was a great opportunity for me to go out and clean up the trash because according to this website it says, “ Every year, the United States generates approximately 230 million tons of "trash"--about 4.6 pounds per person per day.”

That is a lot of trash that people is bringing up and some of that trash ends up on the ground. What I learned about my potential during this adventure is that I can be a big help to my community and other communities as well. I can be an role model to other people and maybe that will change people decision about dropping trash on the ground and instead they can put their trash in the garbage can. Throughout the course of setting up my agent of change what I could’ve done better was getting the word out. I didn’t put up flyers and that’s why people didn’t come the first time so that's why I wanted to cancel it as I said it earlier in the post. What else I could have done better was plan out the event I was doing because I didn’t think about bringing water and snacks until someone said that so I should’ve thought of that.

What Else Is Left To Change

There are some things to change and it starts with the kids. Kids today don’t know that much about littering and the effect of it. Like I explained in my second blog post, parents should teach their children about littering because as they are growing up they will see what the adults are doing and think that is the right thing to do when it’s not. Adults as well litter because they are lazy to throw their trash in the garbage can and that should change by maybe having a little challenge where if they don’t litter they can get a certain amount of money and maybe that can change their habits. Different types of events could take place where kids and adults could go out to a park and pick up trash to clean up their community; it could be a clean up day! If your community ever wanted or have a clean up day here is some advice on what materials you should have and what to think about during the process. Well, this experience has been a extravagant adventure and I am so glad that I was able to go out and do my part for the world.

Here are some pictures:

   

Here are my sources

My Last Step

The Latino community has so many different skin colors, hair textures, and traditions. In my first post I did research on other Latinos’ experience with colorism and discrimination with other Latinos. Some of their confrontations were with their family members, friends, and even random people on the streets. I also talked about how there isn’t much representation in the media of dark skinned Latinos or Latinos with kinky curly hair. In my second blog post I did my own research because I wanted to hear different experiences of colorism or if they had even heard of colorism in my community. I sent out a survey to get my information, and I didn’t get the results I was expecting. I was expecting the darker Latinos to be more discriminated against for their color, but my responses were the opposite. The lighter skinned Latinos were being denied as being Latino. People were telling them that they were “too light” to be like us.

The next step I had to take for this project was how was I going to make difference for this issue in my community. I wasn’t sure at all what I wanted to do. I knew I couldn’t fix everything and change other people’s minds easily. The least I could do was bring awareness and educate others of this issue or at least bring up the conversation because “we, as a community, need to start having the conversation about colorism and anti-blackness within our circles. We need to better educate each other about Afro-Latino identity and how Afro-Latinos are just as great a part of our community as anyone else.” To spread this word around,  I thought a video would be a great way to reach people. There would be different Latinos in the video with different looks, expressing they are proud of who they are. I emailed some Latinos at my school and they agreed to be in the video, and I also had some people at my church say that they would love to help me out. In the video you see Latinos of different ages, shapes, sizes, skin colors, and nationalities. This is how I chose to display a glimpse of our diversity.

In the video you see Deliah, who is Afro Latina and standing next to her are her two children. She and her family are darker skinned with curly coily hair. Deliah and her family never shy away from who they are and celebrate their culture just as much as anyone else. Also in the video you see Carol who is Mexican American and is so proud to be who she is. Some people might say that she is “not the typical looking Mexican” but what does that mean? How could one culture all look the same? Just because Carol isn’t slightly darker or have pin straight black hair makes her less Mexican American as anyone else who is Mexican American. Those comments have never stopped her from embracing her culture and her beautiful features. The last person you see in the video is Luz, 93. She is Puerto Rican and says something that speaks volume. “I feel just like anyone else. What vary between culture is the costumes and behavior. We are all human beings.” Luz is right, we are all human beings. So what does it matter if someone doesn’t look like you? Or if their hair has different texture? Or if their skin is a different shade?

After the making of the video, I showed it to some of the people who were featured in the video. They said it was “quick and to the point” which is exactly what I wanted this video to be. My goal was bringing awareness so people can ask questions and bring acceptance to the diversity within my community. My mom uploaded my video to her Facebook and I got so many comments! One person said “Isabella is right, there is so much tension within our own community and people don’t even talk about it.” Another said “Isabella is so young to even know about this division in the community. When I found out about all the colorism, I was an adult in college! She did a lovely job at making this video.” I got many comments complimenting me, cheering me on, and encouraging me. Seeing all of the positivity really put a smile on my face and they inspire me to do more for my cause.

The countless hours I have done researching, gathering, and documenting information for this project has inspired me to move forward. Information given to me by the Facebook viewers have also inspired me to continue spreading acceptance and awareness against colorism within my community. I wish I had more time to be able to let you know everything I have learned but through this method is simply not possible. I think this project has taught me a lot about myself and people in my community.  This has been a cool project for me and something that I have become more passionate about. Because I am 15 and Puerto Rican and proud of me and my curly kinky hair.


ANN BIB!


The Change I Made

Before you continue reading this post, go to my previous two posts, Where Are Their Voting Rights? and Asian American Voting Rights Activists’ POV. My first post, Where Are Their Voting Rights?, talks about the issue with Asian American voting rights and what have been done about it. For example, an issue with Asian American voting rights is language barrier and there are organizations like Asian American United (AAU) that help non-English speaking citizens with their voting registration when it’s election season. In my second post, Asian American Voting Rights Activists’ POV, I wrote about my interview with Xu Lin, one of the board members of Asian American United (AAU) and Wei Chen, the Civil Engagement Coordinator of Asian American United (AAU). I also talked about what I learned from them and how I can play a part in this issue.

There are many things that have been done to help Asian Americans with their voting rights. For example, organizations helped non-English speakers citizens with their voting registration. From my interview with Wei Chen, I learned that engaging young citizens in volunteering with Asian Americans can help with Asian American voting rights because they are informed about what’s going on in their community and they are able to help family members with voting or voting themselves when they pass the age requirement. During the presidential election in 2016, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had their own ways to increase their votes with Asian Americans. Hillary Clinton had her own Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Outreach Director and Donald Trump worked with an Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee. There are studies that shows that the population of Asian American voters has increased during the 2016 election. From the 2012 election to 2016 election, there was a difference of 2 million voters. The UCLA Study for Center for Inequality and Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) predicts that from 2015 to 2040, Asian American votes would grow by 107%. Language barrier isn’t the only issue for Asian American voters, there are others problems like intimidating voters and more. I think that because voting rights for Asian Americans is an issue that can be solve in a day, I think that the ways that are used to fix this issue are effective because looking at the increase of Asian American voters at each election slowly the problem is getting fixed.

For my Agent of Change, I presented to a class of seventh graders at my old school, Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School (FACTS). My original plans for my Agent of Change was not only to present at my old school, but also to volunteer at Asian American United (AAU) to help non-English citizens with their voter registration since on Tuesday, May 15 waas election day. I wasn’t able to volunteer, but at least I was able to inform a young generation of citizens about their voting right since most of the students were Asian Americans and what they can do to help their community. I decide to present at my old school, specifically seventh graders because in the future they would be the next generation to vote and not only they can understand their voting right, but also take the chance to help others around them out. For the first two weeks, I was thinking of other ways or things to do to help out with Asian American voting rights like a meeting or conference arranged to talk about Asian American voting rights or collaborating with an organization that mainly focus on voting rights. On May 9, I went to FACTS and had a present about Asian American voting rights and overall I think the result came out pretty good because I allowed them to understand how important it is for everyone to have a vote and in this case it’s Asian Americans. I think it is effective to make a change to the issue because I was able to spread the message, which allowed more people to understand what’s happening in their society and inspire them to help out with the issue in their own ways.


Here are some of the images of me presenting to the seventh grade class.


Overall I think that the You & The World project is one of the most interesting topics I have ever done because I felt like I grew a lot in this process and learned a lot about the society I am in, especially I got the chance to research something that is meaningful to me. Although, this project takes a lot of patience and hardwork, I think it paid off in the end because I think that I learn a lot about myself and different lessons that may come in handy in the future. What I learned about myself is that I am really realistic and I can help others out more than I can help myself because in this project I noticed that I won’t really believe someone or trust someone easily unless they prove to me that they can be trust. Especially through their writing and the way how they talk. I also noticed that many of the advice I give to people around or my classmates are really realistic and helps them out a lot because of my experience I had. For me, it is like I have to find someone more experienced than I am or more creative than I am to give me advice about something because I am pretty hard on myself and whether it’s an assignment or not I do not want to accomplish something that doesn’t really challenge my limits in specific way. To clarify, I am not saying that if someone advise me to sky diving to conquer my fear of heights, I would do it, but it has to challenge me to try something new and step out of my comfort zone. I think one thing I could have done better is time management for my Agent of Change because I believe that I could have done more than having a presentation. I think there are many things left to make a change in Asian American voting rights since it’s a problem with all fifty states in America, but I believe that the little changes we make now will eventually make a change for Asian Americans.


My Change for the WNBA

As you all know, for the past couple of months I’ve been researching problems in the WNBA. As I stated before the WNBA has a funding and publicity problem. In my first post, I introduced my problem. In my second post, I gave some solutions on how we can better the WNBA, like expanding or advertising more. Over the course of the past months I’ve learned about people like Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins, who are underpaid in their profession. I’ve learned about  over 5,000 women college basketball athletes that are told they won’t be able to live out their dreams. All this is because the WNBA can’t afford to expand their organisation.


For my You and the World project, I wanted to bring attention to a problem that not to many know or care about. Among further research, there’s about 202,000 people that view the WNBA on ESPN. The NBA has 1.5 viewers. Are there any guesses why? Publicity plays a huge role when you have an organization so I feel like the WNBA would be better socially and financially if they had more supporters. It helps that the NBA funds the WNBA, but many people don’t know that. Due to the fact that the NBA barely talks about the WNBA.


I felt like Gatorade would be a great organization to change this. Gatorade is one of the top sports drink in the world. There brand is everywhere, in commercials, billboards and many professional games. Everytime I see an advertisement for gatorade though, itś mostly a famous man talking about or drinking the drink. I feel like this should change. The WNBA doesn’t even have a third of the NBA’s supporters. If Gatorade put more female basketball players in their commercial, it can open so many doors for the WNBA. There will be more supporters and viewers, but it can also build a better relationship. between Gatorade and the WNBA.


At first, I didn’t know what to do for my Agent Of Change. I had the idea of raising money for the WNBA, but I felt like I wouldn’t raise it enough for it to really be effective. Then, I thought of a presentation but that wouldn’t get as much supporters as I want to feel like my Agent of Change would be successful. Finally I came up with the idea of informing people about my problem and getting some to write letters to Gatorade about letting more female basketball players in their advertisements. I knew informing people wouldn’t be an issue, but getting people to write letters would be the challenge. Writing isn’t everyone’s interest. Luckily, I got my friends Randy and Sofia to help me write letters. All three of us wrote our letters one doc. We all edited each other’s letter and I emailed all three letters.


This is a picture of Randy Le typing his letter.



In conclusion, I think my You and the world project was successful. It was a lot of work for me,and stressful at times. I learned so much about the profession I hope to one day have. Even though it was challenging, I am glad I did this project.Some things that went right for me was my research and my interview with Diamond Wallace. Some challenges I had were writing a slate post and getting people to wright letters for me. Overall, this project was a


This is where you can find my Annotated Bibliography.


What's The Move?

My topic which is bringing together Ben Franklin and Science Leadership Academy, due to the co-location that will be happening in the 2020 school year. My goal is to prevent any conflict between the two very different schools.  In my first post I talked a lot about how each school was very different, but also how we can benefit from that. In the second post I interviewed 3 important people who are working towards making this a smooth transition for everyone. I talked with principals from my school and Ben Franklin, and also spoke with the Superintendent of Innovation Network, Christina Grant. In the interview I asked questions about what could be improved on during this move, what challenges they anticipate, and what they think about the situation in general.


Me asking for some feedback on some questions and ideas.


The next step in this project wasn’t finding more resources or more people to interview, it was going out and making a change for this cause. We call it an Agent of Change, some way to spread awareness or help make a difference. I knew right from the start what I wanted to do to make a change. I wanted to start a club between the two schools. Taking in the input I received I found other ways to help, like having a day of team building or a party. A club seemed like the most efficient and long lasting solution to this problem.


That’s what I did, I started a club to bring together Ben Franklin and SLA students. The first meeting was not what I was expecting, only about 5 people came. My teacher sponsor and I talked about ways to get Ben Franklin involved in the club, because as of right now it’s only SLA students. We did some fun icebreakers and also had a discussion about what to call the club during the first meeting. I realized that I needed to think about ways to improve this new club and advertise it better, so that more people will want to join. My plan is to have another meeting next week and hopefully it will be more successful. That being said I have to start somewhere and I think this is a great starting point for me and this club.


Me presenting during my first club meeting


My objective is to keep this club going throughout my whole high school career and even further after I graduate. I believe this club will really make both school environments feel better with each other. I want my club to have 3 main goals, one is problems solving. Which means I want our club to be the place everyone goes to if there is a problem involving both schools, that we can fix. The second goal I want is team building, so that aspect of having a club where we would get to know each other and have fun while doing it. The last goal I want is event planning, I was thinking we could be the group that plans dances and both school wide events.


I did have some setbacks and in the beginning, my plan was to contact Ben Franklin staff. That didn’t really work out due to lack of communication, so I had to work around that challenge. This is why the club right now is only SLA students, we are working towards finding a way to contact Ben Franklin students. Overall this experience was something I won't forget, this project really inspired me. Trying to make an impact and change on something that means a lot to me, makes me feel like I am making a difference. This topic isn’t really an issue yet but if it ever does become one I feel like my club will really help, and lot of people will benefit from it.

This is my annotated bibliography.

Making A Difference for Heart Disease

My first Slate Post was about my cause, Heart Disease. I addressed all the types of diseases and conditions that are under the heart disease branch. How people end up getting heart conditions and ways to try and protect yourself from the disease. My second Slate Post was about the research that I had done for my project, I had interviewed a good friend of mine and my school mom, Rene Hart. Rene had talked about how she was at risk  of getting pediatric diabetes when she was younger.

While researching my Agent of Change, I found many organizations that are looking reaching for the same goal as me, one of them was the, Association of Black Cardiologist. Their goal is, that all people regardless of race, ethnicity or gender should benefit equally from reduction in the frequency, duration and impact of diseases of the heart and blood vessels.” Another organization that I had found while researching was Go Red For Women. This organization was made in 2004, when 500,000 American women’s lives were taken because of cardiovascular disease, and most women at the time weren’t treating it as big of a deal as it was. So they made the organization as a way of raising awareness for the issue, and to try and band all women together so that they would be able to finally wipe out heart disease. My final organization that I found was the American Heart Association. This organization is the one that I got my idea for my Agent of Change, and the one who I ultimately donated all the money from my fundraiser to. The American Heart Association is the nation's oldest organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke, founded in 1924, by six cardiologists, the organization now contains about 22.5 million volunteers and supporters. Their goal is to “build healthier lives free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke.” I feel that these organizations are all important and will one day finally end cardiovascular disease and stroke. They inform people about heart disease and have fundraisers like I chose to do, and I got really inspired from the work that they do.


The logo of the American Heart Association
The logo of the American Heart Association
After collecting all the information and gathering interviews for my You and The World,  I began to devise a plan for my Agent of Change. I had searched online for ways to make donations for my cause. That’s when I had found the American Heart Association, this organization had inspired me because they hold fundraising events to raise awareness and funding for cardiovascular disease prevention. Now it was only a problem of trying to raise money to donate to the cause. I had went and decided that I would sell water ice, because the weather was starting to warm up, and in Philadelphia everybody likes to get water ice to eat for the hot summer day. My goal was to make at least $20, because, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to make a lot of money, because Rita’s only had a limited stock and I wasn’t able to get as much water ice as I needed.  I had talked to Mrs.Giknis and she said that if I wanted to start a fundraiser, I should talk to Ms.Sessa, because, she would be able to let me sell water ice at the front office. I had bought all the water ice on Sunday, then stored it in my freezer, to be sold on Monday. Once, I had sold all my water ice, I had only made a mere $33, to me this was a success, it was more money than I had expected to make. It wasn’t anything major, but it will help those who are not in the same level of health as me. I finally, mailed all the money to American Heart Association in Philadelphia.
My classmates helping me out with the fundraiser that was held on Monday, May 14th.
My classmates helping me out with the fundraiser that was held on Monday, May 14th.
At first, I didn’t feel like I was going to be able to make a change for my issue. I felt that me only being a highschool student and not someone like a cardiologist, I couldn’t have made a difference or made a way to help with the issue, but the more I kept working on my project and my agent of change, I had seen that maybe I couldn’t do anything really significant right now, but these donations can actually make a change.  I learned that I had good people that looked out for me at SLA and really wanted me to succeed. I was initially going to do the entire fundraiser by myself, but as soon as I had started my classmates such as Randy, Sophia, Jasir, Chris, Isabella, Carol, etc. reached out to me and helped me out with serving the water ice and with handling change, trying to get people to come and buy some water ice, and setting up my fundraiser. I feel as though I could have bought some more water ice and managed my time better. I wasn’t able to get enough water ice, because, I had decided to go and buy some on Saturday, and most of the mango water ice was sold out, and my parents had to work and didn’t have enough time to search for more places that would’ve sold water ice. Next time around, I would get started right away with my Agent of Change, and not wait until last minute. Heart disease has many factors such as genetics, foods that are consumed, physical activity, etc. Myself and others could slow down or even end the amount of  deaths that are caused by Heart Disease. If we as people tried to limit the amount of sugary and fatty foods that we consume, we could slow down the progression of heart disease, and even donate to organizations that are trying to find cures and solutions to these problems.
My other classmate and close friend, Randy, serving water ice.
My other classmate and close friend, Randy, serving water ice.

Making an Impact on The Illegal Animal Trade

For my last two posts, “Illegal Animal Trafficking” and “New Information on The Illegal Animal Trade” I wrote about illegal wildlife trafficking and everything I had learned about it. I found out about the magnitude and consequences of animal trafficking, the conditions animals are kept in when they are traded around and about how animals that are endangered are more valuable in the trade since they are rarer. I also talked about my interview with the Vice President of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Susan Lieberman, and how the laws on illegal animal trading are too lenient. I now continued my research to the next step of the You and The World Project, my Agent of Change, where we have to actually make an impact on our topic.

For this post, I wanted to learn about what was being done to combat this issue. I knew about big organizations like World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which I previously talked about on my other posts. The WWF is educating people about illegal animal trafficking and trying to make sure legislation is followed. Also, they “research illegal wildlife trade routes, the effects of wildlife trade on particular species and deficiencies in wildlife trade laws. This information is essential for CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) and supports new plans for confronting illegal wildlife trade.” They do this to make sure stricter laws will be put in place to protect animals. During my research, I also discovered a new organization called Conservation International (CI) who is working to help animals that were trafficked and prevent wildlife threats. There are many organizations working on preventing illegal animal trading and hopefully with our help they will be able to stop animal trafficking.


Image result for wwf helping animals

For my Agent of Change, I was not sure what I wanted to do for it in the beginning. I finished my last post with the idea of maybe creating a poster to inform people about the illegal animal trade. After getting feedback from my peers and teacher, I decided to create a poster to place all over my school (SLA) Philadelphia so that people could learn more about the issue of illegal animal trafficking. My hope is that people will become as captivated with this topic as much as I have and will learn all they can about it as it is not a well-known topic. I also hope that the people who read my poster and even my posts will share their knowledge with others to spread the word and help animals.

Here is my illegal animal trade informational poster.

Here is my illegal animal trade informational poster.


Even though I had created my poster and gave people the opportunity to learn more about the issue, I still wanted to do more. After doing more research on the websites of big organizations that work to help protect animals, I found symbolic adoptions on the WWF website. I had heard about these before and instantly became interested. As I learned more about the adoptions, the question of what animal I would adopt appeared. I filtered my search results on their website to find the most critically endangered animals. Then, I decided to do some research to see what the most endangered animal in the world was, the Sumatran Rhino. Rhinos are greatly affected by poaching and their habitats are also being torn down. There are also only about 300 Sumatran Rhinos left living in the wild. It was the perfect animal for me to adopt. From adopting the rhino, I received a picture, an informational card about the animal, and a printed and online adoption certificate. The money from the adoption is used to help fund their organization (WWF) and help them to protect wildlife. I was particularly excited about adopting an animal especially since I had wanted to do something like this for a long time. I think it is great that people can make a change in this way. I will forever cherish my rhino and remember about illegal animal trading and how even though I am only one person I can make an impact in the world.




My adoption certificate for the Sumatran Rhino I adopted.

The illegal animal trade is an issue that I didn’t know much about in the beginning but I am happy to have picked. I came into this project not knowing what I wanted my topic to be. When I got the idea to do illegal animal trafficking, I barely knew anything about it. I learned so much from doing this project and from seeing other students’ projects. This evolved so much as I continued the project because I was able to learn about the many layers of my issue. I saw the horrifying images of the results of illegal animal trading, I even had the chance to interview an expert on the subject. I think that I could have managed my time better during this project, but overall I am really happy about how it turned out. This project has been a journey for me and I hope you have enjoyed my posts and will take this knowledge to help make a change because I know I will.



Annotated Bibliography


Free Speech Flyers

As I have mentioned in my previous two posts, my You and the World project has been about free speech on college campus and how it is being undermined. I have researched this topic extensively and in turn, have also researched ways people are contesting the toxic anti-free speech ideology on campus. I have seen lectures at campuses trying to establish the importance of speech, I have seen protests, and I have seen informative flyers aimed at stating the importance of free speech. For my Agent Of Change, I decided to create my own informative flyer and put it up around University City. Although I think it is the least effective method of the three, I believe that it will be able to make a difference to students and other passerbys alike. I certainly am not able to lecture a college-level educated audience for an hour, and therefore could not do it for my Agent Of Change. I believe it is the most impactful way to inform people on this issue. Throughout my research on this topic, I have stumbled across fascinating lectures that changed my perspective several times. Figureheads of this movement like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Bret Weinstein all have had captivating speeches, lectures, and discussions that illuminate the absolute necessity of free speech on a functioning campus.

I chose a flyer for several different reasons. I wanted to create a discussion and inform people. I wanted to give them basic facts about their current campus climate so they could think to themselves honestly for a second and say: “Am I part of the problem?” I want to inhibit people’s instincts to cover their ears and more importantly: other people’s mouths. I think if I start a conversation as a result of my flyer, I consider my Agent of Change a success.

I enjoyed doing my You and the World project. It allowed me to research and write about something I am passionate about in school which is normally not the case. This project also contradicted and challenged my own previous knowledge on the subject of free speech. It let me know about organizations and students who are vehemently leading the fight against campus intolerance. Before my research for this project I was less optimistic about how much was being done to combat the prominent negative feelings about speech. There is still much to do, as the advocates are still in the minority.


annotated bibliography


image of my flyer on bulletin board, University City
image of my flyer on bulletin board, University City
image of my flyer on bulletin board, University City
image of my flyer on bulletin board, University City

The Gender Wage Gap: How to solve it

In my past two blog posts I spoke about how the Gender Wage Gap is an issue that affects all women no matter their race or sexuality. In preparation for this final post, I looked and thought of some ideas for how to solve this issue rather than just talking about it.

Before I tell you what I did I am going to talk about  I am going to talk about one way another business solved this issue.  On a website called SheCanCode they said that we have to take big steps rather than small ones to solve this issue. They talked about how wage transparency is one option.  Meaning that people in an organization can know how much money there peers are a making. If you do not know how much others are making then it’s hard to know if you are being paid less than others. Also, they highlighted a British company called brainlabs. They are paying their employees of all genders solely based on the work that they do. They found out that women were being paid on average 8.6% less than men. So, they introduced what they  called the “Pay Gap Tax.” This meant that they were going to increase what they paid women so that the average would be the same for all genders. To go along with this, they said that they are going to make people’s salaries equal to the height of there workload. So, if someone’s workload is higher they then that person would be paid more. Just as we thought that things couldn’t get any better they have promised to increased people’s salaries based on their experience and status at Brainlabs. At Brainlabs, they saw that they had an issue and went about solving it.

Now for my change, my original idea had been to host a panel of local experts on the topic. Sadly, I was not able to put this together in time. I was disappointed by this because  it would have been really great. From this experience, I learned that if you want to organize something you have to put down the groundwork pretty early on. Now, I know this for next time I want to put something together that involves other people.

Since my first idea did not work I chose to create a website to tell people about this issue. In this website, I gave an overview of the issue as well as the misconception that all women make 78 cent for every dollar that a man makes.  The image below is of this page


Screenshot 2018-05-16 at 19.42.46
Screenshot 2018-05-16 at 19.42.46
After talking about the Gender Wage Gap I talked about what can be done to solve this issue. I ended this page with a word of hope an inspiration. Below is this page.
Screenshot 2018-05-16 at 19.52.12
Screenshot 2018-05-16 at 19.52.12

Overall, the website was pretty easy to make. The software took some time to load but after that, it wasn’t all that bad. A website was a good way to get the information I needed to get out in an easy an accessible way.  I do regret not being able to do something more interactive. I hope that this website at least lets people know about this issue; at least starts a conversation.

There is definitely a long way to go on this issue. People have been working on this issue for longer then I have been alive.  It will take 50 more years for white women to have equal pay and women of other races longer. I think that to solve this issue company’s have to be transparent about how much they are paying people. This would make it easier to spot issues when they come up.

This project overall has been really great for me. I got to choose an issue that I was passionate about and then do research and let others know about it. I learned that I like research but am not as good at taking notes. I also learned how to manage my time better and what happens when I don’t. I feel like I could have managed my time better especially in the last section of this project.

To see what you can do to change the gender wage gap in a work setting you can read this article.

Annotated Bibliography


The Change for Catcalling--Gabriella Torres

All of my research from post #1 and #2 has impacted the way I have finally concluded my thoughts of catcalling. Both posts required my research for the impact of growing up in a society where catcalling effects any human in the world mainly women. Men feels as though it is appropriate to catcall any women they find flattering in their eyes. My first post was brought out to be just finding out basic information and the impact put on women from these comments made about their looks. Then for my second post it was my own personal research to see how true this actually is. Each of these posts had brought my attention that everyone at different age ranges faced a time where they had been verbally violated in a way where it made them feel self conscious about themself. If you would like to view my first post the link is here. For my second post the link is here

Currently in this time there are very little organizations that are brought together to end street harassment as a whole. In society they value other things more than the safety of humans in the world. Also there is a lot of work put into making any type of organization that their goal is to end something that has been going on for centuries so, it will be very difficult to get people to come together for a project that could have an impact or no impact at all. The organization that I had found was Hollaback or also known as Feminist Public Works is a global organization that is powered by people to end harassment in society. This organization goat is to develop innovative strategies that ensure a safe public environment where harassment is not involved. I feel as though this is the right track to be on in order to actually make some type of improvement for people to feel safe. Also they way that they encourage people to sign up and be apart of this movement to start up a group in their area.

For my agent of change I had decided to do a information presentation with interaction of the audience. My plan was to inform everyone about Street Harassment but also for them to see other peoples opinions about a subject that happens everyday and they either are targeted or are viewing it around them. My presentation consisted of background information about the topic but also questions that were asked to the audience to get them thinking and their initial reaction before watching a controversial CNN news broadcast about Catcalling creating the audience to have a lot to say which was my goal. My goal was to get the audience to be in a situation where they felt like the things being said was not correct but very ignorant because this initially shows how Street Harassment is. I did accomplish my goal of getting the audience to talk and give their own opinion on the ways would change things and how they feel of street harassment in general.

While doing this project over a couple months I at first felt kind of uncomfortable due to the subject being kind of harsh and you never know how people can take a topic like street harassment. After the first post I did feel pretty comfortable due to finding more information and the right way of approaching a topic like catcalling that occurs to people from the ages of 12 and on from men that can be from any age and without thinking how old the women could be. I learned that it is easier to talk to people that have witness these things and are more open minded about ideas then just some adults that don’t care or feel as though it is wrong for a topic like this to be brought up.There is alot to still be done in order for my change to actually be done but, this is such a topic where it is going to take years in order to get any movement in society to actually get any sense of understanding why catcalling is not a good thing at all.

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

Is This The Age Of Equality?


​My You and the World Project,  was Police Brutality finding what was the cause of this problem currently plaguing America to see my earlier post on the issue click the following links https://scienceleadership.org/blog/one_side_of_a_story and https://scienceleadership.org/blog/the_punishment_of_the_people . I found a lot of things during my research, what I found most interesting is in 2017, 457 White Americans, 223 African Americans, and 179 Hispanic Americans were victims of police brutality. I think what some people fail to realise is in the words of 44th President Barack Obama. Obama said. “And it is incumbent upon all of us as Americans, regardless of race, region, faith, that we recognize this is an American problem and not just a black problem or a brown problem or a native American problem, this is an American problem, when anybody in this country is not being treated under the law that’s a problem and it’s my job as president to help solve it.” Misconception creates biases and stereotypes that divide society instead of unifying it.

Image result for Police Brutality race statistics

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

For my You & The World Agent of change I chose to make a documentary interview like video(Which is not that good) to create a way to get the issue out there and to make our community aware of the situation. I gathered interviews from African American History teacher, Mr.Symonds and Science Leadership Academy Principal Mr. Leahman. From their heartfelt interviews, I saw the care for the people in the community and also the fear that the issue of Police Brutality could affect any of us. Something that stuck out to me while interviewing Mr.Symonds was when we all say good-bye to one another instead of saying “good-bye” or “see you later” we tend to say “stay safe” is this the America we really want to live in? This was the most eye opening part to me doing this interview because I never really paid attention to that. While reading the LA Progressive Newsletter  I found an article called 25 Ways to Stop Police Brutality and I found this ( List Below )

#1: Radically diversify America’s Police Departments


#2: Require American Police to have more training than cosmetologists


#3: Police must be routinely and randomly tested for steroids and other illegal drugs


#4: Bad Apples MUST Be Fired – they are toxic and dangerous


#5: Police must be required to earn 4 year degrees – it changes everything


#6: Policing for profit must become a banned practice. A profit motive must never undergird law enforcement.


#7: We must overhaul 911 – particularly for calls made about the mentally ill. It is the rotary phone of emergency services.


#8: Take women from 12% of police to 50% of police – they are more professional, less brutal, and just as effective


#9: Require cops to live in or near the areas they police. It’s too easy to mistreat strangers.


#10: Communities of color actually need less policing. Start by decriminalizing addiction and petty offenses.

#11: American Police must be regularly tested for racial bias


#12: American Police must be regularly tested and treated for PTSD


#13: Why we must take bad laws on policing all the way to the Supreme Court


#14: Good police officers must actually speak out on bad cops


#15: We must decriminalize mental illness


#16: We need to unleash the full power of body cameras


#17: Police departments must create and enforce reasonable new use of force standards

#19: Police must be banned from using violence based on their imagination of a threat

#20: Every city and state in America must ban racial profiling

#21: Police must be immediately filmed making a statement after each use of force incident

#22: Independent review boards must oversee investigations of police misconduct

#23: Police misconduct cases must be tried by special/independent prosecutors

#24: Police departments which fail to obey the Death in Custody Reporting Act should be cut off from all federal funding.

#25: We must focus our fight against police brutality on the local and state level


After reading this I was given hope, hope that if the justice system tries to effectively use these steps or at least one we can make a change for the betterment of society and societies future. When I first began this project I thought I could never make a change for my topic, but I later found that I was somewhat right and wrong, because it’s one thing to start a change, but if you build a movement off of your belief of change then you have made a change. I learned that I and everyone else around me have a hope or dream of change, but we can’t do it by ourselves we as a society and as a people must find that we are all important and that we all need a change and hopefully with the help of one another we can strive for a change. I feel I could’ve tried to make a better Agent of Change to really make a change, but we live and learn from the choices we make and I’ve learned from mine. Lastly I think if we all are implanted with the knowledge of Police Brutality and ways to avoid we could prevent the rise in numbers, but we must also find a way to inform our government of ways we can create a change for the betterment of us all. It has been an absolute privilege to be given the opportunity to study Police Brutality, but to also try to make a change I thank you all for reading and would like you all to walk away with the question, “Is this really the age of equality?” If you all do that then I was effective in making a change even if it may have been a small one.

 

Annotated Bilbiography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13wTzYcJCdMGtSsozTe1VAUYwjLW3z1r577zruis1Vrw/edit?usp=sharing

 

Link to Video: https://youtu.be/Yoap3LIGv3g


A beginning for a space bound successor

SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch. https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/03/01/rideshare-mission-for-u-s-military-confirmed-as-second-falcon-heavy-launch/


“Side booster ignition! 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, and liftoff of Falcon Heavy, building on the history of Saturn V Apollo, returning pad 39A to interplanetary space!”  Since the cancellation of the constellation program, NASA has struggled to put anything onto the table when it comes to manned spaceflight.  It has stuck with the SLS program, which has fell very far behind its goals of a 2017 launch despite reusing old shuttle technology.

In the private sector however, SpaceX has quickly made progress with the Falcon series of rockets, including the Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in use currently, doubling the possible payload to space of the next most powerful rocket, the Delta IV heavy, with the added benefit of being reusable, which saves money.  In my previous blog post here, I talked about SpaceX being able to save money, which they have already before even reusing the rockets, and they have also proven that they could launch the world’s most powerful rocket, however, they still need NASA to reach their goals as they do receive funding from NASA for the commercial crew program.  

For my agent of change,  I have decided to spread awareness of NASA’s funding.  I created a petition on Change.org which can be found here.  I also created 2 posters with the phrase “This is our future.  Make it happen”.

The first one has a Falcon heavy rocket during launch.  The idea behind that one is showing what SpaceX is doing and how they are going revolutionize space travel by first, making the largest rocket flying today, and second, make it reusable. They are already on their way to that goal with the Falcon 9 block 5 and the Falcon heavy rocket, but they plan to go one step  further with an even larger rocket called the BFR.  However, the BFR is an absolutely massive rocket, with obscene payload capabilities.  So what will the BFR be used for exactly?


The second poster is an image of “Occupy Mars” logo, which depicts Mars in it’s phases of being terraformed into a life supporting planet.  Again, SpaceX is at the forefront of this innovation with a plan to colonize Mars using their within the next century, with the first cargo missions launching on BFR around 2022.  

Something that I have learned via my agent of change was to never underestimate a human’s ability to procrastinate.  My petition I created only amounted up to 18 signatures as of May 18, however, change is already happening in the industry around us with such minds as Elon Musk.  Rather than working at the question of how NASA can get more money, he is achieving more through having the space industry spend less to do the same thing. Although the change that I pushed for in particular is not happening, there is definitely change happening in the industry of space exploration as a whole, and it seems like it is for the better, and I think we should leave it at that and see what the future has in store for us.  

Annotated Bibliography here.

What a PSA can do

In the previous posts that I have made, I have talked about my issue. For you all who have not yet read my posts, I am talking about the issue of player safety in the NFL. In the first post, I talked about the main issue of player safety and how it affects the players, coaches, fans, and everyone involved with football. I also talked about major injuries in football and why there needs to be stricter rules that are set in stone so those players do not get hurt. If you want to read up on that blog post, click here and it will take you to the post.

The last post that I made, I did my own original research for the topic. I did multiple interviews with many different people and I also did a survey. The first interview I did was with Dave would is a youth football coach. He told me very interesting things about the Heads Up program and how youth football programs and becoming very safe. The next interview that I had was will a current football player for the Denver Broncos, and his name was Will Parks. He gave me interesting insight of what NFL players had to the issue with player safety. The last interview that I had was with Troy Vincent. I did this interview after the second blog post was due. If you want to hear the interview with him, please click this link to listen about it.


This is am image of the USA football Heads Up Football Logo
This is am image of the USA football Heads Up Football Logo

One of the major programs that is trying to help player safety in all the different levels of football is the USA Football Program. USA Football is a football program that helps with safety of football. One of the main ways that they are doing this is with Heads Up Football. This programs teaches both coaches and the players a safety way to play football. Instead of tackling with the helmet and hitting players head on, they would use their shoulders and upper body. This will limit concussions and other injuries around the head and neck area. This is also known as Rugby style tackling and Seahawk Style tackling. This is what Dave was talking to me about during my interview with him. He was saying that his Heads Up tackling is changing the ways of football and is bringing in more kids to play football. It makes the game safer and more inviting to both the parents and the kids who enjoy football. The NFL is also changing rules like making the helmet rules which makes hitting the helmet to another helmet an automatic penalty. I think that this new change is helping the issue with player safety. In the next few years, who knows how far the NFL will go and how much player safety will improve.

So for my Agent of Change, I had no idea what to do for it. I could have done a website, play some flyers, show a movie, but none of those were something I truly wanted to do. I didn’t think that they would have made an impact that I could record. I then came up with the idea to make a PSA. A PSA would be short enough so I could make it within the time we had, but it would still get my message across. Now with my PSA, I could have gone may ways. I could have made it really short and goes straight to the point, I could be in it, I could not be in it. After thinking about all the different ways I could make my PSA, I decided to use football clips and shows the brain. I think that this will really make a strong point and will stand out. It does not contain me speaking or me in the video. It would just have impactful video clips and moving music.


Doing the PSA was that bad. I had to find some clips that I liked but also that fit the “theme.” I did not want clips of football players getting hit in the knee, because I want to find videos of players getting hit in the head/neck. That is what could lead to CTE and other bad brain related issues. Once I found all of my clips, I had to find music that also fit the “theme” of my PSA. After that, I edited it all together to get my PSA. I do not think I was effective in making change. I do not think that making a PSA will change anything. I think that it will make people think and understand the topic more, but my PSA was not meant to change the world. It was to make people more aware at the issue at hand and to make sure they can do something if they wanted to. Once I posted the video, I got about 200 views and counting. I don’t have any screenshots that are relevant, since they are not all my social media accounts. My parents and my brother posted the PSA on their social medias as well and that helped the video spread to different people. I think that getting over 200 views is a lot of people to watch my PSA.

After going everything for the project, I highly enjoyed it. I enjoyed researching a topic that I have enjoyed almost my entire life. Even though I will not make a change, I got to interview an NFL player and the next man down from Roger Goodell. I feel like I have learned a lot more that I knew at the beginning. I learned that the NFL is trying to combat these player safety issues and that the youth level football coaches are also trying to protect the kids. I think that I put a lot of effort into this project, and I think that it shows. I am really proud of what I did and what I think might happen in the future. I think that I could have made a bit of a better agent of Change, but I still think my PSA is very impactful and is very well done. Other than that, I did a great job (that is what I think). I did great research and did great interviews as well. I now pass the baton to the people reading this post and NFL to make a change that the NFL needs.

The link to my annotated bibliography is here.

Planned, Spent, Wrapped and Sent

Planned, Spent, Wrapped and Sent

Image Credits


    Welcome back! In my first post, I introduced the topic and the importance of poverty in Cambodia. I showed how some factors like education play a role in the issue, and the history of it. In my previous post, I interviewed my father, who himself grew up in poverty. He shared his experiences with me, and made some really key points on what he should believe happen in order for modern day Cambodia to make a change.

    During my time between the last post and this, I’ve uncovered a couple of organizations that do work in Cambodia, primarily towards relief aid and poverty. One I have discovered in particular was Cambodia’s Children Fund, which is a charity directed towards children in poverty. They encourage impoverished children to hopefully turn into tomorrow’s leader. To do this, they take the children in, provide a home for them and enroll them in their “rich and challenging curriculum”, which will hopefully educate and inspire them. The organization has existed since 2004. One example of a major case was when they took in 45 children that was living on a garbage dump in 2009. Their programs focus on 6 core values similar to my own school’s values: Education, Leadership, Community Outreach, Healthcare, Childcare and Vocational Training.


   

Logo of the CCF


    I believe that this organization is actually very ingenious in how they operate. They plan out their steps to create a better change, which is very organized, and they actually go through with their plans, which in the end results in an improved future for the children.

    As explained in my previous post, I told about my plan to send a care package to Cambodia. I’ve decided to change a few aspects of the plan, since the plan itself is pretty tentative and supple. Originally, I wanted to send multiple care packages, each containing different items for different family members, but I concluded that it would cost way too much due to shipping and handling. In the end, I decided to send on big package, to one family of 4 that contained items that they would certainly prove useful. I included various amenities that you would not find normally in Cambodia or find at a relatively low price; some of these items included various hygiene products, clothing items, educational literature, and toys.


Examples of Items Included in the Care Package

Depicted From Left To Right: Men's Body Wash, Fragrant Shampoo, Mouthwash


My reasoning for including these items in the package was that hygiene products are hard to come by in bulk, and they are usually marked up higher than their original retail price than you would find in say the United States for example. Next, I included clothing because most Cambodians usually sew and stitch their own clothing, which while it is cost-friendly, it is not as durable as something you would buy from a big department store, so these clothes would give them a fresh change. Then, the addition of educational literature was party based that they are learning English in their schools, because most of the education system in Cambodia focuses on English more than Khmer, the national language, in order for them to travel out the country and go study in English speaking countries. With my books, which range from simple coloring books, to books like The Hunger Games and Maze Runner, this gives them a free and cheap source of education and leisure in their free time, which hopefully provides a boost to their English fluency. Lastly, the last example of toys is that most toys that are sold in Cambodia are cheap and break very easily, due to them being manufactured in China at a very low cost, so quality toys that I purchase from a store like Target will last longer, and hopefully the children would have a fun time playing with it!


Depicted From Left to Right: Toothpaste, Various Books


I did not have much trouble in purchasing these items, nor did I have much trouble packaging and sending it to the desired location. The only challenge I had during this Agent of Change was the items that I had to buy. I had to consider the people I was sending them to, so once I did, it made it for a relatively easy process. The package is still currently on it’s way to Cambodia at the time of this writing, so I cannot say for sure if it has made an impact yet on the family I sent it to, but I will provide you all with an update when the time comes. One thing I can say for sure though, is that I hope this will make an immediate impact on how they live for the next few weeks or years, and that I will feel elated knowing they can live in a environment that is a drastic improvement over their previous one.

The Agent of Change is the final part of the trilogy of You and the World and I can’t believe how much I’ve come so far. This has been a wonderful ride, and this is one of the few projects over my 11 years in the school system where it really got me thinking about my world. Multiple parts of the project widened my eyes on the issue in Cambodia, and really educated me about a deep and serious issue that many people do not pay attention to. I knew that there was poverty in Cambodia for a while now, but with the addition of the research conducted during the project, I never realized how serious and problematic the entire situation was. I saw my father in a new light after that interview and reading the transcript. He sacrificed everything he had to come to America, looking for the American Dream, and I am honestly speechless. Cambodia is in a bit of a predicament right now, and it’s up to us to see it. Sending a care package to a family, fixes a minute part of the problem, which is a huge step toward the actual solution of the problem. I wished I would have found a documentary to screen to an audience, but I felt the care packages felt more in theme with the entire problem of poverty in Cambodia. To be completely honest, it is going to take more than me, or you as the reader to put even a dent in the poverty situation in Cambodia. There is always hope, but the light will be at the end of of a long dark tunnel for Cambodia. We must spread awareness for this problem, and my Agent of Change will hopefully inspire you to do something similar. Remember, there are millions living without food or water. It is up to us to help them. Save Kampuchea! (កម្ពុជា)

Take a look at my annotated bibliography!

the cause behind islamophobia.

My topic for my you and the world project is Islamophobia and I touched on what it was and how it affects the community we live in for my previous two slate posts. For my agent of change, I had a hard time deciding on what to do because I can’t easily and magically make this issue disappear regardless of how bad I want it to. Islamophobia is a very popular topic and very serious issue that continues to spread rapidly. For me to decide on what to do, I had to think about what the main cause of Islamophobia is. Through my research, I found out that big anti-islam corporations/organizations pay and bribe other big organizations with money to provide falsified accusations of Muslims to people through mainstream media. But how would I expose these organizations and get this information out with evidence supporting it? Since my first slate post, I stumbled upon an anti-islamophobic organization called The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR is an organization on the rise, trying to put an end to Islamophobia. What better organization to partner up with? My best shot at making a change and trying to put a stop to Islamophobia is to partner up with an organization like CAIR, and since I’m already in contact with a member there, I chose this one in particular. How can I make a difference? I decided that since I love writing so much, I would write an article for their articles page, exposing these organizations and proposing ways to better our world from being Islamophobic while educating some on the topic as well. Their website brings many eyes and if I can get a message out, I would be able to successfully inform people on the real reason behind Islamophobia.



Image result for media photo Image result for media photo

 

Although I have reached out to CAIR, they are a very busy organization so for them to review it and the process of putting my article on their website could not happen on time especially considering the debate they’re probably having about a freshman writing for their website. The link to my article is also here if you want to give it a look.


Click here for my annotated bibliography

Sleep Well

A lot has happened since I first looked into this issue.

Back when I was writing my first blog post for my You and The World issue, I was listing a lot of other statistics on general teen sleep. I have mentioned how other disorders (such as depression and anxiety) could lead to insomnia. I have also written about sleep apnea and its own causes (such as obesity) and its cures. I’ve been considering my plan of original research as I was writing it.

I put that plan into action soon before I wrote my second blog post. I summarized the survey and how that plan didn’t work out (questions were more about sleep than disorders), and what four people said when I interviewed each of them (Three had insomnia, one had sleep apnea; that’s the plan that did work out). Those four interviews have let me know more of what it’s like to actually have one of the two disorders. At the very end of my second post, while considering a second plan, I said : “Whatever I think of in this moment, I’m probably going to change my mind later”. I was right about that.

When I first glanced at this part of the project, I considered raising money to push towards medicine for insomnia and sleep apnea (and contacting Penn Sleep Medicine first), But realization came across. Only doctors can prescribe medicine. It didn’t take me too long to think of a different idea. Recent data suggests that these sleep disorders are gradually starting to get recognized, and a lot of Sleep Clinics are still studying the brain. I can’t create medicine on my own, but I wanted to at least help spread the word.


I have created a website called SleepWell! It’s meant to raise awareness for medication for insomnia, sleep apnea and many more. I felt that it would be easy for people to see and view a website (once I promote it well enough through via advertisements around the school) since people are on the internet all the time. The website summarizes what needs to be known about insomnia, sleep apnea, and a few more common sleep disorders, with statistics and symptoms found from a variety of Sleep Meds and other trustable sources.

Screenshot 2018-05-18 at 4.30.54 PM
Screenshot 2018-05-18 at 4.30.54 PM

Here’s what the introduction looks like.


It starts out with an introduction page, which introduces both me as an SLA student and the Y&TW issue I’m working on. It also summarizes my first two posts on this issue. The four paragraphs are meant to give people a backstory on who I am and what I’m doing. The “backstory” includes links to my first two posts and bibliography. There’s also a list of things you’ll find in the website found towards the left. It’s to give a small preview of what there is to see.

Insomnia and Sleep apnea have their own two pages on the website. Those are two common disorders I’ve been focusing on throughout the entire project. Insomnia is more prevalent in teenagers, and sleep apnea is prevalent in both teenagers and adults. Both of those pages have a description, list of causes, its symptoms, the statistics, and treatment. The treatment for insomnia lists Melatonin (a medicine), therapy, chamomile, and passionflower (both are tea). The treatments I have written about for sleep apnea are a CPAP machine, surgery, and physical exercise. A few quotes have been taken from WebMd, a vitamin/supplement center,  to describe the treatments. I wanted to make the treatment category the biggest one, so people who look through this website can easily find out what to do/how to treat it.


Screenshot 2018-05-17 at 12.06.53 PM
Screenshot 2018-05-17 at 12.06.53 PM

Here’s what the insomnia statistics look like.


“Insomnia and Sleep apnea may be two of the most common sleep disorders, but they are surely not the only two on the list. Some of the following sleep disorders are rare, but are possible for people of various ages to get.” -SleepWell, my own website.

This is a whole nother page with descriptions on eight other sleep disorders. Those eight include:

  • Narcolepsy (sudden attacks of sleep),

  • Restless leg syndrome (an urge to move the legs at night),

  • Kleine Levin Syndrome (KLS, oversleeping for 23 hours a day),

  • Sleep paralysis (inability to move/speak),

  • REM sleep behavior disorder (acting out one’s own dreams),

  • Fatal Familial insomnia (FFL, increased trouble to fall asleep at night),

  • Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD, repetitive limb movements during sleep),

  • Sleepwalking (completing tasks as one sleeps).

I have also taken quotes from Alaska Sleep Clinic and Sleep Med of Santa Barbara, since they are both professionals that know a lot about most of those disorders. For every one of those disorders, there is a description that comes with treatment/cures (if any). If i didn’t create this one page, this website wouldn’t have been as helpful. Writing only about insomnia and sleep apnea seems more like an article with its own URL than a whole new website.

Since the website was finalized on Wednesday, May 16th, I’ve been working on ways to publicize it. Venngage lets me create flyers, print them out, and publish them to another world on the internet, so I’m sure I’ll be using that to get the word out. People also have suggested for me to advertise it on medical forums, and I am currently looking for some good ones.

It took me nearly a month to work on this website, and I’m still not done the project. If anything could have been done better, it would be time management, and that way I could have added things such as more visuals for the eight other sleep disorders (diagrams, pie charts, etc.), or I could have worked more on what the advertisement looks like and says.  I honestly don’t think that the job is complete until everyone is able to see what I’ve done, and I know I haven’t reached that point yet. There is still much left to do, and I’m willing to continue.


My annotated bibliography is right here.


Solving The Issue With College Tuition

Annotated Bibliography


In my first SLATE post, I addressed the importance of student loans and overwhelming debt and how this can be solved and how it affected students in the past, present and how it will affect their future. I also mentioned the importance of scholarships for students who come from families who struggle financially. In my second SLATE post, I went into more profundity about the information I got from MIT after my series of interviews that I conducted with Rachel. E Kay of MIT’s admission office. I mentioned in my post how MIT and many other schools were participating in this program called questbridge where they recruit students who want to pursue higher education. Then I talked about what role the U.S can play to help fix the issue of college tuition. Over the course of this third checkpoint, I recently found out about many organizations and groups that work with students in providing them a scholarship for their higher education and one of the most famous and most known organizations that I found out about is called the Gates Millinuim Scholars and it provides the amount of money needed for your education it pays for your fees and everything down to your dorm but it is highly selective and only 1000 students are chosen every year, this organization is funded by Bill and Milenda Gates with a 1.6 billion dollar donation. Another program I came across as I was doing research was an organization called the MDRC they work with young adults and help them pay for their higher education. On their website, they state: “The federal government provided over $33 billion in Pell Grants to nearly 9.5 million low- and middle-income students. Yet too many of these students do not succeed academically. More than a third of students who enroll in college do not earn a degree and are not enrolled in any postsecondary institution six years later; at community colleges, the fraction is close to half. Many factors hinder students from completing college, and financial concerns are a major component. Even if they receive federal and state financial aid, often it is not sufficient to meet their needs. Financial burdens often drive students to work too many hours while in school, forcing them to cut back on study time or drop classes; some students drop out altogether.” Overall I believe the efforts of these organizations/groups to help students with their college fees is great, however, there could be many more groups/organizations that can help young adults with the college/university process. I truly believe that these organizations should be and are examples of what we can do to help future generations succeed.

Talking about the Gates Millennium Scholars

Talking about the Gates Scholarships.



After all this research I had the idea that for my agent of change I would inform students on how to be eligible for scholarships and what programs they can apply for and take part in to increase their chances at getting a scholarship if their family is struggling fianically, I also mentioned in my Agent of change proposal that I would be interested in a letter campaign that will bet targeted at state and federal leaders and I also suggested that I was planning on writing a heart-felt letter to both Betsy DeVos and President Trump, but after some time I came along to accept the idea that this Agent of change would be kind of far-fetched so I will do this as a secondary Agent of change. I first came upon the idea of doing a presentation when I was trying to figure out how I could somehow directly affect the lives of students who might struggle financially and then I decided that there is a diverse group of students in this school so I could just inform them on this topic. During the course of this project I admit I struggled a little in the beginning because I didn’t really know what to choose as my Agent of Change until I decided to persue both of the ideas I had for my agent of change and after this I had an even harder time trying schedule a time to present and I didn’t get one until the last week and my presentation would be on the very day before the project was due, I also worked really hard on the presentation during my waiting time for a confermation as to when I could present my Agent of Change, but when I started presenting I could hear some members of the audience start talking and laughing not really paying attention, however, I feel as if I was effective in making a change because since I did inform students on the programs and ways that can/make them eligible for scholarships, I have basically reached the purpose of my project to inform students so they too, can have the same education as someone is able to pay full price for their’s. As I look back at my progress through this project I find it fascinating how not only did I learn about how organizations/groups are helping students who are struggling financially succeed, but I am also fascinated by how much I can help the world, over the course of my Agent of Change and the You and The World Project, in general, I learned that I can contribute to solving many of society’s issues even if all I do is inform a group of students. Despite struggling on the Agent of Change

Presenting to peers

Presenting to peers.



an aspect of this project I am content with knowing that I tried my best and I am more knowledgeable from the lessons I learned over the course of this course of this project. Even as this project comes to a disheartening conclusion. I want to inform anyone that may be reading this, that presenting to a group of 20 kids isn’t going to solve the problem with college tuition, but rather it will be all of working together and consistently with one goal and that is to make higher education affordable for everyone, that is when we truly have and will succeed in terminating an issue in our society.


Joining the Fight to End Child Marriages

Joining the Fight to End Child Marriages

    I have researched, written and interviewed a co-chair of Girls Not Brides USA, now it’s time to make a change. In my previous two posts I informed people about child marriages and interviewed someone that works directly with an organization trying to help end them. I did a little more investigating of what is already being done to help fight child marriages to get an idea of what I could do. Organizations like CARE, Woman’s World Wide Web and GlobalGiving that are working globally, ask for donations from people for different projects. Some examples of these projects are, a radio segment in South Kivi to make people aware of child marriages, helping girls in Sierra Leone stay in school, giving Indian child brides access to healthcare and buying bikes for girls in Nepal so that they can get to school. I think that while these projects may seem simple, simplicity is exactly what this fight needs in order to work. In the United States, legal action is the best way to tackle child marriages but in other places around the world it may not be. I encourage people who read this, if they can, to donate to some of these projects.

    Recently, a bill was proposed in Pennsylvania by House Representative Perry S Warren that would change the age at which a marriage license can be issued. The bill has been co-sponsored by a total of 26 House representatives, 9 of which represent Philadelphia. There are 16 other Philadelphia House representatives that are not yet supporting the bill. As a part of my agent of change I decided to write to the legislators thanking them for co-sponsoring the bill and asking those who aren’t, to vote to pass the bill. After learning about the bill being proposed, I knew that I wanted to get involved some way. I wanted to write and send letters because I believe that it is the best way for me to become an agent of change. My original idea was to just write to the representatives that were not supporting the bill but I wanted to also write thank you letters to express my gratitude for the bill being proposed. Some of the representatives that sent letter to are, Perry S Warren, Rosita Youngblood, Michael O'Brien and Stephen Kinsey. My hopes are that the representatives will continue to support adolescents in Pennsylvania and that I will persuade for them to pass the bill.

Pictures of me addressing and enveloping the letters.

In addition to the letter writing I also donated to Girls Not Brides by purchasing a sweatshirt from Shethority. Shethority is a charity campaign that was started by a group of actresses from the DCTV shows such as Arrow, The Flash, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. The goal and campaign of Shethority is to create "a positive place for women and the feminine to inspire, empower, and share". All of the proceeds from the International Women’s Day sweatshirt went to the Girls Not Brides Organization. I wanted to support both Shethority and Girls Not Brides because while my project is largely about finding a way to end child marriages, it is also about the empowerment of young girls and young people. I believe that supporting organizations that strive to do that is just as important as writing to House representatives.


               

Shethority logo and a picture of me wearing a Shethority sweatshirt.


    After doing this project I have a better understanding of how I can get involved in global issues, like child marriages. I learned about the challenges of finding ways to become an agent of change as well. With such a large issue it was difficult to discover effective ways to make a change. Something I would do differently if I had the chance, is interview more people regarding child marriages. While my one interview with Rachel Clement was very informative, I wish that I would have conducted more than one interview. This project has been rewarding in so many different ways, and I am looking forward to continuing to be an agent of change. The fight to end child marriages is far from over, but steps are being taken in the right direction everyday.  






Bibliography

Litter Pick-Up Conquest

Litter Pick-Up Conquest


Let yourself know.


You might have been surrounded by trash throughout your childhood.


Although… you wonder why you see your streets and neighborhood struggling to be clean.


Some think littering is the problem but is it something we are willing to stop?


Even if you pick up the litter around your house, it just seems to come back.


Why? Maybe it’s because you just need to stay patient and wait until people start to notice.


So how did I make a change?


Well, before you continue on, please check on my previous posts, “Straws, Something You Find Everywhere” and “Something More Than A Litter Bug. In my first post, I discussed about how plastic straws negatively affect our environment in ways of endangering animals as well as how we can avoid using these plastic straws by simply doing less. For my second post, I did an physical observation outside my neighborhood to collect photos of litter and some photos of straws to demonstrate how trash can be hiding from us.


Photos of my observation from “Something More Than A Litter Bug


As I continued my journey in attempt to help solve this problem, I’ve been thinking about multiple ways I can be an agent of change. My first idea was posting flyers around my school and other places such as restaurants but as I was getting this idea approved, I was asked “What more could I do?” and this was when one of my ideas, that I first thought I could never do, popped up. On an article, asking if you were one of those “weirdos” who picked up litter, I was inspired to do something that involved with picking up litter. This article explained a personal experience on what happened when a lady picked up litter and caused an entire movement to spark up.


Inspired by the article, I was thinking about making a litter pick-up day where students will go out and see whom can grab the most litter in a certain amount of time. This idea sounded great on paper but the way to get this idea approved and make time for it would be risky. So instead of doing my pick-up day in school, I decided I might need to do this outside of school. This meant I wouldn’t be able to grab the most amount of people but I still continued this idea. I sent out some flyers to gather around 10 people and so the journey began on my litter pick-up conquest!



The flyer for the Litter Pick-Up Conquest


On May 8th, 2018, I rounded up the volunteers who let me know, the day of, and we began our fun adventure to find the most litter and pick it up.


Many of the participants stuck together but secretly, they were on their own. One of my participants, Jacob, was on his own most of the time and decided that he’d be a lone wolf and collect litter on his own. The tactics and locations were the key part to this conquest. Jacob went with the lone wolf tactic and end the end, he successfully won.


Photos of participants who collected litter in this event


In the end, I believe the purpose is to not litter in the first place. Even though we are cleaning up and picking up litter, we would not have to do this to if we hadn’t littered in the first place. I like to think back to my first blog post where I discussed on how you could actually do more by doing less. This meant that you were able to make a change by stopping the behavior of littering or using plastic straws.


Nonetheless, this was a project that I can be proud of. I came into the project, thinking that I had to do something that I did not want to do but as I progressed throughout the project, I realized this project can be something I would be proud to present in the future. I learned many new ways of problem-solving and one of them had to be about working around people. I realized that sometimes it is difficult to gather people for a project because there’s so many variables on what can happen at the last minute but I manage to solve this problem by constantly reminding them about the event and eventually I was able to have a decent amount of people.



Photos of all participants who collected litter and supported the cause (photographer on the right corner of the right picture)


Overall, I think there’s still a lot left for this problem to be solved because littering is one of those problems that may not be fully stopped but can definitely be reduced. I believe others and myself have done almost our full potential of solving this problem as of now with a project like this because we are still 9th grade students whom are all working to solve on our problems for this project. To end off with a bang, the winner of the conquest, Jacob Prunes, wanted to say “Winner, winner, please don’t litter!”


For my annotated bibliography, please visit the link here.


Final Steps

In my last two you and the world blog posts, I wrote about the affects the crumb rubber has on the human body and why the topic interests and connects to me. I stated its importance to me in the world and in the sports industry. The last post included  the negative perspectives on the crumb rubber in astroturf. In my most recent post, I wrote about how my perspectives about crumb rubber has changed and the benefits of it. To make this issue public, I have presented a slideshow composed of information informing my school community and others of the issue and how to make a change.


The negative effects crumb rubber has on the human body is extremely hard to change quickly which is why I chose to spread awareness and pass information to people so that the problems the human body have with the turf can be solved. Through all of my deep research, I found out that with a lot of care, crumb rubber can be cleaned well which gets rid of some of the chemicals in the old tires. I also found out about many inside astro turf facilities which allow the crumb rubber to not be absorbed by the sun’s heat.  


For my agent of change final project, I decided the best way to inform others of this information is by creating a slideshow presentation including what crumb rubber is, the problem with it, and how it can be treated. I decided to spread awareness for this topic because it is a problem in the United States that many people are not aware of and by presenting this topic to them they can learn about it and inform others of the problems and benefits of astroturf fields so they can make educated decisions about whether or not it is harmful to them. My experience presenting this issue felt good because when teaching my peers on a problem that they were not aware of teaches them something new. This made it effective for me to make a change because now that these people are informed of this issue, they can inform others and it will keep passing down.


I felt appreciated while doing this project because I did ambitious work to understand this topic and put it into a presentation to teach others about this overseen topic. I learned that there a vast amount of problems on this earth, some big and some small and if we inform each other about these problems we can become a more educated and informed society.  While doing this project I learned how easy it was to teach others about a issue and how effortless it is to pass on the problem and how to fix it. When I presented my project, I was in front of about twenty people which is a fair number of people but the word would spread faster if I presented multiple times for different people or brought more people to my presentation. Even though I have presented this issue, it is not done. To make this complete change, we need to inform others of this issue spread the word to people who work with crumb rubber. If we convince the ones who put crumb rubber into fields how we can do it so it is not harmful then our job is done.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jFkm10hpG_LrnTc7P7ys44l6ixd0LrPOnJrl-Y__u6c/edit


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