I chose to write about this topic because no one else was writing about it and it was a good idea at the time. I didn't have many options, and this was the one I could do the most with. I had a lot of sources, but I didn't quote any of them so I had to go back and find at last one to quote in my paper for some solid factual evidence. I didn't have much of a process, I just wrote the paper and was done with it.

There is a picture of people protesting the Vietnam War in the streets. There is a crowd of people on a street holding a sign above their heads that says:”Our real enemy is U.S Corporations and the rest is hidden behind other protesters. You can tell they’re angry, but stand tall. All the people in front have their arms linked, a sign of unity and strength. This image represents what Ii’ll be talking about in my advanced essay. This represents the people at home, angry and outraged at their friends, and family being sent off to fight in a war that isn’t necessarily theirs. In this essay we'll will be exploring the question of what america is trying to protect if it isn’t the people they send to fight for them. There are many answers to this question already, believing that war is the equivalent of a squabble between two children over something relatively insignificant. Unfortunately, in this situation, there is no parent to separate the two, so what could’ve been solved with a few words has now escalated into a full on fight between the two parties. This is war, if America isn’t putting the lives of its people before all else, there is no point to war.

The first aspect of war that shall be explored about is the aftereffects of it, specifically how veterans of war are celebrated once they return home. In particular, I want to talk about the Vietnam veterans. In one the bloodiest, longest, and most brutal wars of the century, the Vietnam veterans had probably gone through some of the toughest ordeals as soldiers, many of them only just out of high school. Because of this, many of them had looked to drugs and alcohol for comfort during the war to keep them sane.The U.S government knew this, and what did they do? They started outlawing all of the drugs that the soldiers had depended so heavily on left and right. IN an article in the New York Times, author Tim Hsia says this

Being so addicted that they couldn’t stop. The older veterans, having more experience, were able to mostly re adjust to living in the States, but most of the younger ones couldn’t cope with the complete change and ended up resorting to crime to get by. The U.S noticed this, and that they were also exhibiting symptoms but was extremely reluctant to give aid to the 700,000 veterans that were in need of it. Even after agreeing to help them, treatment was stalled which only further progressed the veterans’ anxiety and trouble with adjusting to society."

Simply stating what I said before, this passage really highlighted the extent of America's lackluster response to the soldier's return, and the aid they required to blend in with the American society yet again. I feel that instead of taking reponsibility for what they were completely and totally responsible for, America shied away from its problems. In this way, their reluctance to treat the veterans and the lukewarm welcoming back to the states showed me the capacity for which america could really show indifference to the well being of their people

The second aspect of war that was a significant reminder of America’s treatment of citizens was the countries who weren’t even officially considered U.S citizens yet claimed to be U.S territories. For starters, how many people knew that Guam was a U.S territory? Probably not that many. Do you know what percentage of their people were drafted into the army in the War on the Philippines and the Spanish american war? 12.5%. That's an insanely high percentage. To put it on a scale, for every 8 people living in Guam, 1 of them was sent off to war. That meant every person living there knew someone who was either at war or was already a veteran of war. However, for being one of the most devoted people to the American cause, they received the smallest amount of money for treatment after the war. In a way, it’s like the U.S completely forgot that they were at the war at all. Even worse, Guam was given a representative in the U.S senate, yet they can’t vote. They are also affected by the laws passed in America, so it would only make sense for them to be able to vote for who will lead them. Even though america’s slogan is the home of the brave, land of the free, we shouldn't feel as confident sporting that knowing that thousands of miles away, there’s a country that is a U.S territory, yet treated like aliens. Is this the extent of America’s ability to serve and protect its people? Is this really the country we live in?

In conclusion, i’d have to say that we protect some, but not all of our citizens. America has many deep dark secrets that have yet to be uncovered, but hopefully they’ll begin to get better as time passes. The biggest concern right now is taking care of our citizens overseas like Puerto Rico, and Guam. After we tackle those issues, the hard part will be over, and the experience gained from those situations being solved will further evolve America as a country that can capably take care of its citizens.

Being black while going to a private school is like being an exotic animal at the zoo. You’re a spectacle for the people there, because they rarely see black people. Because of your race’s rarity in these areas, stereotypes are given and expectations are laid out for you that you don’t understand or simply disagree with. For some, coming to these schools provide a challenge like no other:Increased workloads, more tests, etc. However, the most difficult part isn’t the class work, but rather what happens outside of class. If you’re not good at the sport assigned to you stereotype, it’s even harder to fit in than if you had. If you don’t act like your stereotype it’s hard to even be socially accepted. My only example can be my personal one, from when I went to private school.

Body paragraphs:

I’d been going to private school since lower school, but none had been like the middle school I ended up transferring to. The school was called Chestnut Hill Academy, or CHA and it was built like a college campus. Possibly the most memorable event i’d had at CHA was when I was waiting for my father to pick me up. A boy, A.J came up to me and I glanced over, unsure of what he was going to say. He was kind of popular, being a varsity player in every sport he played and even played on the high school team for baseball in middle school. “Do you like, wash your hair?”  He asked. I was appalled and responded “Well yeah, it’s hair...do you?”, hoping he was joking but knowing he wasn’t. “Well I heard you couldn’t like wash your hair for years to get dreads. How do you wash it?”, he responded. “I use shampoo like you.”. We went back and forth like this for awhile until I got tired of answering his questions and tried to cut the conversation short. Apparently I wasn’t quick enough, because now he felt comfortable to give me a nickname. “Mophead. Yeah, that’s what you are, a mophead!”. If i’d been a little older, this wouldn’t have affected me at all, but at the tender age of 12, it felt like a punch in the gut. What right did this random boy have, to prod at my culture and completely disrespect what I wore around as my pride and joy? I was a hotheaded kid, and had already thought of a response to his branding, but my father pulled up so I left without a word. This wasn’t the only time stuff like this happened, and I’d even had a teacher with dreadlocks like mine who was asked the same questions. He was stronger than me though, and knew how draw the line between joking and strictness. He soon became my advisor, and through him I learned to numb myself to the stereotypical, borderline racist comments spewing from teacher and student mouths alike.

This book, A Hope In The Unseen is a story about a young African American boy who miraculously gets into an Ivy League college and follows his story from the process beforehand to his college life after getting in. The first time the author talks about Cedric Jennings as a student is in the beginning of the book, as an  introduction of sorts. “Cedric Jennings is not, by nature, a loner, but he finds himself evermore isolated, walking a gauntlet through the halls, sitting unaccompanied in class, and spending hours in this room.”(page 5)

I chose this quote because it spoke to the lifestyle the protagonist had received when he decided to try to be his best self. This scene is still in public school, but you can tell that based on the way he’s described, he’s an outsider. It is made clear later in the book that it’s because the other kids are afraid he thinks he’s better than them, and because of that they try not to associate with him or if a they do, insult his intelligence. However, when he gets to Brown University, a different, but equally as isolating encounter awaits the protagonist

When I went to SCH, it was fairly eye opening for me about finding myself. I noticed that overall, black people going to white schools has always been a life changing moment, and not always for the better. Going to these schools puts you in between two worlds, and you can never fit perfectly in either. At home, people begin to think you’re bourgeois, or simply trying to be better than them, while at private school, people think you’re a spectacle. One to be poked, prodded, tested, but not to make friends with. There will be the rare occasion where there are people who you’ll be friends with, but it’s not always the case. I was fortunate to be one of the people who did make friends at my school. However, In A Hope In The Unseen, Cedric struggled to make any friends and went through his entire high school years with only the support of his mother and his faith in church. Through the corroboration of these two sources, I believe that the only true way to find and hold onto your identity as a black student in a private school or even just being the best student you can be is to find what makes you happy and then the rest will follow (friends, jobs, camps, etc.).That, in a nutshell, is a peek inside of the world of a preppy black student.

Most of my time on this earth has been centered around finding what made me different from others, why my skin color was so important to my social standing, and how others perceived me. When I was about 7, I had my first real encounter with the ideology of racial identity.I first encountered this ‘fence’ when I made my first friends in my neighborhood. Their names were Cory and Corby, brother and sister. As my uncle said to me in later years, everyone was friends with everyone when they were 7, so long as they could play together. This was also true for me and I played with them day in and day out. The more time we spent together, the more I noticed our differences. They both liked what I thought of at the time as ‘dude music’, whereas the music I listened to was soul, r&b, and pop. They were allowed to go roaming around the neighborhood without their parents, I wasn’t allowed off of the block without a chaperone. Discovering all of these differences also led to an eventual climax in our relationship, that challenged my opinion on who I was. This encounter spurred me into action of finding the answer to my question:who was I? Who was I supposed to be? This question I found gave me a multitude of answers, corroborated from new stories, my family, and just encounters with people at school. This answer wasn’t to who I was, but rather who I was supposed be. I believe that ethnic background and racial identity are like stakes in the ground that pin you to a certain spot, forcing you to conform to the social norms around you, or perish. This creates a society in which you are born into a class, and like a caste system that is where you live and die. I believe that to belong to a racial/ethnic group is something can be measured in authenticity, but rather in how comfortable you are with yourself and who you are first.

Continuing my story from above, The one distinct difference between us also led to the eventual termination of our friendship. One day, Cory and Corby cornered me in front of my house with my bike. I’d recently gotten a bike for Christmas. The chain had fallen off and I was trying to fix it when Cory and Corby came walking over, with determined looks. “Curse” they demanded, as they noticed that I never cursed but they always did. I refused, and they cursed instead, to show me how easy it was. However, I still wouldn’t do it, so Corby took my bike while Cory blocked my path and rode off with it. However, he didn’t get very far as the chain fell off and he fell over. He got up and motioned to his sister to come with him, deciding that I wasn’t “cool” enough to be their friend. I cried, and my brother helped me bring me back inside with my bike.

Speaking in terms of racial/ethnic identity, this experience didn’t teach me much at the time, only that Cory and Corby were jerks. Big, big, fat, meanie, nincompoopie jerks. However, and looking at this experience now, I realized that they were testing me. They weren’t testing my friendship in terms of loyalty, but rather in terms of toughness. They were trying to gauge my toughness, and my reaction was not to their liking. This form of testing I believe stemmed from an overlying dogma that encouraged black people to act tough and be tough to shield their vulnerabilities. This is just one part of the large population of sheep being harbored within this fence, but it is the only one I can say I personally relate to. I believe another factor that contributes to the ‘authenticity’ of being in an ethnic group is not just how you identify, but how you present yourself in your everyday life.In Ta Nehisi’s book, Between The world and Me, He says: “The meek shall inherit the earth” meant nothing to me.The meek were battered in West Baltimore, stomped out at Walbrook Junction, bashed upon Park Heights, and raped in the showers of the city jail. While this is a more extreme example of my argument, it still encompasses the kind of toughness that Cory and Corby were testing me for. When he says this, I believe he means to say that to fit in, to survive in his fence was to be tough, or at least feign toughness. For me, my identity would be what I said above, but underneath that layer is  my true self that you expose or hide from your ethnic group. In the end, I don’t believe ethnic identity is about proving your authenticity to others, but rather proving it to yourself. Then, I believe that is when you are able to embrace your ethnic identity, but not before then.

It’s hot. I’m sweating, sneezing, and coughing, a side effect of allergies. I get up, walking to the bathroom. Strangely, I begin to think of my father. My father does gigs around the country with several bands, and he usually gets home around 12:00-3:00 am on Sundays. He has the most beautiful voice when he sings, containing enough power to make crowds start to sing along, or bring them to tears. Music is power, at least that’s what I feel when I listen to a good musician. Still in the bathroom, I wish he was here so we could sing together. Around the time I leave the bathroom, my mother wakes up. She’s dressed in one of my father’s shirts. She waddles around, with her usual bewildered face she has on right after she wakes up. “What time is it?” She asks me. “12:42”, I sady. “Where’s Al?” She says to herself. She continues to pace downstairs, waiting for that jingle of keys and sing songy voice we know all too well to come bustling through the door.Time passes, an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours. No keys. No humming. Silence. I wonder if silence can be a form of music, and if it is, what it’s supposed to make you feel. In those passing hours, the silence was deafening. It was silent in the normally raucous home save the sounds of my mother calling my father and only hearing a quiet, but persistent beep of his dial tone. The silence seeped into all of my pores and cracks like a wintry chill I couldn’t keep out. Finally, a break in the monotony. The knock on the door is like a sharp shock to my nerves, snapping me awake, blowing away the silence like the leaves off a dying tree. I wonder if my dad lost his keys, why he was coming home so late. It wasn’t him, it was a police officer. I heard my mother and him discussing whatever they were talking about in low voices, almost as if they were trying to shield me from the information they were discussing. My mother called me downstairs a few minutes later. She sat me down again. That silence was coming back, stronger than ever.”Al was in a car accident” “Is he ok? He’s still here right?” She shakes her head. The silence is so loud I can hear it, pounding down onto every square inch of my body as if in a thunderstorm. To me, silence is scary. Silence is the calm before the storm.  I will never hear his song again. Sure, music never dies, but the vessels they use to produce it do. Silence always has the final word in any song, poem, sound. In this instance, it felt like time slowed down. When I finally reacted, I sang my song of despair, a wailing, joyless cry. Thinking back on that time from this aspect, I saw something completely different from what I had in that moment. At the funeral, people commented on the traits that my father allowed them to see, never anything more. However, everyone had a story of him singing. To me, I always thought of him as a father before everything else, and music was just one of the many memories that fit together in my head to make the jigsaw puzzle that was my father. Music is powerful. My father was powerful because his body was imbued with the power to produce it. I feel like now, his purpose here was not only to provide for the people he loved, but to share all aspects of his musically sound soul with all who would listen. When he achieved his purpose, he was taken away. He died coming back from a gig. That can’t be coincidence, there must’ve been a reason. I believe everyone came into this world with a set purpose or end goal, no matter how long they were alive. Be it twenty seconds or 100 years, everyone has a purpose. I believe when you die, you’ve achieved it. My fathers was to spread the power of music to as many people as possible. Just like his life, music begins and ends in silence. Silence is music. Silence is the music of the dead.

In the book, Everyday By David Levithan,  the relationship between

the protagonist, A, and his object of his affection Rhiannon,  to make the reader feel emotionally attached. The book is written from the perspective of a “person” who never inhabits the same body for more than 24 hours. The interesting part about the way this book is that this person must somehow figure out how to stay in touch with the girl he loves while dealing with the problem of always having to switch bodies. The book’s overall theme is mystery, making the reader wonder what comes next, what body the protagonist will end up in the next day. The book appeals to a teenagers dream of being able to be in their ideal body for one day,but also shows the downside, even nightmarish disadvantage of maybe getting the worst possible body to live in as well. When the body switches, the author is creating a new setting, and the reader automatically tries to figure out why the author chose this body and how it will affect the protagonists’ story.

When you begin the story, the author immediately immerses you in the protagonist’s world, making even the most simplistic elements of a story, like the  backstory pop out. When the author says “sixteen years is a lot of time to practice. I don’t usually make mistakes. Not anymore.” The question that pops into the head of the reader is what kind of mistakes the protagonist has made, and practice for what? In my mind, I also ask the question, what kind of life do you lead when all of it is just “practice”? When you read further into the book, you notice the protagonist starts to talk more about his feelings and past experiences in other bodies when he opens up to Rhiannon. The first encounter between the two of them is by far the most meaningful and important part of the story, because this is where the love story begins.

“I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else. I will never feel the pressure of peers or the burden of parental expectation. I can view everyone as pieces of a whole, and focus on the whole, not the pieces. I have learned how to observe, far better than most people observe. I’m not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present.”

Levithan uses the thoughts of the character to propel the reader into the head of the protagonist as he/she goes through his everyday routine with you. Right now, he is describing himself to the reader and the words he uses, like “drifter” draw the reader in because you never hear characters physical features being described as such. However this is a different story for this character because he is not just a human, he is just a being. This also supports the idea of using the relationship between the protagonist and Rhiannon to evoke feelings in the reader. This is what he’s like before he meets her, which is something I noticed evoked feelings of both interest and nervousness in me at every chapter.

“ He’s peripatetic and undependable, in as much as he pops up in a new town and a new flesh-and-blood vessel each morning. A. doesn’t have a real name, presumably because he doesn’t have a real existence: he’s not a person, at least not in any conventional sense, but a spirit, switching without choice from one teenage host to the next and, for just 24 hours, replacing its soul and consciousness with his own. Levithan’s novel asks: Can love possibly find a way around that?”

This shows the effect that the use of the main characters thought and their boundaries that they constantly try to push everyday. I chose this quote because it speaks about the emotions evoked when reading this book through the perspective of an ever changing protagonist.

The way the author uses the settings adds a deeper level to the book, not only making you want to know what happens with the protagonist and Rhiannon, but also makes you want to know whose body he’ll wake up in the next day. I think the one body that evoked the most emotion for me was when the author put the protagonist in a suicidal girl’s body.

“I flip to the end, past pages of dosages and special instructions. There are still blank pages at the back but before them is a page that reads DEADLINE, followed by a date thats only 6 days away.”

This is what I meant by change of setting. When David Levithan changes the body that the main character inhabits, he is essentially changing the physical background of the story. Everytime the protagonist goes to sleep he wakes up in a different body, and with each body brings a flood of different experiences which are meant to give the reader different emotions. In this particular body, the author puts the love story on hold and has the protagonist immerse himself in trying to save this body from doing what it wants to do. The girl wants to kill herself so the main character has to decide whether or not to break his golden rule which was not to tamper with other people’s bodies. The author purposely makes a character like this to make the reader feel torn and scared for the girl and what would happen to her after he left her body. The author also shows the reader that the protagonist truly isn’t in control of what bodie he/she inhabits to show in the end that being able to switch bodies all the time isn’t the best thing either.  

Levithan’s use of the protagonist’s emotions & relationships with other characters helps the reader get inside the protagonists head and feel exactly what the author wants you to feel. When A meets Rhiannon, the reader feels uncertain about whats to come. When the story picks up, and the reader starts to get a feel for the character’s life in that certain body, the author switches it immediately, ultimately keeping the reader on his/her toes and eager to read the next chapter. When Levithan decided to use the protagonist’s disposition in a love story themed book, it added a mood of mystery to the protagonist’s profile, because the reader would never know who he’d be next. This book truly challenged the very thoughts of every teenager about their love life, asking the questions of if they could find true love if they looked a certain way and how it would affect the people they loved. This book pulled all of these questions together and at the same time added a creative and different conflict for the main character and Rhiannon to endure, making for a very unique and interesting story. The author sends the reader a final message to the reader that nothing is perfect, especially the life the protagonist leads.

“What did you say?”

“Did you say something?”

“Who said that?”

These phrases are what I hear most often when i’m not at home. I’m the quiet guy, the one who doesn’t speak up.  My voice was given to me by my ancestors-- before the  slave trade, before America. In America Africans were forced to forget their native languages and learn this new one. I can’t make this language my own because of what was done to my people before it became mine. This language I have inherited is helpful only in making me forget what was once rightfully mine. My voice is the only thing that connects me to my memories.

When i’m at home, I use the voice I developed as I grew up with my parents. The voice I use outside helps me blend in with the crowd and seem ”normal”  It also sets me apart from other kids who might “look” like me but speak a different language. Most people say they want to stand out when in reality most people want to blend in. Why? because our whole lives, we have had our voices preened for the singular purpose of one thing: survival. It is hard to survive if you can’t speak the language.

My  outside voice is quiet because that is the socially acceptable norm. Nothing about my voice sticks out, it is just as low and smooth as any other boy my age.  My voice has changed many times.  Before this year, my voice was lighter, and happier. When my father died, it became darker and unpredictable. I can’t say the things I want to say, the way I want to say them.

One specific time was when I forgot my trailpass on the train. I was late for an appointment so I had to run for the train. On my way to the train station I somehow dropped my pass and hadn’t noticed. I got on the train and the conductor started walking over

“All tickets and passes please” yelled the conductor.

I reached into my pocket to get my wallet and my pass , but the pass wasn’t there. I got angry, I got frustrated at myself for not having the pass and ashamed for not noticing sooner. I wanted to express to the train conductor my own feelings, my depression, my anger, my self hatred. My voice had other plans.

“Ticket please” the conductor said.

“I’m sorry but I forgot my pass. Could you please let me ride for today? I swear I had it,” I replied.

“What? I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you. Could you please repeat that?” says the conductor

“Never mind” I reply.

So I paid the train conductor 5 dollars that I never should’ve given him in the first place. I’m ashamed to say that this particular event happened to me more than once. I happened to do the same thing 3 weeks later.

This time my trailpass and $25 was stolen by someone whose identity i’ve yet to discover.  I decided to take the subway to the bus to get home so I could save money. I bought a transfer to catch the bus with minimal money. I made sure to button my coat so I wouldn’t lose the transfer, but somewhere between the subway station and the bus platform I dropped my transfer. If you’ve had a week as shitty as mine,then you’d know this was just the icing on the cake. I was angry that I’d cost my mother so much money in a week, that yet again i’d let her down. I knew some of this anger was about my father, but I didn’t know what to be angry at him for. I couldn’t yell at him , so my anger had nowhere to go but inside. I got on the bus feeling like the slime on the bottom of someone’s shoe and went up to the busdriver. I was ready to explain to him what had happened, I’d had the plan all setup in my mind, but I just couldn’t turn my thoughts into language. My voice disappeared .

Instead, I gave him 5$ for a transfer I wouldn’t even use.

“That was a one right?” asked the driver.

“No, it was a five” I replied.

“What? Don’t ever do that again son, ever. Next time i’ll spot you, but please don’t ever do that again”. said the driver

“Okay,” I said.

Out in the cold, unforgiving world my frustration and anger is not always obvious. I  express my anger in subtle ways. I am sarcastic, people have to ask me to repeat myself which I know is annoying but sometimes that gets their attention. At home, where I am  comfortable, my anger is not subtle,my voice is not quiet.  I am loud and everything that is on my mind spills out, like a waterfall of molten lava, my words incinerating or cremating everything in its path. One incident in particular caused my mother great pain and I resolved that day to reign in my tongue, to format my way of speech. I was getting up for school, trying to get out of the house on time to catch the bus. My mother was doing her usual, checking to see if I had everything I needed for school.

“Did you brush your teeth?”

“Yes.”

“Did you deodorize?”

“Yes, mom.”

“Did you eat?”

“No, i’ll just bring my food with me.”

“Did you take your meds?”

“Yes mom, I really have to go.”

“But you didn’t feed the cats.”

“I did.”

“You don’t have your squash bag stuff together though.”

“Maybe it would’ve been together if you hadn’t made me go to the doctors yesterday.”

“I’m doing the fucking best I can! I bust my ass going out there in the world applying for new jobs because of you! Whenever I buy something or send you to the doctor, its for your own good! I don’t know what else you want! I can’t do anything else! What else do you want!”

“Thanks. Now i’m late for school.”

My mother left the room and sat down in the living room. I immediately regretted what I said and went over to comfort her. We stayed there for a few minutes, and then she pushed me out the door.

“I love you Duke”

“I love you too, mom”

In James Baldwin’s essay “If black English isn’t a language then I don’t know what is” he says: “Language is formed out of brutal necessity”  Daddy and I shared a deep connection through music. That was our language.  Daddy sang all the time and we sang together. My voice was already changing before daddy died. He used to tease me when we were singing a song and  I couldn’t hit the high notes anymore.  Sometimes it felt like it was the other way around, like my voice changed to match my feelings inside. Daddies voice had a power that made you want to listen, it could lift you up or make you angry but you could always hear him. I am afraid that one day I will forget what his voice sounds like and all I will have are his photographs, the songs he wrote and the notes he left for me in our notebook. Maybe this means I will have to find a different language for this new sadness.  I will have to alter this voice to be more compatible with the world the way it is now. In this language I will have to accept the fact that daddy is not coming back. As I move away from this hard time in my life, my language now stripped of any grandeur or confidence will change again.  I believe that just like my feelings dictate my facial expressions , my voice will tell a new story. Hopefully, the new story will be a better one.

Inquiry:We wanted to know what made the effects of acid rain so terrible and how it was created.

Research:We searched up the effects of acid rain on google and wrote down what we knew on a google doc. We found about 5 useful sites for the info gathering and utilized them for our information gathering.

Collaboration:All if us: Ari, Hanna, and Reily shared the work we did equally on the google doc and the retaining of information. All of made a diagram of acid rain in action and the symbolic equations as well as the pictures of it on a particulate level.

Presentation: The fact that all of us had focused on a certain portion of the project ensured that all of us knew a lot about our information. Also, the fact that all of us went back and peer edited the project contributed to our success in this area.

Reflection: I would probably try talk more because I am a sort of quiet person and i’m not good at talking to others. Maybe if I had communicated more with my teammates it would’ve gone quicker.

Hello! This is Dubois again writing to you about big cats. So in my last blog post, I talked about my opinion on big cats and my results from my survey that I sent out along with my interview of Ms. Houston. This time i’m going to talk to you about what is currently being done for the big cats and what I did to raise awareness. There are currently organizations around the world that specialize in the preservation of big cats, such as Big cat rescue, the largest big cat sanctuary in the country,  See the Wild, which is a fundraising organization for the big cats, and our own Philadelphia zoo, which teaches children from an early age how to save big cats. All of these programs try to show people the importance of big cats by showing them our worlds after its too late.

For my Agent of change project, I did a presentation on the Big cats to my advisory. I talked about the problem, the things that were currently being done, and what we could do. I was actually already involved with the Philly Zoo before we started the project through an organization called STAMP. Every month I write a blog post about the events that are coming up to raise not only the awareness of animals, but also the amount of teenagers that support museums. For the exclusively though, if more people came, there would be even more support behind the protection of the big cats. I at first was very nervous about doing this project because I didn’t know what difference it would make if I wrote about it when multiple others already had, but was also excited because big cats are my favorite class of animals. I feel like could’ve connected with the Zoo though and maybe even an event for the big cats because i think that would’ve been much more effective than presenting, but I was too scared to try.

In the future , I think that we as a race should make eco efficiency a standard in every household around the world, and make it cheap so everyone can do it. We should also make law enforcement stronger and much harsher for poaching big cats to reduce the amount of poaching-especially since they’re unnecessary and are only used for their fur.Overall, we are moving forwards and I think that if we implement just a few of the things that have been mentioned, we’ll be making great progress.

My Presentation

Esta es una foto de mi familia. Mi hermana mejor se llama Ari.  Es muy inteligente y creativa. Mi hermano mejor se llama Eric. Es muy trabajador, inteligente y creativo.  Es por eso que todos los dias ayuda en casa, bano, y  cuida a nuestros bebes de mi hermana y su amiga. Mi hermano trabaja en Mcmennamins. Mis padres se llaman Albert y Vashti. Mi madre lee, y escribe las papiers. Mi padre vee la television, canta con banda en fin de semana, paga las fracturas, y juega con mi familia y yo. Yo juego deportes: beisbol, squash, y tenis. Yo leo mucho, y estudio espanol y frances.

Hello! My name is Dubois Stewart, and i’m introducing a new topic: Saving the Big cats! This is my first blog post so all the information I will be sharing should be completely new. For original research, I made a survey and sent it out over Facebook for people to take. Sadly, I only got 16 responses but I was able to sense a trend in the results. I noticed that most people cared about animals, humans and thought about big cats regularly. Most people thought of the tiger first when the word big cat was mentioned. Most of them also stated that they thought the human was ignorant of this issue and that if that most big cats would refer to eating them if they could speak. Finally, most people commented they would hate being ut in the situation that the big cats are currently in: shrinking homes, and shrinking food supply. I figured it was a given that most people would not enjoy someone in their being killed once every week, so I didn’t bother putting that question in. Overall, all the people who took my survey said they would do anything they could to help the big cats and most said they would ban certain things, such as extreme poaching, and deforestation. I also had an interview with the head of the education department, Ms. Houston. Due to her busy schedule, I had to email her the questions and responses. From this interview though, I learned that the Zoo will be holding an event this year to help little kids learn to love and remember to protect the big cats and other endangered species. Through these results I was able to see what people out in the world thought of this issue and what experts in the field were doing to help the big cats. In my opinion, I think that the human race could do a better job to take care of this planet. Its only on rent to us, and we’re driving our roommates to extinction. I think that if every person in the world just donated 1 dollar to any big cat organization that they would be saved. If the big cats were to go extinct, the world would end up being overrun with plant eaters and we’d begin to lose more of  still wonder though why this problem hasn’t been solved yet, given that there are always huge fundraisers every year for the same thing. I also wonder if there could be some way to show people what life would be like without big cats before they go extinct. Finally, I wonder what I could do thats simple enough for everyone else in the world to do on their own to save these magnificent creatures. Anyway, I hope you take something away from reading this and incorporate it into your daily life. Thanks!

My Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LfGVKf0tbkdK_kNkNSP6E--buia3HeJHQOwzcemd71Q/viewform