Hello, my name is Cacy Thomas and I am a 9th grader enrolled in Science Leadership Academy. In my English class we were told to write 3 blogs about an issue that we are passionate about and would like to spread to the world. This is my first blog post and my issue is concussion awareness and research in young athletes. I have cared about this subject since October 2nd, 2011 when I received my third concussion following my first and second concussions on June 6th, 2011 and July 17th, 2011. All within a five month period my life was completely turned upside down.

Before I received my head injuries I had many instances where I had no idea what was going on or even what a concussion was. So just to clear the air and make sure you know what I am talking about, a concussion as described by Centers for Disease Control is,

"A type of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, caused by a bump,

blow or jolt to the head that can change the way your brain normally works.”

Click here to see a short video explaining more in depth of the definition of a concussion.

Hi! My name is Pedro Castillo and I am currently a student at Science Leadership Academy (SLA). For this project, we were asked to research a local, state, national or world issue and write about it. I think this is a good way for students to put themselves out in the world. It’ll be a way for students to express their way of thinking. Also, a good way to see how they would want to approach their issue.

   I chose to research Philadelphia’s budget cuts and how they caused Philadelphia schools to lose their art education. I believe this is an issue because some students in Philadelphia school love to draw, sing, paint etc. We have to go throughout this entire school year without these things at school and i could not imagine another school year without them. I am interested in this issue because I am a big art fan. I spent much of my leisure time drawing and painting. I use to go to middle school waiting for art class to come and then one year i showed up the first day of school and heard we had no art classes that year. I came to SLA knowing that we had art classes and i got very excited. At the same time I also that the lack of art is still an issue. Other schools are not as lucky as we are and don’t have art classes to participate in. This is a problem because some students like showing their work to world; they want other people to see their spectacular artwork (Like this) or hear their beautiful voices or just hear their amazing thoughts in the form of a poem.

    The loss of art classes has affected some students for example, a young boy at Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School, Ravi Giberson. Ravi states how the losses of music classes are bad for him because they give time time for practice. He also says how music was a way for him express himself and that it would be difficult for him to return to school with no music. Before the school year began, Philadelphia had to borrow $50 million dollars to open schools on time and even with those millions Philly still had to lay off more than 100 staff members! They could have gotten more money with the hidden artwork that was in a Philadelphia school. Here in Philly, a school had millions in artwork in a school and kept debating on if they should sell them or if they should keep them as the “city’s history.” Those paintings could have saved the jobs of many art teachers and some schools could have had the art education they deserve. Will they sell these paintings for next year or will they let the students down...again? Will they get enough money to refund art classes and still be able to keep the paintings? Only time will tell but hoping everything goes good throughout now and next year, the city can begin funding art classes at schools and make the kids happy with their elective classes again.

Picture of million dollar artwork from philly.com

Bibliography

  Hello my name is Ian Fay and I am a freshman at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I am currently working on an assignment known as the You and The World Project. What I will do is I take a very pressing issue and try to be an "agent of change" for the issue. Then I am to create a series of three blog posts for the issue (this one being the first). The issue that I chose to tackle is Internet Privacy, the issue of companies invading the online privacy of many online customers.

    The issue is interesting to me because the Internet is a big part of current technological history. It is a very reliable resource that most of the world has access to for information, entertainment, and many other things. However, It seems to lend itself to have perfect anonymity. If you have seen companies ask for your personal information then it is very wise to keep it a secret. All of these websites that you use are very susceptible to hacking. Over the years many insurance, video game, and entertainment companies have been hacked allowing the hackers to have access to personal information. This would lead to many crimes such as identity theft, hacking bank accounts of customers, and in a few cases stalking and murdering innocent customers. This is the reason why this is such a hard and murky issue to solve. The internet is an open tool usable by many of the world’s population but, these hackers can be camouflaged by the internet allowing for complete ambiguity. The issue itself is mostly seen as a paradox.

    What I and the many others who fight this issue hope to achieve in this issue is an idea known as net neutrality. Net neutrality is the idea of everyone having equal access to the internet. With it, nothing stops anyone from having a lesser connection or having inferior virus software than someone that is richer, smarter, a better job, etc.. That one principle is the keystone to having total equality in the internet. Unfortunately companies are planning to violate this idea of equality. While conducting research I stumbled upon a website that I found to be quite alarming. The site had a video that explained how these companies are doing this. Imagine a street with cars going at the exact same speed, this is how the line that cable providers such as Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable is visualized. Everyone has the exact same connections whether they may be people living in apartments or business tycoons with gigantic salaries. That line isn’t allowed to be interacted with by these companies, so what do they do? They create a separate line that has a better connection than the standard line. The only people who have access to this line are those that are willing to pay more money to use it while the rest are left with the worse connection. This discriminatory act is defying the very principle I and and those who fight this hope to uphold.

     While this may all look grim, many people have not given up this battle. The website that provided that video was a site named savetheinternet.com. These freedom fighters have created a big following that have voiced themselves to the world. Also a affected by this issue, minorly or majorly, then we can finally be rid of this problem for good. website named internetsociety.org helps employees manage their online lives to ensure that they do not face the same fate as other unsuspecting workers. This is where these people and I see hope. If more people join this cause we can once again achieve perfect net neutrality.

    The invasion of Internet Privacy is a very difficult issue to solve. There are many differing points of view, multiple technological snafus, and the notion of something as open as the internet allowing for complete anonymity is very paradoxical. It doesn’t seem to be feasible to achieve. However we cannot give up this fight. If everyone who feels

Annotated Bibliography     

States Laws pertaining to online privacy

Net Neutrality

Hello, my name is Felix Schafroth Doty, and this is the first of three blog posts for my English You And The World (YATW) project. For this project, we are to choose an issue in the world, anywhere, and combat it with some form of volunteering. I have chosen Financial Literacy and Education, and the fact that not nearly enough people have the knowledge to live a financially savvy life.

This problem came to my attention when I read a book on teenage finance and education. This book is called The Motley Fool Investment Guide For Teens, written by David and Tom Gardner, owners of a stock investing site. However, this book isn’t just on investing in the stock market. The Motley Fools, as they call themselves, teach you throughout the book about how to be smart and safe with money, and ultimately use it to your advantage. Their website is here.

But anyway, back to the problem at hand: Financial Literacy. This is a definite problem in America, as shown by a recent survey:

The 2012 Consumer Financial Literacy Survey, released in April, Financial Literacy Month, found that despite the recession, Americans still lack basic money skills. More than half of the 1,007 adults polled for the survey admit to not even having a household budget.

Also revealed in the findings:

• 33 percent, or more than 77 million Americans, do not pay all of their bills on time.

• 39 percent of Americans carry credit card debt from month to month.

• Only 59 percent of adults say they have savings -- a 5 percent decrease from last year.

• More than one in four adults say they are now spending more than last year.

• 42 percent of respondents give themselves ratings of C, D or F on their personal finance knowledge