This blog post is the third part in a 3 part series on our English class' You And The World project, where we each tackle a problem in our society that we want to spread awareness about. Blog #1 is about our initial research on our topic. Blog #2 is about our field research, where we gathered data ourselves based on survey results or observation. I took a survey of everyone in our class on their opinion of littering.

A signed SOSNA trash bag

In my research between now and my Blog #2, I looked into organizations like the South of South Neighborhood Association who hold neighborhood cleanups periodically, where they supply grabbers and garbage bags (pictures below) to small groups of people who help clean up the street. For my Agent of Change assignment, I participated in the first SOSNA spring cleanup of 2014. I put an ad in the school memo for it, but nobody could make it there. Neighborhood clean ups are a great way to get involved in improving the environment and beautifying your city, and other than that, it's great exercise for your back and arms. A few more interesting things were that we filled up around 10-20 trash bags over about 9 blocks and a couple parks, there was a 4 block stretch where there were no trash cans (except for one belonging to a business), and that the quality of the sidewalks and surrounding buildings appeared to be a big factor in the amount of trash in those places.

Various supplies provided by SOSNA

This was a fun project, and I’m looking forward to participating in litter cleanups in the future. The project has also taught me alot. Mainly that people don’t litter just because they don’t care. It’s also because they just don’t want to touch those gross garbage can handles when it’s so easy to just toss your stuff on the ground, but I digress.

Even though our city is bad in terms of cleanliness, it's only considered the sixth dirtiest city in America. Others include Atlanta at #5, Los Angeles at #4, Baltimore at #3, New Orleans at #2, and the Big Apple itself, New York, at #1. The cleanest was Cheyenne, Washington. Cheyenne even received the EPA’s Clean Drinking Water award in 2009. According to the website, they use special precautions and techniques to prevent large plants from leaking toxic fluids into the water supply. This may help with problems involving larger structures, but it wouldn’t be as effective here. If we as a whole really want to do better, we can encourage more cleanups and stricter laws in those places.

To conclude this post, thanks to Andy from SOSNA for agreeing to let a group of SLA students join their neighborhood cleanup of this spring. Also, big thanks to the 22 people who took my survey on littering (except for that one guy, you know who you are). And thanks to Ms. Dunn and Ms. Lucy for their continuing influence and support.

Annotated bibliography (Sources for #2 and #1. See hyperlinks for #3.)

Take this survey about littering!

Hi! My name is Katarina Backo and I am a ninth grader at Science Leadership Academy. I am doing a project for my English class about an issue that concerns
me, and I have to write three blogs about it. Here is the link to my first blog and this is my second blog in this series. My issue involves play time, and how technology impacts
children’s activity and therefore their lives. I am an artistic, athletic person connected with my family and happy about it. I wish that everybody could have the happiness I have, but I think that wrong use of technology prevents that. Hope you’ll enjoy reading my ideas.

In my previous blog my focus was on balance (“I love technology as well, but I think that everything should be balanced.”-Blog #1). My concern was that nowaday teens will choose to play with technology rather than going outside to play. In the meantime I continued with all my activities and still didn’t notice new teens making use of abundant free teen programs that exist in Philadelphia. Besides working on this project I have had the opportunity and luck to do a research on how technology affects people for my technology class. For my Science Fair Project I have decided to dig deeper into how teens tell time and that helped me understand how I could resolve my issue. Finally my original research opened new questions.

The movie "Digital Nation" I watched in technology class, in my eyes was about the balance I spoke about which is pushed to technology side, meaning that we are forgetting the real world we live in. It also brought a good argument about multitasking and why is it actually bad. People are so crazy about the virtual world that they are losing the sense to tell the difference between virtual and real. Even if you think that you are good at multitasking it is wrong because multitasking makes you lose your focus.

I have also studied the term "digital native" (CNN article defines this term more closely) - a person born when digital technology was around, so they can learn about technology at the age they learn how to speak. That is exactly what today's teens are, and that is where my issue starts, growing up as technology grows. This is not necessarily bad, technology is meant to enhance our lives, but yet again I see the need for balance.

Working on my Science Fair Project I have unexpectedly run into one possible, maybe obvious solution for my issue. For Science Fair Project I wanted to check the saying “time flies when you are having fun”. My experiment was to engage my classmates into activities and see how well they can tell time spent on their activities. I gave a Rubic’s Cube to my friend who is using technology all the time. He was focused on the cube for about 7 minutes and then I stopped him. He wanted to continue, because he was not even close to solving it. When I asked him if he liked solving it, he said he loved it, but he thought that he spent a whole hour trying. His focus was amazing, even though technology is said to ruin the ability to focus and strengthen the wish to multitask. I expected to hear that the time flew for him, but I got the total opposite. As usual, when you get too many results that you didn’t expect, new ideas are born. It might have been obvious from my current point of view, but I didn’t think before that in order to resolve my issue I just have to find the way to get my fellow teens interested in activities that do not include technology.

Having everything sorted out, I wanted to check what activities other teens are involved in. For my original research, I recently made a survey which you can access here. It asked people about technology they use and how much they use it. I also asked about extracurricular activities and sports.

20 people took my survey and 19 of them were teenagers. Everyone is using technology in some way:

Do you have an electronic device?

Every person that filled up my survey said that both, they and their families, have electronic devices. The two most common ones were cell phones and laptops. That is what I expected. However, I found out something that I did not expect and that made me revisit my original hypotheses. I expected to have more people say that they do not play sports and don’t engage in extracurricular activities. That was not the case. 95% of people said that they engage in activities not related to school and technology. Out of those 95%, 50% said that they play sports, while others said that they both play sports and engage in other activities.

Do you play any sports?

Then if people do all these activities, maybe our ways were not ruined with technology, just overwhelmed. Is my sample representative? If yes, is Philadelphia that big that I did not notice that most people play sports and do extracurricular activities? Or did I accidentally get all the people that play sports to take my survey, or maybe the activities I am involved in are not well advertised? I still have to search deeper to find the answer I am looking for.

I can conclude that technology is not something stopping us from being as active as other generations before us. It is only the way we use it to help our way of living. In terms of technology, right now we are stuck between the past and the future.

To read my Annotated Bibliography, please click here.   

Hi! My name is Katarina Backo and I am a ninth grader at Science Leadership Academy. I am doing a project for my English class about an issue that concerns me, and I have to write three blogs about it. This is my first blog in this series. My issue involves play time, and how technology impacts children’s activity and therefore their lives. I am an artistic, athletic person connected with my family and happy about it. I wish that everybody could have the happiness I have, but I think that wrong use of technology prevents that. Hope you’ll enjoy reading my ideas.

When given the choice, more kids and teens now will pick to use a smartphone over a ball. Everyday, I witness that not too many teens use abundant free teen programs that exist in Philadelphia. In my branch of YMCA I am one of handful of teens practicing sports on regular basis. Assuming that people are different I understand that they don’t like sports. I also attend many other activities such as The Mural Arts Program, PAFA Sunday art program for families, and Free Library of Philadelphia workshops for kids and teens, story time, karaoke parties, Science in the Summer and Summer Reading Program. Everywhere I named there are just a handful of teens as well. Where are they? Are they not informed? The most recent study by Pew Research published by LA Times says that 95% of Americans think libraries are important. Why did I not see any teens there?

To my advantage, I recently saw a picture of how children played few decades ago and how they play now.

As shown on the picture there is much less action!

Few decades ago, they were outside playing games all together. I guess that, as shown on the picture, now they are on their iPods and smartphones playing games alone. According to the latest Pew Research on teens and technology:

• 78% of teens now have a cell phone, and almost half (47%) of those own smartphones. That translates into 37% of all teens who have smartphones, up from just 23% in 2011.

• One in four teens (23%) have a tablet computer, a level comparable to the general adult population.

• Nine in ten (93%) teens have a computer or have access to one at home. Seven in ten (71%) teens with home computer access say the laptop or desktop they use most often is one they share with other family members.

In my opinion, not only that overuse of technology prevents socializing and learning from others in a real world setting, it also prevents much needed physical activity. In other words teens always use technology for everything and therefore they are not interested in arts, sports, books, family, nor spending time outside.

Playing outside nowadays!!!

According to New York Times, Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse and one of the world’s leading brain scientists said, “The technology is rewiring our brains.” Do we want to have our brains rewired? “Research is scant on the behavioral and developmental effects of technology on youth.” as said by Washington Post. However, existing research confirmed that technology ruins the ability to focus on a particular task, which I am able to notice all around. On the other side, “A 2012 University of Washington study noted that teens in general considered their rather high level of connectivity as necessary for effective cultural development and to prevent social isolation.” Pew Research survey of teachers who instruct American middle and secondary school students finds that digital technologies have become central to their teaching and professionalization.

No matter where the truth is, the big companies always get their big bucks. “Apple and Google tout their mobile devices as revolutionary tools for learning and fun - and helpful distractions for the modern parent.” Parents use that distraction to be able to finish some of their daily activities. I can see that in my little sister as well. She, like all little children is a little copycat, and she does everything we do. This graph shows what children can copy. 

I love technology as well, but I think that everything should be balanced.

To view the site I got my pictures from, please click here.

To read my Annotated Bibliography, please click here.   

My name is Jason Greene and I am a 9th grader going to Science Leadership Academy.  For my You and the World project,  I chose to talk about public education in the great city of Philadelphia.  I chose this issue because this is one of the many issues facing the city today.  Public education has a lack of funding. This is important to me because me and all of my friends are affected by the lack of funding for our school district.  Education is important and we need to find out how to fix this.

This is the headquarters of The School District of Philadelphia in Center City.

When my English teacher gave me and my class this project I started to think about what I wanted to do.  One of my goals in life is to become Mayor of Philadelphia.  Since I want to do that when I grow up I started to think about some issues that face the city today.  I decided to do my YATW project on public education because I feel like it is the most significant.  Most of the money goes to charter schools and not public ones.  Because of this you can get a better education at charter schools.  We should care about this issue because most kids in the city go to public schools and it’s not fair that kids that go charter and private schools get a better education.  Coming from a public middle-school I know how these cuts feel.  At my old school we don’t have a music teacher no more.  I used to play trombone and was part of the all-city middle school band for three years.  Since my old school doesn't have a music teacher anymore there is no more band.  We also do not have an art teacher.  A parent that used to be an artst now comes in twice a week to teach.  Now I go to Science Leadership Academy.  This is my first year here so I don’t know how this school was effected but I am sure that a this school was effected.  I am just lucky that I can go to a school that can give me a great education.

This is the graduation rates of boys and girls who went to public schools from 2002-2011.

This is the graduation rates of boys and girls who went to charter schools from 2008-2012.

In 2012 The School District of Philadelphia had a 304 million dollar budget shortfall.  Because of this they had to close down they had to close down 23 schools and lay off 3700 teacher,nurses,music teacher,art teachers and other workers.  While all of this was happening according to labnotes.com 9 more charter schools opened and their budgets have been increased by 107 million dollars.  Why would they do this?  Instead of increasing the budget for the charter schools and opening new ones why don’t you use that money to fund public schools.  That 107 million dollars could have saved 9 public schools.  Now that makes more sense to me.  Over 10,000 students are at new schools this year because the school that they went to last year is closed now.

This is University City High School.  637 students went here last year.  0 go there now.

Going on with this project there are some things I want to learn.  I am going to go volunteer at my old school John Story Jenks Elementary School in Chestnut Hill.  When I am there I also want to talk to some of my old teachers to see how they are dealing with the budget cuts.  I will also talk to some of the students there to see if they notice anything different from last school year to this school year.  I hope to find out other thing while working on this.

This is J.S Jenks.  This is the school where I will be doing my volunteer work at.

This issue is very important to me.  This is important to me because this is effecting me and my friends.  This is also going to the kids that live in Philadelphia and get a public education in the future. I feel like no one really cares about this or say that this will change soon.  I don’t want soon I want now. We could change this.  If we come together and show that we care about we can change this.  

If you want to see my bibliography click here.

Hey, my name is Fodie Camara. My topic is hunger. I choose this topic of hunger because I want to know all about hunger and how it affects people  in differents ways. When I learn it, I want to tell people and try to stop hunger. I will spread the information around to teach people about hunger and many different.

We have many different groups in Philadelphia to stop hunger or support food to programs. We have Stop Hunger Now, Coalition against Hunger,  Philabundance. They all have one motto, is to stop hunger and feed people who don’t have enough meals in Philadelphia. They try their best to help people without food or in some type in trouble.

Stop Hunger Now works with  international partners that ship and gives meals in country.

Volunteers come and package the meals. They serves 70% of its meals to provide programs such as school feeding programs, vocational training programs, early childhood development programs, orphanages, and medical clinics. Stop Hunger Now is an international hunger program that has been promised to stop hunger for more than 15 years. They working with school and after school programs will try to stop poverty.

Philabundance was created in 1984. Philabundance works with families hit hard by the recession. They work with seniors trying to make ends meet. They are the largest hunger group. They are now able to address hunger through direct service such as food cupboards, emergency kitchens, shelters, and many more. Philabundance has take hunger really serious in Delaware Valley. They use Food donations, and the community. Philabundance helps 72,000 people per week.

Hello, my name is Talya Laver and I am a freshman at Science Leadership Academy. In our English class we are working on a project entitled You and The World. This project gets us to think about an issue that is meaningful to us and what we could do to fix it. The issue that I chose was Leukemia. Leukemia, as well as Lymphoma, Myeloma and Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS), are all blood cancers. I have chosen this topic because my aunt recently passed away after a three year battle with Leukemia. She was one of my inspirations and I was very struck by the way she faced her disease; with constant determination and positivity. I hope to educate people about what blood cancers actually are and help to raise money to find a cure.

Blood cancers are caused by changes in the DNA of one stem cell. That cell then multiplies and accumulates, interfering with the productiveness of the red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. When your white blood cells are affected, you can no longer fight infection as well. These mutated cells affect bone marrow, blood cells, lymph nodes and other parts of the lymphatic system. Leukemia, specifically, is caused by a change of the DNA in a white blood cell.

There are two categories in which a specific type of Leukemia can be sorted into; Acute Leukemia and Chronic Leukemia. Acute Leukemia progresses very quickly and is more common. Chronic Leukemia worsens slowly over time. Within    those two categories there are two different types of Leukemia. The two types of Acute Leukemia are Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia starts in the white blood cells and affects the lymphocytes. Lymphocytes flow in the bloodstream to help fight infection. When they do not mature properly, they can no longer fight infection. Acute Myeloid Leukemia can start in many types of developing blood cells. It affects myeloid stem cells, which later mature into red blood cells, platelets or myeloblasts. Myeloblasts later turn into white blood cells. Acute Myeloid Leukemia prohibits the myeloid cells from maturing the way they should and myeloblasts do not go on to become white blood cells which help fight infection; leaving the carrier susceptible and unable to defend themselves. The two types of chronic leukemia are Chronic Myeloid Leukemia and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. Chronic Myeloid Leukemia is very similar to Acute Myeloid Leukemia with the exception that the disease progress more slowly because in the beginning some of the blood cells mature and work properly. Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia is identified by the presence of too many abnormal lymphocytes found in the bloodstream. These abnormal cells crowd around the healthy cells prohibiting the production of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. All four of these types of leukemia will result in death if the proper treatment is not received. 

                                   This diagram shows the the breakdown of the different types of  

           Leukemia diagnosed in 2013 in both adults and children.

The best course of treatment for Leukemia depends upon many things: the type of Leukemia, the stage at which the cancer is diagnosed, the patients age, and the patients general health. The goal of the treatment is to target the Leukemia cells and kill them, allowing healthy cells to grow in their place. A patient is considered “in remission” when there are no longer any signs of Leukemia cells. Normally the first plan of attack for patients with Acute Leukemia is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy attacks the Leukemia with the use of drugs, which are normally received in stages. In the event that the cancer had spread to the brain or spinal cord, intrathecal chemotherapy attacks the cells in these areas by injecting the drugs directly into the spinal canal. Radiation can also be used to treat acute leukemia. Radiation therapy targets the cancer cells with large amounts of radiation, and can also be used to target Leukemia cells in the spinal cord or brain.  For people that have high-risk Leukemia, doctors may suggest a stem cell transplant. Stem cell transplants destroy all of the cells in the bone marrow, both good and bad, and replaces them with new, healthy cells. Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia may choose not to pursue treatment right away because the cancer progresses much slower. When the patient decides to pursue treatment, there are a few different ways to target the cancer and the course of action is decided upon by the patients doctor. Radiation therapy can be used to destroy cancer cells or to shrink swollen lymph nodes or spleen. Chemotherapy can also be pursued should that course of treatment best attack the cancer cells in a patient. The cancer cells can also be targeted with a monoclonal antibody to destroy or stop the growth of the cancer cells. Patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia should receive treatment right away because the gene can develop more mutations that make the cancer more resistant to treatment. The first course of treatment is targeted with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, a drug to help fight the cancer. More treatment options can include chemotherapy and biological therapy. Biological therapy includes medicines given to a patient to help improve their body’s natural defences against the cancer. To learn more about treatment options, please read this overview of Leukemia treatment options.  

Many organizations have been dedicated to helping Leukemia patients and trying to find a cure for Leukemia. One of these organizations is The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Their goal is to both find a cure for Leukemia and Lymphoma as well as improve the quality of life for patients and their families. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society also publishes a lot of information about Leukemia and Lymphoma if you are interested in learning more about either type of cancer. The National Children’s Leukemia Foundation’s main goal is to find a cure for Leukemia that can help everyone regardless of race, religion or ethnicity, with a focus on children. The Moffitt Center, located in Florida, treats cancer patients as well as researches to find cures for different types of cancers. The chart located below shows their success rate as well as the national success rates for patients with all four types of Leukemia. All of these organizations, as well as many others, accept donations to help find a cure.

To view the works cited, click here.

Hi, my name is Colin Pierce and I’m a freshman at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. For English this quarter, we have been assigned to research and write a blog about how to combat a recent problem in our society. I decided to address the large amounts of litter in our streets because it seems to have gone out of control in the past few years. It’s degrading to our city and harmful to our ecosystem.

According to this CBS Philly article, Philadelphia was ranked as the “second dirtiest city in the U.S., according to a recently released survey by Travel and Leisure magazine”, and this isn’t just a baseless claim. If you take a walk in South Philly, you can see trash everywhere like it’s on display! You see it in the gutters, in plants, window boxes, in storm drains, and even on people’s porches! It’s not just that it’s making our city look ugly, either. Litter is also making its way into the Schuylkill River and interfering with marine life, which is shown below.

This photo, showing trash in the Schuylkill River, was This diagram from The Living Ocean shows

       taken in 2005.     how exactly trash affects marine life.