My name is Jaiye Omowamide and I am a ninth grader who attends Science Leadership Academy. For my English class, my teacher Ms.Dunn asked us to think of and choose a problem in the world that we feel strongly about. Automatically, I thought of animal cruelty and abuse in America. As a child, I've always had a deep affection for animals. I feel as if it is my duty to share with the world, the horrors, as well of my thoughts and feelings on this problems.

As of December 2013, Pet-abuse.com has reported 19,334 cases of animals that were treated in a inhumane way in which 17,100 of those cases were reported in the United States, and that’s not all of them. While hundreds of cases are reported, thousands go unreported and are ignored.

Neglect and abandonment seems to be the highest form of abuse used against animals. Pet expert, Laura Maloney wrote an article for USA Today on her thoughts on animal abuse. Below she wrote:

Animal cruelty could be divided into two categories: intentional cruelty and     unintentional cruelty or neglect. Intentional cruelty means an individual has purposely inflicted physical harm or injury on an animal. But neglect is much broader: It could mean an animal has been denied the basic necessities of care, such as food, water, shelter or veterinary care; it could also mean that the pet parent is unaware he or she is doing anything wrong and simply needs to be educated on how to properly take care of the animal. And at its most basic level, it simply could be the state of being homeless — which is the highest risk factor for any animal in this country.

  Did you read that correctly? Of course intentional cruelty is unable to be solved on my behalf because of the barbaric mind of the beholder, but unintentional cruelty can be! As stated above, neglect is caused because the pet owner has no idea that what he/she is doing is wrong! This is where I come in. I want to use my knowledge to guide those into treating animals with respect and dignity.

Following neglect and abandonment is hoarding at 12.3 percent, shooting at 11.7 percent, fighting at 8.7 percent and beating at 7 percent.

Now it’s my turn to challenge this problem. Throughout the next two blogs, I am going document my status as well as provide new information for readers to let them know how I tackle this situation. My goal is to fully educate others on this problem so they can also help the world with one of the many, horrible things it has to offer. I want to make a change and change starts with you! Look out for my next blog!

Click here for the sources that I used and the annotated bibliography

Hello my name is Gabrielle Kreidie, a student at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For the rest of the year my class and I are doing individual projects on certain subjects with the goal to change the world around us. We will become Agents of Change by the end of the year with the help of research. This is my first blog post, I hope you enjoy it. For further information visit my bibliography.

The world has heard of the civil war in Syria. The attack of chemical weapons of people of Syria from their military a total of nearly 1,500 people killed, 426 of which were children. The media covered the decision President Obama had to make. A military strike or not. Sure the media talked about those who were lost in this tragic event portrayed by Bashar Al Assad, Dictator of Syria, however, right after Obama’s decision was taken off the table, the news ended.  People continue to suffer from this dictator but the public nor the government seem to really care about those that are suffering.

Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey are holding in total over two million refugees, and more adding on everyday. Those two million are known to the world now as refugees. Two million people who are on the streets of countries with small populations and problems of their own. Lebanon alone has over one million refugees from Syria, with a addition of refugees from Palestine and other countries. Lebanon has a population of four million with a stronger economy than some of their neighbors, however, they are struggling with the addition of over one million new people and problems with bordering countries, Syria and Israel. Two million people are a lot! Even though Syria has a population of twenty two million, as of 2012, a decrease of two million is a lot. Two million is just over the size of Philadelphia. Now imagine all Philadelphians having to leave their homes with barely anything because it’s not safe for them. Imagine two million lives broken, without food, money, medicine or professions, leaving everything behind.

A family living in a refugee camp in Jordan during the cold, snowy winters.

Living in the USA, we do not see that much news on the refugees. We do not see information on people who are suffering from Bashar Al Assad. This makes me want to learn more. I want to get down to the truth. I want to see the people we should be caring about, the people that are suffering. Read Abdulmajid’s, a fifteen year old Syrian refugee living with his family in Lebanon, here. The issue of war within a society of citizens is not something the media is covering. This is my chance to bring the real news, the news of those who are in pain, to not only the US but the world.

A Syrian refugee living in Lebanon holding up a poster during a protest.

Syria is not the only country to have a civil war, in the past couple of years. There has been the civil war in Sierra Leone, civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal civil war and so many more. That means that I have to understand the media coverage of these wars. I have to understand if huge news outlets, such as CNN, talked about these civil wars. Throughout this project I will not only be talking about the horrible civil war in Syria, but I will be talking about the Congo, Sierra Leone, Nepal, Colombia, countries that have had their fair share of people suffered as well.

“Hey, you put that non-recyclable plastic into the recycling bin” or “Hey, you put that recyclable plastic into the trash bin!” These are scoldings that are heard frequently. “Is it really important? Do I really have to care about where this ends up? How will my life change?” These are retorts often thought but seldom uttered. In this first blog post for my You and the World project, I seek to answer those questions, and talk a little bit about poop (which will make sense soon, I promise).

To start, let’s establish that things can’t be recycled infinitely- every iteration of an item can’t be used as the thing it was last, as quality is lost every time something is reconstituted. A prime example from HowStuffWorks is paper. Paper’s second life will be of a lower quality, meaning it might be lined instead of copy paper. After that, it might not be able to surface as paper at all, and someone might take personal initiative to turn their paper into art or furniture, at which point it has reached the approximate end of its lifecycle. Americans mostly know their job in this (even if they don’t follow through); recycle plastics, papers, and metals, throw out everything else. But is there a point at which it isn’t worth recycling something? Is there a point at which something isn’t a resource, it is merely garbage? Michael C Munger thinks so. He believes that if any item can’t be clearly and efficiently turned into another useful item, it may be just as eco-friendly to shift our focus entirely off of reusing trash and onto turning real, usable materials into energy.

Materials like cow feces (see now?). I’m not limiting the terms “real” and “usable” to poop, but it certainly applies. Here is an interesting infographic on the subject- the most interesting thing it points out, however, is this: “Two adjacent dairy farms in Rexville, WA  produce enough methane to provide electricity for about 1,000 homes.” That’s twelve-hundred cows fueling one-thousand homes. That’s incredible. That raises a very important question: why is this not more widespread?

These guys make lots and lots and lots of gas. Like, a lot.

I’m not trying to refute the usefulness of recycling-bin type recycling- whether or not  that’s truly effective is not an easily answerable question. Some say recycling isn’t even really followed through with. There is no debate on one front, however: green energy is good. I can’t imagine anyone could disagree with saving the environment and saving money.

Recycling is more than just putting things in a bin (though that can help). Recycling is reusing materials, ideally in a way that makes the repercussions tangible. That means composting, and solar panels, and turbines. In a world where so much money is spent on creating energy in processes in which so much exhaust is output while we have the capabilities to cut that price and to clean those emissions, why do we continue? For my You and the World project, I want to help people (my own family included) meaningfully recycle.