Hey, Vilma Martinez again! In my first blog I talked about Kitten neglection that occurs here in the

city of Philadelphia. In my second blog I talked about animal neglection in general. Now for my

final blog post I will be talking about what I did to make a difference in our community. For my

Agent of change action piece I decided to start a bake sale at my school, so that I can

have an opportunity to donate the money I raised to the PSPCA. Selling the baked goods at my

school was tough work, but it was something I managed to get htrough. I was able to raise a fair

amount of money to donate. After a while me and my mom finally decided to go down to the

PSPCA to donate the money. After meeting with two of their employees, we were given a tour

around the building.

The tour was… WOW. The building contained murals of animals that have passed on and

places for the animals to play and relax. The cats were so playful and sweet and then looking

into the animal hospital was heart breaking, the poor animals were caged recovering from

operation. Witnessing this was something that truly was so powerful because these animals

managed to survive so many things. I felt very happy.

We were able to see the cats and kittens in the building that were being put up for adoption. They

were so sweet and adorable, and most of the animals there were only cats and kittens. It was

really sad to see them there without a family to care for them.

Makhi Richburg

Music (Blog#3)

In middle school, I took part in an extracurricular program called Play On Philly. (POP) The program started in 2011 and I’ve been in the program since the first day up until I graduated. I enjoyed everyday of it and I wanted to give back to them by aiding in the learning process of the young viola students. I’ve interviewed my former viola teacher and asked her various question on how music affects the lives of not only children, but how it can have an effect on everyone.

As an agent of change I went back to POP and I was allowed to assist the Viola teacher with her students. The children seemed to have trouble keeping the tempo of the so I became a makeshift conductor and helped them maintain stability. The students didn’t practice either and I could relate to the, because I didn’t practice that much at first either. I gave them advice as to why they should practice and how practice makes perfect. I told them about my time in POP and how the violas were the leaders in the orchestra so that they have to keep that reputation.

I enjoyed helping out the violas. There were no major problems with them and that’s to be expected. POP is a pretty good program and they know what they’re doing; however they aren’t perfect and i was there to meet the kids eye to eye fix the things the teachers couldn’t and they appreciated that. The teacher thanked me and offered me a chance to help the string orchestra the afterward and I accepted. By helping these kids, it made me realize how much I’ve grown and how I’ve gotten better at what I’ve been doing so this whole thing is like a win-win.

If I could do anything better, I would’ve probably taken more pictures and added a video. I’ve pretty gotten everything in check, the program has got everything else covered. This whole experience felt good. I might go back more often just to help out. I might even become an intern there.

For blog 1 click here

 Hello, my name is Kara Heenan and I attend Science Leadership Academy. In English class, we are doing a project to take part in changing the world, called You and the World. If you don’t remember from my previous blogs, I am extremely against animal cruelty. In my first blog, I gave facts and statistics on the different types of abuse and voiced my opinion.  In my second blog, I provided some recent news on stories and laws on animal abuse and also shared what I did for my original research, which was examining stray animals in my neighborhood. This time around, I will be sharing my last blog with you on what I’ve done for my agent of change, and giving suggestions on how you could help.

 In recent news of the world, animal cruelty cases are still popping up each and every day. In research I’ve done, I found that more cases of people abusing animals are showing up is because of law enforcement becoming stronger. In New York, they are training law enforcement to always gather important evidence of abuse or neglect for prosecuting the abuser. Costa Rica finally banned dog fighting. In Tennessee, law enforcement agencies are working hard together to make a change in the neighborhoods, they mostly see cases of neglect and hoarding. "I think that we're getting more complaints about those not because it's happening more often, but i think people are becoming more aware that it is a problem," said Frankie Bryne, animal cruelty investigator. Overall, I’m happy to see people coming together and giving these animals the justice they deserve, and I think training law enforcement is a major step forward in ending animal cruelty.

            Hello everybody! My name is Siawale Vesslee and this is my last blog post for my You and the World project for my english class. As you should know from my first and second blogs, my topic is how do parents influence their chil outlook on education. This topic is something that is impacting my life everyday and I knew that this topic was something a lot of other kids in the city of Philadelphia struggle with.

   For this final stage of this project, I was suppose to find a way to take my topic and be an agent of change somewhere in the city. At first, I wanted to try to talk with parents and show how they can be motivation with their kids. However, I couldn't work with work schedules and many parents didn't want me to even talk with them. Because of that, I decided to focus on the kids. I know that in my life, both of my parents never received a college education. Because of that, they have to work a lot of the time. Because of this, I had to find a way to motivate myself to see how much education is needed in my life. One thing I found out was that because I had positive friends who had the same goals I had, I was motivated to get an education make something of my future.

 Working with Casey made me stronger in my opinion that parents are really needed in their kids education. She describe to me how she gets in her parents involved. She talks with them and they ask her questions about her school work. She motivated me to get my parents involved.

 Overall, I know that parents are needed in kids education. They help shape how their child will think of education. However, I know that there are many kids who are in my situation. They have parents that work all the time, so they don’t have the critical support from from home. However, I can say that having friends can not only help shape your educational goal, you can gain confidence in helping your parents get involved.

The Agent of Change

Hello, and welcome back to my you and the world blog. To see blog #1 and blog #2 click on them. For the third blog post, we set out to make a change in our issue. For my agent of change I decided to organize a small group; mainly consisting of peers from school; to clean the river banks of the schuylkill river. My agent of change created an example for passer byers; showing that keeping trash out of our oceans isn’t a difficult  task in the least bit. Picking up after yourself is incredibly easy and does a significant amount of good.

The Clean up Crew

the clean up crew was a group of students that seemed to be interested in helping aquatic environments anyway they could.

The main concern about this project was that creating an example hasn’t made that much of a difference in the past; environmentalist have been trying this for years and it hasn’t seemed to have a lasting affect on people. This may make people more conscientious for a day or two but people quickly go back to their old ways. Not to say that setting an example doesn’t change anything. Many groups worldwide create examples on how to preserve aquatic environments. One of the most infamous groups set out to raise awareness is One World One ocean. This group not only fundraise but also raises awareness about the problems that are caused by climate change. This organization is amazing and has made progress in getting the public to acknowledge the situation that has resulted from our carelessness.

One World One ocean

Even with all of these groups set out to save marine life there’s still a lot that can be done to help make a change. people are already experiencing the results of the damage done the oceans and our lack of action could be the final catalyst  No more than two months ago did Philadelphia experience one of its worst floods of the millenia. The flood was a direct result of the extreme  weather changes that have been taking place. The evaporations from the west coast are being moved by wind systems creating drought; these clouds are carried by the wind system to the east coast where they turn into precipitation causing flooding. The earth works like a checks and balance system, each environment needs the other remain hospitable to the life that inhabits it. When one get’s messed up the others suffer as well. When using the phrase

The bottom line is that the we all suffer for not taking care of any part of our environment and even though work is being done to preserve our environment there is always more work to be done. When all is said and done it’s the actions that we do that really count. People could have all the aspiration in the world to make a change but if they don’t do anything it doesn’t mean anything.

Hello,

       There again people that will be looking at my blog. This is my last and final blog of the year. Cheers to all the information I have included in my blogs that you guys have liked. This is my agent of change project that I will be showing images of cats and the cat food that I have put out for the animals, to show that I have done something for the stray cat world in a way. The first section will be showing the first night that I put out food and the day after, to show what happened to the food. The second section will show the second time that I put out food for the stray cats the night and the day after to see results.

This is my first section showing images from the first night and the day after.

                             1st Night and Day after

                                  That Night

These are images from that night before cats came out to eat. The food wasn't disturbed until i chopped it up. It was late that night so I decided to go to bed and wait until the morning to get the results. So, that's what I did. The next images show the day after with a brief description.

                                       The Next Day

This is how much food was leftover from the night before. The stray cats had an appetite to fill their stomachs but not a appetite to get through the full cans of cat food. Also, I wasn't able to capture images of the cats as they ate because I guess they come out late at night, at least I have gotten documentary of the food that was ate.  The next documentary section is about the second time I went out at night with a little better information.

    2nd Night and Day after

These are images from the night and day after from what happened to the food that I had set out for the stray cats.

                                        That Night

These are images from the second night. I wasn't able document the stray cats because they come out really late. That was a real bummer but the next day I was able to find amazing documented information of the food that was leftover from that night. In the next image section the images are showing how much food was eaten from the plate, which was a lot better than last two weeks ago and I guess the stray cats liked this food better.

                                      The Day after

These are images of the day after, to me SHOCKING! Results, because from last time the results had a big gap in food differences and I was overwhelmed by the fact that all though cats didn't come out right away to eat but, it looks like to me that the animals came out for an after memorial day feast. I really like what I got this time,  but still a little upset that I didn't get any pictures of the stray cats I still got documented evidence to show that there are stray cats behind the gate as seen in the left photo.

I would like to thank everyone who have read all of my blog posts up to now and I thank you for the support and the caring that you as a person. I hope that some people that read my blog posts, that it would inspire some people to try and make a change like I did. I am one boy in a huge world with lots of lost and stray animals. We need to make a change and get these living beings off of the streets. I am sure that if someone like you or me was on the streets and had no food, or not even a home to go to, we would want someone to give a helping hand and help. I know I would. Like I said we can make a change.

Note: If you didn't read my other blogs the links are here.

Blog Post #1

For my last two blogs, I researched and created my own study on supporting an increase in the minimum wage. Blog #1 was about the supporting/opposing views on minimum wage and Blog #2 was about what average people knew and felt about the minimum wage. Blog #3 is about what I can do to help this cause and actually putting myself out into the world instead of just giving facts and opinions. The way I helped was by spreading information on minimum wage to the citizens of Philadelphia for a vote in May.

As you can see it is very difficult to change this problem which is why trying to get people’s attention about this cause is so important. Even phone banking is hard because their are many complications with it. For example, sometimes the person didn’t answer their phone, didn’t speak English, had a wrong number, or just refused to talk. You also had to make sure people understood what you were talking about. Many times, when people call about issues, it is confusing and vague so it’s hard to know what you are supporting. Fortunately the script was clear and short. For example, one part of the script explained the issue of minimum wage saying “Did you know that many workers at the airport make $7.25 per hour? This May, we get to vote for thousands of subcontracted city workers like them to get a raise from $7.25 to $10.88 an hour. This will mean a million more dollars in the pockets of working Philadelphia families.” Explanations like these made it easier for people to understand the issues and their stance on them. Making a change can be hard and takes a lot of work, so groups like POWER need all the help they can get.  

Even though this process wasn’t easy I did get four people to talk to me, which was pretty successful because they all said they were going to vote and support the minimum wage increase. However, even after making calls, I think there was a lot more I could’ve done to support this cause. I could’ve gotten more involved with other events like this or organizations that were doing similar work. During the phone banking, I sometimes felt like I wasn’t doing the best I could when it came to trying to get people to talk to me. It was hard because it was my first time making calls and I didn’t know how to talk to people who didn’t really care, or didn’t want to talk to me. But, considering all my obstacles, I think I did the best that I could and I’m glad I got involved with an issue like this.

This experience made me realize how important it is to get involved with the community and issues around the world. It’s really hard to make change and a lot people would rather just argue about the problem than actually do something about it. The fact is even though sometimes speeches and debates can help, the best thing to do is take action. It’s helpful to the community and even the whole world and it feels really good afterwards because you’re a part of the fight to make the world a better place.

Hello again.  If you do not remember me my name is Jason Greene.  I am a 9th grader at Science Leadership Academy.  In English class we are finishing a 6 month project called You and The World.  During this project we have to find a issue we are passionate about then go into the world and try to make a change in it.  My topic is public education in the city of Philadelphia.  I am passionate about this issue because I grew up in this city and went to public school in the city for all of my life.  In my first blog post I introduced the issue.  Link for that blog is here. In my second blog post I talked about the original research I did on the subject.  Link for that blog is here.This is my third and final blog called the post for change.

During the last part of this part of this project was a part called Agent of Change.  This is when I go out into the world and try to make a change.  I went to my elementary and middle school, J.S Jenks in Chestnut Hill and volunteered for half of a day.  I got to volunteer in Mrs.Croak’s classroom.  She is the 6th and 7th grade English teacher.  While there I helped out in the classroom, stapled papers together and answered some questions about high school the 7th graders had for me.  While it was fun to see lots of old friends and teachers it was hard to see how the budget crisis affected the school.  This last year some teachers were laid off.  Because of this the remaining teachers either had to teach a new grade or teach more students.  Mrs. Croak also said the school only gave her limited supplies like one case of paper to last her the whole year. Only about 10 to 12 laptops work on a daily basis. The students also had to buy the three books that they were going to read during the course of the year. I left the school around noon to head back to school.  No teacher should have to go through that. Budget cuts hurt and we need to find a solution.

Sign outside the school

The three books students had to buy for school

The advance group reading ahead

How can only one box of copy paper last a whole year?

I am not the only wants a solution to this problem.  The School District of Philadelphia is facing another shortfall for the 2014-2015 school year.  If they do not get the funding from the city and state they will have to make more cuts. There have been protests to stop the cuts and get more funding for the schools.  So far there has been no solution.  I think protesting is a great way to get your voice heard but at the end of the day we need to get results. According to superintendent William Hite the district needs almost 210 millions dollars. Most of the money would come by extending the one percent city sales tax hike and a two dollar per pack tax on cigarettes.  Without more funding up to 1000 more layoffs could happen and class sizes could go up to 41.  To make a change we need funding.

Public education is this city is a very important topic and it is not going anywhere anytime soon.  We can not expect the students of this city to be the best they that they can be if they don’t have the resources. Recently, a seven year old boy passed out while at school in South Philadelphia.  Because of the budget cuts there was no nurse at the school that day.  The counselor ran to the boy and called 911.  He died later that day at a hospital.  Maybe if there was a full-time nurse on duty that day he might have lived. We can not let this happen again.

This whole project has been a great experience.  I never did a project like this before I am glad that I got to this. The whole process, from the first to the last blog the project went very smooth.  One thing that I feel like I could have done better was when I was volunteering at Jenks.  I wish I could have volunteered there for the whole day but I couldn’t.  I feel like if I stayed there the whole day I would have done better.  I would like to thank Mrs. Dunn, Mrs. Lucy,  Mrs. Croak, Mrs. Lynskey and everyone that filled out my survey earlier in the year.  Thank you.