As you probably already know from either common sense or experience, hurricanes and other severe storms are some of the most destructive things nature can throw at us. As you already know if you've been following my blogs, it can be difficult to find out how to prepare for storms beforehand, and a lot more emphasis is placed on storms while they're happening as opposed to during the beginning of the season, when it's relatively easy to prepare.

I recently interviewed Hurricane Sandy victim Mrs. Parks, proud owner of a house in Sea Isle City, New Jersey. Her tales of how “you could see through the house because the walls were gone” provide a caution for how damaging storms can be even with the proper precautions. It's very difficult to rebuild when you have “to gut the entire house,” while “still waiting for our insurance, we haven't gotten a cent yet.”

Of course, hurricanes aren't the only type of storm that can necessitate gutting a house. A recent blizzard caused a pipe to freeze over burst in my family's house, also in Sea Isle. The resulting damage destroyed all of our appliances and flooring, and most of the walls in the front of the house had to be removed.

The interior of the shorehouse on Pleasure Ave. in Sea Isle, NJ

Now that I've personally experienced storm damage, I can see that sometimes it's not possible to take all necessary precautions. However, that only means it's more important to be aware of the threats faced by storms. The fact that storms that may not be considered “natural disasters” can cause catastrophic damage just as easily as those that are only makes it more important to be ready for storms of all kinds at all points in the year.

One of the easiest parts of preparing for storms of all kinds is to have a disaster supplies kit. However, it can be difficult to keep one ready and organized at all times. For my Agent of Change project, I plan to put together basic supply kits to distribute to residents of a shore town in anticipation of the next storm. Wish me luck!

Annotated bibliography

Hello, everyone! It is Fodie Camara. I’m in the 9th grade and a student of Science Leadership Academy. In English class we were asked to write three blogs about something that we care about. I picked the issue of hunger. To me this a very important topic. If you don’t remember, my first blog post, talked about hunger-related facts and how it affects kids and the local community.

At my old school- Penn Alexander- we had a Food Can Drive every single year. We would have a month to bring in cans that would then be brough tto a food bank next to our school. I have been doing this ever since 1st grade, so I have been giving cans in for 8 straight years. For the second blog post, we had to write about our topic. So what I did for my topic is an interview, survey, and a Food Can Drive.

This survey gave me some responses that helped me give answer to my questions. I ask questions like Where do you think the most hunger takes place in the world? What does the government do to try to stop hunger? Have you and your family been affected by hunger? I ask questions these to see what people think about hunger.  The responses I got for my question was that Africa, Asia, India were the areas where most hunger takes place in the world. The responses I got for my question was that nobody’s family has ever been affected by hunger. The responses I got for my question that nothing is being done in Philadelphia to stop hunger and or food drives and food stamps.

I expected for the question “where do you think the most hunger takes place in the world?”, the answer to be Africa because that is what most people think when they think about hunger. Also for the question “have you and your family been affected by hunger?”, I expected the answer no because people I know won’t tell the truth because they won’t want people to know or something like that. I expected for the question “what does the government do to try to stop hunger?” for to people to say Food Stamps and food can drives and donations and stuff like that and all of the people said that. All this new information I learned about hunger makes me see the world very different now.

The interview I’m having is with my Advisor. I asked him the questions that I put on the survey. He said that places that are hungry are areas that find it hard to grow food like North Africa, India and China. These areas also have a shortage of water, and we all know you can’t grow food without water. He said that hunger affects people because if you don’t have food, you won’t be successful and they can’t be focused and the big impact is that without food it going to lead to bigger problems. He also said that the government does a bad job trying to stop hunger, we could do a lot more to stop it. He said in Philadelphia a lot of group like Philabunces and other group do things without the government. So in Philadelphia the government does a bad job trying to stop hunger. He and his family have been affected by hunger couldn’t eat food from coming from school to home. He had a pretty big family,  food couldn’t always make him full. It was hard growing up because it wasn’t always food when he looked.

I will be doing a Food Can Drive, this will be taking place here at (Science Leadership Academy). I will put bins in each of the freshman classrooms. I’ll be going around through the classrooms giving some information about hunger. All of the classrooms will have about to the end of May to collect cans. After collected all those cans, I will give the cans to the hunger coalition.

Annotated Bibliography

​Hello everybody I am back and here to inform you more on Animal Neglect. So in my previous blog post I mentioned Kitten neglection here in Philadelphia and how it affects the city. I have posted stories on examples of how they were neglected and how awful it is to look at this. Now I would like to discuss the topic on Animal neglect in general and I have been doing a bit of research and decided to make a survey about this topic. They are based on basic knowledge to appeal on others opinions. The first question included a ratio in which the viewer would think what a homeless person to a homeless animal is, 14% thought it was 1:1, surprisingly 0% was for 1:2, a solid 43% thought it was 1:3, another 14% thought it was 1:4, and the remaining 29% thought it was 1:5. The results for this was very surprising, I expected a good percentage to pick 1:2, but no one appeared to choose it. Many of this answers were a good shots at trying to get the correct answer, although the correct answer is 1:5, that 29% got it correct without even knowing so congrats! I believe that this answer would be correct because although there are many many homeless people there are also a lot of stray animals. There are more stray animals then you actually think, although you see many people out there asking for money that also don't have a home or food or maybe even family, there are also much more stray animals out there that also ask for comfort and food and the slightest bit of attention so that they actually know that there are people that care for them. I think that this is very wrong and something that can be fixed. Although there are animal shelters that are full and can't accept animals into theŕ hold you can also give an animal to people who would need the company. THere are plenty of homeless people out there why not give them a companion they can be with, they both know that they are secure with someone they would wanna be with. Doing this would be killing two birds with one stone (not promoting animal violence), you get to help the community doing two things. Although this seems like a good idea, there are plenty of other ideas that can help out in the community with issues like these. Just helping out would make a big difference.

Many of the animals that will be helped would be of the biggest population there is, cats. Now on my survey I asked  a agree disagree question to get the opinions of those taking my survey.

As seen here I wanted to know if it was true for them if cats in particular were abused more than dogs and dogs in particular were used just to make profits off of. Here were the responses of the viewers. I hate the fact that their are people who say that dogs would be more abused than cats reason being that it is not true, they are either equally or less abused than dogs. I believe this as my own opinion because I have seen many of the stray cats that have walked around on my block and I have never once seen a stray dog in all of the states I have ever been to. Here in Philadelphia on my street I have seen with my own eyes that cats have been mistreated very badly and have been messed around with like a toy, this is unfair and discrimination towards them. ¨A dog is a man's best friend¨ is a saying commonly used and is true because a dog is most likely to find a home than a cat would. It is upsetting to think that animals in general are treated differently between one another and can be thought of ways through merely  little stereotypes between animals. This is like your common types in human diversity, it similar in animals. I wanna be able to help trying to shut out these stereotypes. So, to make a difference I will be doing field work on my block by creating a bake sale at my school to help raise money to provide stray animals on my block with shelter and food to keep safe in the harsh moments of the seasons. This is something that would be rare to find someone to do. Something your normal person would do is volunteer at an animal shelter, but I find that to be cliche so I decided to do this. I just hope to have this work out!!!!!

Hello my fellow readers and welcome to my second blog!  As you may know from my first blog, my You and the World topic is animal abuse and cruelty in America. If you did not read my first blog, please click here. In my first blog, I talked mainly about what animal abuse is and the different types of abuse. My main goal is to promote to the community the end animal abuse and cruelty  and to teach people with the knowledge that I have learned, to treat animals with respect.

           Over the past couple of days, I've been researching online for new news, dealing with animal abuse and cruelty. I came across an article on the New York Times dealing with an issue in Idaho where Governor CL Otter has signed a bill that will make it illegal to film acts animal abuse on agricultural farms. Anyone who is caught will have to pay a $5,000 fine and  serve a year in jail. Curious about the subject, I decided to dwell deeper into this story. I found a rather extensive report of this story on ABC. The reason why this bill was created was because of the actions of Mercy For Animals,  a non profit organization, who secretly filmed the physical and sexually abuse of cows at Bettencourt Dairies. The owner of Bettencourt Diaries was getting death threats and that’s why the bill was put in place (yeah, right). To read the story, click here

Here you can see a worker kicking a cow in the face. This is from the video filmed at  Bettencourt Dairies

While reading this, I became upset because Mercy For Animals was only trying to help. They were trying to promote the acts of wrongdoing through the media. Is that wrong? Now that this bill will be put into a law, cases of animal abuse and cruelty will forever go unnoticed and people will continuously support these so called “animal friendly” organizations and companies. Would you want this to happen?

This time around, I wanted to conduct my own original research, so I decided to interview some staff members at the Francisvale Home for Small Animals. They are a non- profit, no kill shelter located in Radnor, Pennsylvania. All of the staff there were extremely  patient and made it no problem to work with me even after such short notice. It was very exciting working with them and having my questions answered. Below is one of the questions I had asked:

“Question: What triggers people to commit animal abuse/cruelty?”

And their answer was: “Lack of education, frustration, mental health problems, lack of money and also the owner may have suffered abuse when they were younger.”

That question was followed by : “How can I prevent animal cruelty?” Their answer:   

You can learn about positive enforcement and when you witness your friends or relatives or anybody mistreat an animal, you can teach them the right ways to treat them. You can also have an animal abuse officer come teach a class and at 17 or 18 volunteer at a local shelter.” Click here to view the rest of the interview.

I was shocked to hear that one  reason why some people commit animal abuse is because of lack of knowledge. My main focus is to now educate others of what I learned so that way, animal abuse won’t have to be a problem. For my role of Agent of Change, I’m thinking about volunteering at a shelter to gain more knowledge so I can share that with others. Hopefully after doing so, I can host a fundraiser where Human Law officers and I teach the community on ways to prevent cruelty and abuse as well as have people donate money to go towards animal shelters that focus on animals victims of abuse and cruelty.

Stay tuned for Blog # 3!

Click here to view my annotated bibliography

During my last post, the most I talked about was what exactly was happening in the education field with minorities, and inner city kids. I felt it appalling that the scores were so low and that there was nothing being done about it, not even a glimmer or speck of fixation. I went into this project wanting to know what the hell was happening, and what was going on. I wanted to understand why the city’s drowning in ignorance. Its really hard to deal with going into the project, being apart of the group and/or classification of people that I’m taking a look at (Inner city children and Minorities). Since my last blog post, I’ve been searching vigorously for more answers but have sadly come up short; perhaps the bulk of the information I’ve received recently, comes from the people I’ve talked to, along with my own perception.

For my original research, I decided to take it to the base of education that I know, an immediate source, my own principal, Mr. Lehmann. I decided to conduct a short interview on Mr. Lehmann asking him questions that get directly to the point. The basis of my questions was to make or ask Mr. Lehmann if he understood what the problem is. I asked him how should we go about the problem, and if given the opportunity how would he fix it. It feels wrong to say he didnt give me any straight answers because he did, I think he may have over explained himself to the point where It would get outside the point of the question.

Though, I received good feedback nonetheless. As far as results go, Mr. Lehmann blames the tests, saying they are ‘inadequate’, I could not agree more. His main argument was that a standardized test cant measure the level of someone’s intelligence. You can read more of the answers in my research notes here. The research really helped me understand the issue more, I felt like hearing these words from someone who was actually official helped with my comprehension and understanding of the problem.  Now that more research has been done and I received more knowledge than I had previously I finally have a chance to put my voice in things, my opinion. Honestly its tiring looking into my research because you can get so upset and distraught when there’s something, a problem, right in front of your face and you havent the slightest clue on how to fix it. It gets so frustrating looking into these things, because you receive way more questions than answers.

What would I do if given the chance? Im not sure, but what I do know is you cant blame the kids for this, nor their household. Blame the city. Blame the fact that there’s poor schools, and lack of education. Blame the fact that when there’s a problem the city doesnt try hard enough to fix it. Blame the fact that the lack of education in children is at the world’s fault. I’m not sure what else is need to be said, nor what needs to be done, but I do know what the problem is and I’d really like to fix it. For my agent of change portion, I have no clue what I’d like to do, though I’ll strive my best to contribute in any way possible, and think of something, anything to make it easier.

Hello, again! My name is Talya Laver and I am a freshman at Science Leadership Academy.  In my english class, we have been doing more work on our You and The World projects. The topic I have been focusing on is Leukemia. To refresh your memory, Leukemia, as well as Lymphoma, Myeloma and Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS), are all blood cancers.  In my first blog post, I explored what Leukemia is, the different types of Leukemia and different organizations that are looking for cures as well as great places to donate. For this blog post, instead of doing a lot of research on the internet, I conducted my own research in the form of a survey.  

The goal of the survey I conducted was to see how well know Leukemia is compared to other types of cancer. I did not know almost anything about Leukemia and had never known anyone personally affected by the cancer before my aunt was diagnosed. Going into the survey, I thought the responses I would get would support my idea that most people do not know anyone affected by the cancer and do not know much about it. I was not completely wrong. I received 47 responses to my survey, the largest percent of responses from people in High School (Grades 9-13), closely followed by people ages 31-45.  

Response to Survey

On my hypothesis that most people have not personally known someone affected by Leukemia or have been diagnosed with Leukemia, I was not proven wrong. Although over half of the people I surveyed had said they have not know anyone affected by Leukemia or have been affect by Leukemia, it was not exactly the response I had thought I was going to receive. I had thought that there was going to be a much larger difference between the number of people who have been or have known someone affect by Leukemia and people who have not had that experience.  The gap was only three responses.

Response to Survey

That was not the only area where my hypothesis was not proven wrong.  59% of people who responded to the survey said that they were Not Informed or A Little Informed on the topic of Leukemia. Only one person felt they were Fully Informed on the cancer. This does not surprise me, especially due to the responses to another question I asked, “Which type of cancer do you hear the most about?” 89% of people said the type of cancer they hear the most about is Breast Cancer. This question went hand-in-hand with the next question I asked, “Which type of cancer do you know the most about?” The responses to this question were not quite as concentrated as the previous, yet no one said the type of cancer they knew the most about was Leukemia/Blood cancers. 

Response to Survey

In addition to conducting my own research, I have also found some new information published on the topic since my last blog post. On February 11th, it was released that a “Researcher discovers new target for leukemia treatment” for Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The research may have identified a powerful protein in the development of the cancer. This could become immeasurably helpful in finding treatment and cures for Leukemia.

Keep your eyes out for my next, and final, blog post!

To view the work sited, click here.

Hi, this is Chhievling again from my blog #1, "Autism Matters"! As I had mentioned in my first blog I adore kids, so this is why I had chose to research about autism and on how it have affected children and adults. Here is a quick summary of my first blog, but feel free to click on the link and check it out for yourself!

In my first blog, I had mentioned a lot about the struggles of people living with autism and what they have to go through everyday. There's quite a majority of children and even adults with autism who can not do things independently. They need the extra help, and there is nothing wrong with that. Although, the issue with that is, they are not treated the same in society. Children living with autism need the extra support, a plan that will work for them. Autistic children would learn more efficiently if they have a specialize learning plan just for them. Schools all over the states should hire more teachers who are specialize in teaching kids with autism. As I had researched, there are organizations and schools out there who help support autism, but that does not mean there are enough throughout the states. Yes, 1% of U.S children are diagnosed with autism, a ¨small" percentage, but that does not mean it should not be looked at and be taken into consideration. That 1% could be your best friend, sister, brother, relatives, son, daughter, etc. These children need our help, they are our future, such as teachers, doctors, and veterinarians. We need schools to be more open with the idea of extra help and specialized learning plans for kids who are struggling because of autism. If they get their base foundation built in education, and get the help that they deserves, they will certainly achieve many goals. The children are going to feel better and not feel like they're alone and hopeless. Most of all they will start to believe in themselves and work harder to achieve anything they want. One positive outcome will be their motivation to overcome their disabilities, to be able to do things as any other people.

Since my last research, I did find out a bit more about autism. I knew that there were different kinds of autism, but in this research I found out exactly what they were as shown at, "What Type of Autism is it? Identifying Six Main Types." There are six main type of autism, Autistic Disorder, which ranges mild to severe symptoms, it is a developmental disorders causing the child to lack in communication and connection with others. Another is Regressive Autistic Spectrum Disorder which is a form of autism, where a child of 18 - 24 (1 - 2 years old) start to regress. This occurs in 20% - 30% in children diagnosed with autism. On the other hand, Pervasive Developmental Disorder is when a child show that he/she have some autistic traits but are not enough to be categorize under autistic diagnosis. While, Asperger Syndrome is a mild type of autism, a child with asperger are fine with language skills, but struggles in social skills. Another form of autism is Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, which is a very rare case of autism that occurs in children ages 2 - 4, where they lose their language, social, motor, and other skills. Last but not least is Rett Syndrome, it is similar to Childhood Disintegrative Disorder and is also rare, but the only difference is that Rett Syndrome only occurs in girls. Those are new information I found since my last research.

I did many research online, but for my original research I had interviewed Ian Say, my peer from advisory, who also happens to be diagnosed with Asperger Autism. Be sure to check out the questions and answers from the interview! After interviewing Ian, I did hear some similar stuff to what I had found out through researching online about Asperger. He is doing alright in school work, but his downfall would be socializing and understanding the feeling of another person. The difference about the interview was being able to hear from an autistic themselves, on how life is living with autism. Ian had actually said to me, "You know there is no cure or treatment, right? It's something you have to live with." Even though I knew it was something people diagnosed with autism have to live with, hearing that was actually like a hit of reality. Imagine living with something you have to work around, fight against mentally, overcome everyday of your life, wouldn't that be hard? As tough as it is, the part that gets you most is knowing the fact that there is no cure, at least not now.

I feel that autism must've affected many people and families emotionally and mentally. After all the researching and interview, it's more clear to me now that autism is more than the fact of struggling to live a normal independent life, but is the lifestyle that they have to live with. Autism is more than what it is said to be, a disability, the struggle to understand, or to communicate, but what matters is that it had affected many innocent children and adults lives. It is not in their control on whether or not they are diagnosed with it, it's not their fault that they are not able to live independently. That is why they need our support and love and letting them know it is okay to be different. Starting from education, giving kids with autism the right care, education, and support, I believe they will be as successful as any other kids out there. Also, adults with autism have a harder time finding a job compared to other adults who don't. This topic was also addressed in a CNN Health article, either way I think of that as discrimination. People should not be denied from a job because of their disabilities. They should be given a chance, a little time to get the hang of things, society today need to slow down, because there are important people that's left behind.

I am more passionate than ever on researching and finding out more about autism. Although, I still wonder if there was ever a case with autism where the person was no longer affected by it, and had overcome it. I also wonder if doctors are closer to finding a cure for autism, especially with the medical and technological advancement of today. I believe that there is always a solution to a problem. Finding a cure to autism someday would be life changing, but for now we got to take our time to listen to and understand the people with autism in order to help them. Remember, autism is not only a disease or a developmental disorder as many of us come to see, because it's the lifestyle of many.

Now, I have been talking a lot about autism, but what is it that I am actually going to do about it? For my agent of change I am planning to volunteer and help out at a daycare, taking care of children diagnosed with autism. If I ever get the chance to do so, I would be more than grateful to volunteer, because as I said children are a soft spot in my heart. Also, I am thinking about doing a bake sale in order to raise money for an organization that supports autism. All the money I raised will go to that organization which will help families affected by autism. Like the saying, don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk. Be sure to catch me on my 3rd blog, so until then say cupcake and hold the cheese!

This picture is from Williamsburgfamilies.com. I chose this picture because it shows a creative way of representing autism.

Click here for my annotated bibliography,

Hello everybody. This is Devia again with my second blog post about violence in youth. If you weren’t able to read my first blog, you can access it by clicking here. My first blog had a lot of information about what can influence an adolescent’s violent behavior, like peer pressure or a low IQ. Along with that, it gave insight on the rising of teenagers’ participation in violent activities, articles and statistics that support that statement. My first blog also contained information about the increase technology has on a youth’s violence and how much our generation is affected by this.

While researching, I’ve been trying to collect new information to go along with my topic. I’ve also been trying to find more recent statistics as well. One website that I have encountered is one of Drexel University's. Although it may not be much, the website still gives some potential causes of youth violence, which I didn’t realize before.

Another website that I used before can also be used for more information now. The Philadelphia Police Department has a page full of crime maps and statistics. The page, which you can view here, is interactive. Not only can you view up to date statistics on homicides throughout the city, but you can access the amount of assaults, rapes, and/or homicides within a set time period for any specified part of the city. That information can be combined with this. The point that matters most says that juveniles were accounted for 16% of all violent crime arrests and were accounted for 11% of all murder victims. That, together with the Philadelphia Police Department, would make for roughly 5 juvenile homicide victims year to date.

Another part of my research included an original research piece, for which I decided to conduct a survey for. The survey asked a group of 8th graders their opinions and personal experiences with what could be the beginning or youth violence. The survey's results showed that over 80% of the teenagers interviewed had been physically hurt by another youth, which can be used as an example of youth on youth assaults and bullying as well. The results also showed that two-thirds of the adolescents had seen a weapon and half of those who’ve seen a weapon, also held one and/or attempted to use it to hurt someone else. When asked their opinion on youth assaults on peers versus adult attacks on youth, most people responded that the latter was worst because adults should know better or because it is taking advantage of the child’s age and vulnerability. When asked what influenced a person’s violence, the most common responses were that it was technology, their environment, or just their feelings in general. Lastly, when asked who how much of a role a youth’s surroundings and technology played on their violence, majority agreed that it depended on the person.

The original research I conducted gave me an insight on the many different perspectives people the same age can have on the same topics. It also helped me realize that not everyone is the same so therefore, there can be an infinite amount of reasons why a youth has a violent nature and the ones I found online are just the tip of the iceberg. Moreover, the results of my survey made me conclude that there is a lot of work to be done in understanding the ways youth violence is differentiating and whether if youth were to be put into groups based on their age, environment or race, the causes would change. I also wonder why youth violence is not at a steady increase or decrease and is instead, happening at various percentage changes. I also am wondering why it is so hard to find more recent data and statistics on youth crime rates. To help change the issue of youth violence, I am thinking about going back to my old school where I sent my survey to. There, I plan on talking with the older children about youth violence prevention and the consequences and repercussions that come with crime and violent acts. Make sure you tune in for blog post number 3!

Hi! Welcome to the second blog post regarding my You and the World project on green energy. Last time, I suggested that more attention need be payed to green energy, and gave facts why. They mostly were about how much of our country could be easily fueled by solar panels, or more surprisingly, cow farts (If you’re too lazy to click the link and see for yourself, I’ll just tell you that there’s a cute picture of cows and you’ll be missing out if you skip over my first YATW blog post). This time around, I produced some original research to see the public’s familiarity and open mindedness to the subject.

I sent out this form, and returned these results. To those of who who aren’t going to click on either link, the first page of the form sees how much responders know about solar panels (cost, savings per 20 years, savings per month, how quickly the investment pays itself back, etc.), and the second page gave the correct answers to the questions first page and asked this of the survey-takers: “Knowing the above info, would you invest in solar panels for your home?”

The results for the first page showed that most people didn’t know much about solar panels. Between the joke responses showing that people don’t really care and the incorrect answers showing that people are uneducated, it became clear that people need to know more about green energy. It seemed that after learning the information I had on the second page, however, most people decided that they would invest in solar panels, and I believe that that is the most important info I gathered: the world would gladly go solar if they knew anything about it.

Responses to “Knowing the above info, would you invest in solar panels for your home?”

This leads to the next part of the YATW project: Agent of Change. For that, I need to go and utilize the information I’ve gathered to put out an effective way of changing this situation. For me personally, I believe the best use of my time in that aspect would be to further educate the masses on green energy. I shall do this by putting information I’ve found to be important around my neighborhood.

Stay tuned for that!