Hello! My name is Dubois Stewart, and i’m introducing a new topic: Saving the Big cats! This is my first blog post so all the information I will be sharing should be completely new. For original research, I made a survey and sent it out over Facebook for people to take. Sadly, I only got 16 responses but I was able to sense a trend in the results. I noticed that most people cared about animals, humans and thought about big cats regularly. Most people thought of the tiger first when the word big cat was mentioned. Most of them also stated that they thought the human was ignorant of this issue and that if that most big cats would refer to eating them if they could speak. Finally, most people commented they would hate being ut in the situation that the big cats are currently in: shrinking homes, and shrinking food supply. I figured it was a given that most people would not enjoy someone in their being killed once every week, so I didn’t bother putting that question in. Overall, all the people who took my survey said they would do anything they could to help the big cats and most said they would ban certain things, such as extreme poaching, and deforestation. I also had an interview with the head of the education department, Ms. Houston. Due to her busy schedule, I had to email her the questions and responses. From this interview though, I learned that the Zoo will be holding an event this year to help little kids learn to love and remember to protect the big cats and other endangered species. Through these results I was able to see what people out in the world thought of this issue and what experts in the field were doing to help the big cats. In my opinion, I think that the human race could do a better job to take care of this planet. Its only on rent to us, and we’re driving our roommates to extinction. I think that if every person in the world just donated 1 dollar to any big cat organization that they would be saved. If the big cats were to go extinct, the world would end up being overrun with plant eaters and we’d begin to lose more of  still wonder though why this problem hasn’t been solved yet, given that there are always huge fundraisers every year for the same thing. I also wonder if there could be some way to show people what life would be like without big cats before they go extinct. Finally, I wonder what I could do thats simple enough for everyone else in the world to do on their own to save these magnificent creatures. Anyway, I hope you take something away from reading this and incorporate it into your daily life. Thanks!

My Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LfGVKf0tbkdK_kNkNSP6E--buia3HeJHQOwzcemd71Q/viewform

Hello!  If you remember from blog #1 and by reading the title,  I’m talking about women in the engineering work field and the large difference between the genders.  If you have not read my first blog post, you can view it here.  When I started this project, I researched the reason behind why there aren’t many women in the engineering workfield.  One reason I found was that society puts it into our heads that certain jobs are for a certain gender.  That causes women to feel like jobs in the science work field(which are aimed towards men) aren’t available or offered to them.

“It wasn’t until I was a professional woman mentoring other girls in math and science that I learned that openly liking math and science is unusual for girls,” Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo.

For my original research, I made some open ended survey questions but really wanted to see peoples reactions when they answered.  So I asked 14 people my to answer my survey and wrote down their exact words.  Half of the questions were facts about women in the workfield that the people had to respond to with their opinion.  9 of the people surveyed were female and the other 5 were male.  The age range was from 10 to 55 and everyone gave similar answers for the questions/facts.  The first fact I had everyone respond to was, “ 13% of engineers worldwide are women.”  The answers were either something along the lines of “I expected it to be a higher amount” and “that’s not right.”  One person's response was “It’s sort of unfortunate because the sciences overall are not offered to women in a way that they can be involved.”  Another person said “I don’t think women are encouraged in anyway in that direction.”  That goes back to one of the possible reasons for the gender difference I talked about in my first blog post.  

What I’m still curious and confused about is if everyone agrees,  then why is their still biased?  Males and Females in my survey thought that the fact that women don’t get equal pay and are nowhere close to the amount of male engineers in the world is unfair.  “As a father of two daughters I know my girls can do as well as any guy.  To deny someone's full opportunity is wrong,”  was one of the answers.  

I’ve decided for my agent of change piece that I want to make this issue apparent to others, because I feel like the only way to change this problem is for people to know about it.  From my survey results, I saw that many people don’t know who Ada Lovelace is or that 13% of engineers worldwide are women.  Specifically, I’m going to present my project to my advisory.  I plan on making a slideshow that includes the most important details of my project and then seeing what they think about the subject.  I’m also going to find an activity that my class can do after, that allows everyone to be creative.  Be sure to look for my next blog post!

Hi readers! Welcome back to my You And The World (YATW) project. Last time, in my Blog Post #1, I was looking into Financial Education. What I found was that Financial Education is a real taboo in America, even though it is one of the most important things to have. Since then, I have looked a lot more into this, and have seen a lot more information.

First of all, If anyone is looking for a professional look on Financial Education, please look for some videos of Suze Orman. She makes very good points, and knows a lot about this topic. I have learned much from her.

Second of all, I’d like to update you all on my research. I have been doing some of my own research (surveying and interviewing) and have come up with some personalized data. An Annotated Bibliography, a Survey Analysis, and link to all of the survey information, including the survey itself, is here.

All that I found was basically this: Financial Education is a real taboo. Most people don’t know their income or what they’re spending on. However, all of the survey takers knew what kind of Financial Support they received. Another thing that I found was that, even though there was a wide range of Financial Education, reaching all across my 1-10 scale, almost every single person was taught outside of school. Most people were taught by parents or mentors, or even taught themselves. All of this information makes me think that Financial Education needs to be taught a lot more on a bigger and more important scale.

I am hoping to learn more about this, because I didn’t learn all that I wanted to about Financial Education. How does America budget? What is the average ratio of spending to saving, and spending to income? What percentage of ALL Americans receive Financial Support? All of these and more could be important to my teaching.

Now on to the future. Ahead of me is the Spring. I will be performing an Agent of Change Service Project. All of my research has lead up to this. I will be planning with some teachers at Science Leadership Academy, along with some teachers at Independence Charter School, to create a lesson plan to teach some children.

I am hoping to teach at least one class of First graders, one class of Third graders, and one class of Eighth graders. I will also be teaching a more advanced lesson to some high schoolers (if I can). This is a work in progress, but so far I have some notes about how the lesson might go. They are here.

If you have any other suggestions as to things I should see, topics I should research, or more subjects I should teach, feel free to leave a comment. I am also open to any suggestions as to where I should take this next. I am looking to continue this education onward and outward, past YATW. I want to teach more at ICS and SLA, and more at other places as well. The world needs to hear more about Financial Education, and there needs to be more of a teaching force.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If there’s anything at all, please feel free to comment!

Felix

Some extra information:

Your Income Level (Optional)

Less than $30,000 a year [5] 21%

$30,000-50,000 [0] 0%

$50,000-70,000 [5] 21%

$70,000-90,000 [4] 17%

$90,000-110,000 [2] 8%

$110,000-130,000 [0] 0%

$130,000-150,000 [2] 8%

Don’t Know [6] 26%

Do you receive Financial Aid/Support? (Optional)

Yes [5] 19%

A little bit [4] 15%

No [17] 65%

Don’t Know [0] 0%

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