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.

Makhi Richburg

Music

In middle school, I took part in an extracurricular program called Play On Philly, or POP. POP started in 2011. It was a music program that was fairly socially intuitive. In fact, I made many friends from different grades there and between my colleagues and I, there was a family bond between us. Students that were in POP had to go 5 times a week for at least 2 hours during the weekdays. The teachers’ teaching skills were phenomenal. They would play the song so that you get the idea of how it sounds, then they’d start the students out slow and have them play parts of the piece separately  

Being there was always the highlight of my day because I enjoyed learning about music let alone playing an instrument. The instrument that I played was the viola, like the violin but bigger and one different string. The best parts of being apart of the program were the places we’ve traveled for our concerts. We’ve been to many places: Mann Center, nursing homes, New Jersey, Kimmel Center, Baltimore, etc. We’ve even played with Sir Simon Rattle, a world famous conductor.

To show my gratitude for all the great times I’ve had and for the knowledge I’ve gained at POP, I’m going to assist the younger kids with their musical studies. The younger kids are the future of POP and if they get a boost of knowledge from an excellent young musician like myself, the outcome can be extraordinary.

Music is important because it is beneficial to the mind. Playing an instrument increases one’s intelligence, problem solving skills, enhances their hand-eye coordination, increases memory capacity, improves discipline, builds self-esteem, etc. In general, music is therapeutic. It can change your mood and can even change your entire worldview. There’s been plenty of tests and comparisons between a musician and non-musicians and they all end up with the musician having a brain that’s smarter and more active. It’s evident that music is highly influential!

Being a musician has multiple benefits and I recommend all non-musicians to play an instrument. If music generally can make anyone smarter, imagine the minds of people who have been surrounded by music since the beginning of their lives. I want to give the children in POP a jumpstart to benefit their futures. Not only will they be incredibly intelligent people, but they are likely to be living happy and calm lives because of how therapeutic music is.

Annotated Bibliography

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

When people are angry do they take anger out on animals?

     People with problems tend to abuse animals and neglect them of basic necessities like food, shelter, and water. I believe when people are angry they take their anger out on animals. They do this because the animal is either the closer target or they find joy in abusing animals. So some things that I have found in the website (you can click here), is that facts show that 13% of animal abuse come from a domestic home.  As I researched I have found something on how abuse can affect a child, so when a child is young they learn about abuse by being a victim of it or have witnessed it. So as the child gets older and as he/she gets a certain development with anger issues they would tend to build up anger, and then the child would take their anger out on animals. If the child has not began to seek help by the time as an adult they would go after other things such as peers, children, adults, even the elderly. To them these people would be considered a vulnerable opportunity. Also, family members being held against for child abuse also had abused animals. In in more than half of these cases, an abusive parent had killed or injured a pet a child victim continued the cycle of violence by abusing a pet.

          In one study that i have found on this website is that, 70% of animal abusers also had records for other crimes. Domestic violence victims whose animals were abused saw the animal cruelty as one more violent episode in a long history of indiscriminate violence aimed at them and their vulnerability.Another study that I have found is that, a lot of pet owning women entering women’s help treatment centers reported that they have  injured, harmed, killed or even threatened family pets for revenge or to  control victims and that 32% reported their children had brutally injured a pet or killed a pet. As I have found in my studies about my topic and things that I have heard from the world is that pets may suffer unexplained injuries, health problems, permanent disabilities at the hands of abusers, or disappear from home.

This is a picture of a pit-bull named Remy. This dog was found in June 2013 she was a victim of animal cruelty and abuse. When the ASPCA found her she had two broken legs, skin disease,  and severe muscle atrophy, she also was so weak and frail that that she could not stand or walk. This was caused because she was a victim of animal abuse. To me this is what happens when people are selfish and does not care about the needs of an animal. Although animals are not humans does not mean that we can look at them as a piece of trash, they are still living beings, and we can still treat them with respect as we would want someone to give us.

      This is a picture of a cat named Kylie she was a victim of chemical burns. She was found late last year when a dog owner found her. Kylie was in a lot of pain and it took several surgeries so that Kylie could be healed. Everyone at the hospital fell in love with her as she began to recover. So like I said I do not understand how can people do this to defenseless creatures, Kylie was affected by chemical burns that caused her to lose lots of skin, Kylie is a survivor.  

    This is a dog rescued from a puppy mill, I am not sure what this puppy’s name is but it was found on a facility with a lot of other animals. These animals were rescued in 2011 and people were complaining about these animals. These were animals with problems like mold and matted fur, suffering from infection, dental disease and various other ailments. This is a link to this page if you would like to get more information on that topic.

      One reason that I became interested in this topic is because growing up I hated to see the commercials with animals on them that makes them look really said, and it gets a little emotional. So, doing this is a way to help relieve my sympathy and to get the word out to others. I am hoping that this will encourage people to help abandoned animals in need and if this comes across someone with one of these problems to get treatment or counseling.  

      This concludes my blog on animal abuse if you have any comments, please leave them below and if you would like me to answer leave them below as well thank you for reading my blog. For further information visit my bibliography.

Blog Post #1

My name is Brandon Jones and I am a freshman at Science Leadership Academy. In my English class we were given an assignment to tackle an issue we found and blog about it. The issue I picked was the  test scores of children from different ethnicities and how the scores of African American children were alarmingly low.

For my blog post I researched and found many interesting and informative articles. This particular article reported that African American children scored lower than European Americans in Vocabulary, Reading and Mathematics test. This true, but aggravating statement made me realize how serious this issue is. It is disheartening to read that the gap between the two ethnicities starts before children enter kindergarten and sadly leads into adulthood. The article states that even though this problem cut down since 1970, the average African American child still scores 75% below the average Caucasian child and on some tests, African American children score 85% below Caucasian children.

*above are the percentages of white, black and hispanic students who scored at or above proficient on standardized test*

The article here and the graph above, concerns me and makes me wonder what could be done about this issue. To solve an issue, you must first address the problem, however for his particular issue, there are many possible problems. One being improper funding for students. In Lower Merion, the School District spends $21,399 per student and the School District of Philadelphia only provides $11,078 per student. Another problem is racism and making children feel lesser than what they can be.

As for the solutions, I could go on for days about the possible theories and solutions on solve the issue at hand. Sadly, most of the solutions might not work. For my YATW(You and the World) project me and my partner are going out in the world and going to try to find a solution to this impending issue.

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.

 Hello, my name is Kara Heenan and I am a freshman at Science Leadership Academy. For a project in English 1, Ms. Dunn told us to find an issue in the world that we really care about. The topic I chose is Animal Cruelty. I am against any type of animal abuse. Animals are living, breathing things just like us and they deserve to be treated the same way we do. The type of animals I am mainly going to be focusing on throughout this blog are the two common household pets, dogs and cats.

 First, I would like to discuss the types of abuse there are to these animals and the statistics. According to the Humane Society Hall County,

• 32% of it is neglect or abandonment

• 12%  of it is hoarding

• 11% of it is shooting

• 9% of it is fighting

• 7% of it is beating

 A huge factor in Animal Cruelty in our country are puppy mills. There is no legal definition of a puppy mill, but the ASPCA defines it as "a large-scale commercial dog breeding operation where profit is given priority over the well-being of the dogs." It has been estimated that there are at least 10,000 puppy mills in the U.S. More than 14 states have no laws to even address puppy mills. In these places, dogs are forced to be in cages most of their lives with no room to play or exercise. These places are crawling with dogs affected by illnesses, wounds, and diseases. No one even seems to care!

What an average puppy mill looks like

 Another factor, especially in this country, is hoarding. Hoarding is keeping a high number of animals as pets without being able to take care of them properly. Approximately 900 to 2000 cases are discovered in America with a quarter of a million animals falling victim. Hoarding is usually a side effect of a mental illness in a person. It is a form of neglect. Most of these poor animals are living in a disgusting home without proper care or love but the owner of these dogs do not realize they are doing harm.

 All a dog or cat really needs is love and care. They don’t ask for much. One thing people forget is that these animals have actual feelings like us. We as humans have no right to treat them as they are less important than we are. I hope after reading this article it really opens your eyes to how important it is to treat animals with respect.

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A homeless man with his dog. All you need is love.

“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.