Hello again. In my first post I discussed how my topic changed from the dc girls crisis into minors running away.  In my second post I discussed my original research. I conducted my original research by putting out a survey about what people knew about running away. In this post I will be sharing my third part of my project and my agent of change.   

Continuing my research about minors running away I found some organizations that try to help. Basically what they do is, they run a 24 hour service where teenages can reach them via text , call or email to express their thoughts. This is a good way  to help the problem because it's not a lot of other options someone could do to prevent minors from running away and putting themselves in danger. Youthline is a great organization for not only minors that are running away but other things issues too. Adults and teenagers will answer on the Youthline. I think that is great because sometimes teenagers want to talk to other teenagers because they don't fully trust adults.

For my agent of change I decided to make posters with the numbers to contact runaways hotlines. Before I came up with that idea I didn't know how I was going to reach teens without overwhelming them with facts. By talking to my peers I came up with the idea to make posters. The first obstacle of making posters was that they could not be boring they would have to draw somebodys attention. Secondly I had to decide what information I was going to put on the posters to help. Lastly where I was going to put them up. On the posters I put two numbers on the posters, National Runaway Safeline and Youthline. I was effective in making a change because by me posting the posters teenagers that might be considering running away will see them and call the number.

When my teacher introduced this project I was excited because I got to choose something that was important to me. Also I really liked the fact that we would be doing the project on or own without having to meet a lot of deadlines. I've not only learned a lot about my topic but myself over the course of this project. Something I've learned about myself is that I enjoy helping others. My whole project was to prevent people from putting themselves in danger. Discovering this about myself could be the first step to figuring out what job I want to be when I get older. Doing this project I've listened to my peers and what was important to them. Seeing the topics my peers chose showed me that everyone was different and has been through different experiences. Overall I feel as though it brought my whole english class together. And  was a great miniature version of the 12th grade capstone that I will have to do in the future.

For more information check out my annotated bibliography

Hey I’m Ben as you know I’m doing a project for English class called you and the world and I have to find a problem in the world and get it supported, noticed, or solved. I chose to get Youth Violence noticed at Science Leadership Academy and show that even if we go to a school where we have a safe environment people go through a lot of violence that involves the youth community. When I go home on the train everyday there's always students fighting and it makes me unsafe or very discomforting. I would mind my business on the train walk out and the police would block exits because of students a fighting and it just makes public transportation a ugly mess.

I did two other posts and they involved some research explaining the violence students have caused in slate post 1 which involved which parts of Philly is safer than others. We found that North and West Philly have caused the most violence. In slate post 2 I discussed some of the results of youth violence which end tragically sometimes. Sometimes people are put in the hospital and the unlucky ones take something precious which hurt families and friends around their neighborhood.

I did some research for my agent of change and found that the youth crime rate has dropped and it is still dropping. Crimes such as assault, battery, rape, etc are caused by the youth community. Crimes in these categories have dropped 68% A lot is being done but not a lot of people notice this crisis that's going on in youth crime and violence. People aren’t gonna stop and people still don’t care. If they see something they like they will take it from you and won’t think twice. It’s crazy how cruel people can be to each other. But is there a way to stop violence; no but there’s ways to

get it noticed in our communities.

My official Agent of change was pretty creative and everyone at SLA has probably seen it once or twice. I made a poster that represents everything I’m against that said STOP THE VIOLENCE. What this poster represented was a small but noticeable voice for every person who doesn’t feel safe in their own community after school. Things are being done like populating all train stations with more police which reduces violence in the area. I decided to create a poster because when you walk by and see the poster it makes you think, does violence happen everywhere because we don’t see it in SLA. It’s good to expose our community to topics like this and get it noticed.

While doing my project I felt like the project was impossible and I couldn’t ever complete this with a good grade or at all. But as the project kept going I realized that I accomplished a ton of research and got my agent of agent thought out and finish very swiftly.  Reflecting on the project I felt like I did an awesome job fulfilling my goal in getting youth violence recognized. I feel proud of myself for all the hard work and courage to interview a police officer to get info that even police think youth violence is still a problem.

If I could of done this whole project again I would not procrastinate and get things done way earlier than I did. I got everything in on time but I think I should have gotten a peer review for each blog post. Well thanks for reading my last blog post if you want more information look at my annotated bibliography and do some more research.

As you can see little amount of money counts and different amount of money can help these animals in the shelter. It can provide a lot for little amount of money. I want this to become a trend, everyone donating to shelters. This will help animals and the shelter, too. I am going to take the time and effort to fundraise for PAWS and hopefully more shelters.

Madison S. taking a picture of me and the bake sale

Madison S. taking a photo of me making an announcement about my bake sale

I emailed PAWS about the donation

So as you can see by the picture above I have emailed Director of Development. I asked her about the donation and what I did to produce the donation for PAWS. I am so glad that I got to support PAWS and for everyone who supported the bake sale.

This project was an experience, is was enjoyable. I got to learn so much about industries harming animals and its horrible ways. Also, doing an original research, making a survey on what people know about my topic. Then, me having a bake sale to raise money for PAWS shelter. If I got to do this again I would be a bit more organized, so everything is smooth, also credits to my mom for helping me for my bake sale. Even though this project is coming to an end, I still want to raise awareness and try to solve this problem and I believe we can do this together to stop this problem.

(*・∀・*)人(*・∀・*) Please see my Bibliography for more information!

Hi, my name is Ruby and welcome to my third and final blog post about my You & The World project. As you may recall, in my first blog post I introduced the topic of palm oil and described how palm oil production negatively impacts the environment. In my second post, I added to that information by reflecting on a survey that I conducted within the Science Leadership Academy community. In this third post, I will bring up ways that people are working to change this issue and repair the damage that has been done because of palm oil.

First of all, there are many organizations that do a lot of work on this issue. One prominent example is the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). I initially mentioned this well-known organization in my first blog post. One thing that the WWF does is they work to preserve the wellbeing of animals such as orangutans whose homes have been destroyed due to palm oil. Another organization is called the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, or RSPO. This organization has a set of criteria for sustainable palm oil (palm oil that does not harm the environment when produced). When a company uses sustainable palm oil in a product, they will typically have a label that indicates the product is RSPO Certified.

One company that has adopted sustainable palm oil as a default ingredient is called Justin’s. Justin’s is a semi-small business that makes various types of nut butters, nut butter cups, and snack foods. Their website lists 14 ways that they are environmentally conscious, with the use of sustainable palm oil being one of them. They write, “Our organic peanut butter cups are made with 100% organic palm oil that is sustainably sourced from South America and RSPO certified. Our [products] also contain palm oil that is certified sustainable under the mass balance supply chain model by the RSPO.” And in my opinion, what these companies and organizations are doing to support sustainable palm oil is certainly a step in the right direction.

Another step in the right direction is raising awareness, which is what I chose to do to as my Agent of Change. I knew from the beginning of this project that one problem with palm oil is people's ignorance. Thus, I decided I wanted to raise awareness in my community. The way I did this was by creating a presentation that I delivered to my advisory.

In conclusion, I will say that this entire project has been very enjoyable for me. I have learned so much about palm oil and all of its pros and cons. I learned that when I have an interesting, important, and personal issue, I have little trouble researching it and writing about it. One thing I would have wanted to do differently during this project would be doing an interview rather than a survey for my original research. I think it would have been really interesting to interview someone who works directly with the issue of palm oil. But moving forward, there are still things that I can do to improve this issue. The main thing that I can do is to continue to raise awareness within my community and beyond.

Hey guys its my final slate post on my You & The World Project. If you can recall my topic was suicide. If you would like you can reread slate post 1 and slate post 2 here now. My previous slate posts talked about the rates that suicides have occurred in the u.s every year. This last slate post is to kind wrap things up on my project overall. Hope you enjoy your reading.

The next transition of my project was Agent of Change. I am proud to say my agent of change was a success. I did a powerpoint on suicide and showed my advisory. That was my way of raising awareness. A compliment I received from my classmate is “ I’m proud of you for doing this and remembering that suicide is an important issue and not taking it as a joke’’. The powerpoint included ways to prevent suicide, and preventing suicide.

The decision to raise awareness as my agent of change was easy and thoughtful. I wanted to remind students that suicide is a very serious matter in our world. Everyday we make jokes like I wanna kill myself because of school. However some people say I wanna kill myself and they actually take their own life. People don’t think about that when they repeat  the joke everyday. I reminded my advisory that this topic is important and affects people around us.

Next, I found a website to provide additional information on suicide. The information I came across is helping a person who may be feeling suicide. The way to help them is to simply be there for them when they need you. If they need a shoulder to cry on or a person to talk you. You are that person. More importantly do not judge the person. Also I found ways to prevent suicide from happening. There are four steps for this process. First to remove any access to lethal weapons. Secondly, if you decide to see a therapist never miss your session. Third talk to someone and let them know how you are feeling. Fourth pay attention to the warning signs so that the thought if the thought triggers in your mind again.  

Furthermore, I also learned about the reasons people commit suicide. The reasons are due to domestic violence, bullying, incarceration, etc. Some people are diagnosed with disorders. Types of disorders are schizophrenia, bipolar, personality disorder, depression, and etc. Depression is usually the main and most popular one. People believe that suicide is the only way to end the pain. That’s not true at all, receiving help is the best option to ending your pain.