Matthew Hamilton

5/2/11 

For this project Ms. Dunn told us to pick a world issue and become familiar with it. The purpose of this project is to make us more up to date with current events and world issues.

            The issue that I chose is the Japan earthquake. The reason I chose this topic is because I don’t know much about it and I want to know exactly what happened.

            So far I have discovered that more then 14,000 people died. Another thing that I found interesting is that there was a tsunami and lots of landslides throughout the day. From my research I have learned that it was a very scary and harmful day for the world.

            I have three questions about what happened. They are how many people were lost or are still lost? Was Japan as ready for this as they could have been? And what can people do to help?

            The next thing I will do is try to find out the real story on what happened. I will do more research and will look for news articles from that day to help understand what was happening and when it was happening.

Bibliography:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

 

I was not able to find anything that said why we don't just build buildings up instead of outward, but I had to give a guess I would say that it is probably easier and cheaper to build a building that stretches outward instead of upward.  I did however find some ways that we can help conserve our wildlife this site. 

Some things that I found out were, one, just how fast wildlife is being destroyed especially over in Africa for example one statistic was that there were 5-10 million elephants in the African plains back in the 1930's and and then by 1989 which is when they were added to the most endangered species list there were only about 600,000 of them left. Statistic from this site.  

For my next post I would like to keep looking for exact reasons why we don't build up instead of out  also more ways for us to help conserve our environment and finally we don't educate more people on this topic.

Obesity is one of the most common things seen in the world. More than most, in America. It leaves you trapped within a seemingly endless cycle of gluttony and immobilization and can increase your risk of several cardiovascular diseases. It’s said many fat people have a big heart. (Meaning always friendly of course) Well sadly they more than likely do. Obesity can cause an enlarged heart due to muscle tissue expansion due to overworking caused by thickening blood. Nobody wants to be obese and there should be a lot more done to stop this from taking over people across the planet.

 

            Obesity is thought of as nothing more than just greedy people being gluts to the point where they can’t fit through their doorway. Well that is very far from the truth. A number of things can cause people to gain weight. Let’s focus on one thing that’s obvious to all people: Fast food.

 

            Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 50 or so years you have seen a fast food place such as McDonald’s or Burger King. These places offer great tasting food at a cheap price. All the while dominating commercials with promises of near perfect cuisine. These can attract almost anybody to scarf down as many burgers as they can. They can do all of this for cheaper prices than a head of lettuce. Which leads me into my next point: Food prices

Sources: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/obe/obe_causes.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2010/08/junk_foods_cheaper_than_health.html

Goldie Robins

BLOG 1:

I am doing a project in English. It is called, You and the world. The purpose of the project is to pick one current event in the world learn about it (research) , create a passion for it, and then BLOG about it. 

 I decided to pick what is currently going on in Israel. Now there are a lot of things happening in Israel, but what’s on the news is everything with Hamas.  I am interested in Israel for many reasons. I believe Israel is my “homeland”.  I also have kept up with everything that is happening, for example when in 2006 they captured Gilad Shalit, just an innocent solider. I am very interested in him, because of all the background information and have “proof” of him still being alive. Another reason why I picked this topic was that everything that is happening to Israel is important.

I my self know a lot of people who make aliyah. Making ‘aliyah’ is when a Jewish person immigrates to the Land of Israel. Not just for vacation but deciding to live there as a citizen. When making ‘aliyah’ at a certain age you have to join the Israeli army, along with the citizens that already live there. If you are a U.S. citizen you can just choose to be in the Israeli army with out it being necessary. I know someone who made aliyah to Israel and choose to be in the Israeli army, and died August 1, 2006. He died because was fighting for his homeland, against terrorist like Hamas.

I have discovered a lot not only from researching this past week, but also through out the years. I have been following what has been going on with Gilad Shalit since 2006. This is why I want to focus more on him through out this project because he is something special to me.

Even though there are videos of Gilad Shalit saying he is alive, and he says the date no one knows for sure.  Hamas wants all of their captured soldiers from Israel and they will give back Gilad Shalit. Although they would like Gilad Shalit back they can’t risk  one solider, who may not be alive for  all of the female and underage Palestinian prisoners along with 1,000 other prisoners. I want to know if Gilad is still alive. I am hoping he is.

I want to focus more on my sub- topic, Gilad Shalit. Yes I will still follow more on everything with the Gaza Strip, Hamas, and the Palestinians but I will do more background research on Gilad. In the next blogs to come, I will see if I can attach any of the videos that I was talking about above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad_Shalit

http://giladshalit.blogspot.com/           

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Gilad_Shalit.html

  
 Our teacher Miss.Dunn gave us a project so we could get more in site in to the world that we live in. This is that project and it is called " You and The World". P retie catchy huh? 

 My issue  has always been two things Human Euthanasia  and Animal Cruelty. This time I went with Animal Cruelty. I choose this topic because I've always had one question for it : Why?

As for info...sorry I haven't got any yet. My charger broke so this is the first I could use my computer for three days. I'll post some shortly , but for now I can tell you the pictures I have found are horrifying.

I'll get around to my grammar later.


Ok So after some carful research I have found that there are three leading causes for people to abuse animals.
1) Because they don't know how to care for the pet the right way or forget to care for it.

2) Because they are young kids trying to impress a friend/group and give in to peer pressure,in these cases they most likely won't do so again.

3) These people are Physiological messed up and think that hurting an animal is fun or helps them be more in control. In this case there is no help.

The point of this project is to connect to the things around us. Each of us has chosen a subject in the world to study and understand. I have chosen the subject of teen suicide and depression. This is an interesting topic to because I have always wanted to know if both of them have a relationship.

 

So far I haven’t found that much yet. I learned that 30% of the teens that commit suicide are because of depression. That is more than any of the other reasons of teen suicide. I also learned that 1 in 8 teens suffer from depression with women twice as likely. I wonder what is the number one cause of depression in teens, which could also be said to be the leading cause of suicide. My next step is to go on and figure out the number one cause of depression. (http://www.teen-depression.info/overview/teen-suicide-rate/)