http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/abuse_neglect/

I am choosing animal abuse because there are a lot of people around the world abusing animals. There are too many people using animals to take advantage of them just because they may make one small mistake.

Pollution is a very important worldwide topic, because we are killing ourselves. Third world countries are getting devastated by pollution. Did you know that highway pollution can cause autism in children? Over the years we have been destroying our world. Sooner or later, the full power of the sun will be unleashed, melting our world. There are so many other options for energy that we can use. For example, We can use windmills, solar panels, and even dams. We have hybrids and electric cars and planes! We literally have green fuel. My point is that we have all there great amazing alternate sources of energy.

This has always been an important topic for me, because I have experienced the effects of pollution firsthand. I have been conserving energy for my entire life. I convinced my parents to get cfls and to turn off the lights. I try to use cars as little as possible.The most common form of air pollution is smog. Ever been to Japan? Japan has the highest report of smog in the world. This is caused by overpopulation.  Overpopulated cities mean too many vehicles which leads to big time smog. Many people in Japan can be seen wearing masks to protect themselves from pollution this is a problem, but It can be easily solved.

The solution will take time, but it is very possible. We must focus more of our funding to saving this planet. We must slowly begin converting to clean green energy sources, starting with hybrid cars. They are not too expensive and they generate a lot less pollution. The big problem with industrialized countries is that they generate way too much carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.

Now plants suck up most of our co2, but not all of it. And that extra co2 goes straight into the atmosphere.We must reduce our carbon footprint. It was us who created things like acid rain. Third world countries are being devastated by our air pollution! Once we create it, it can travel in clouds and in wind all the way to places like afghanistan.

Electric cars people! They are not that expensive. Ever heard of the zombie car. Its an electric car that can accelerate faster than a bugatti veyron! My point is electric cars aren’t so bad and we should start using them. Some things I am worrying about is my original research, because I don’t know what kind of results I’ll get. I am thinking about doing field observation or a survey.

Essik, Peter. "Air Pollution Facts, Air Pollution Effects, Air Pollution Solutions, Air Pollution Causes - National Geographic." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. <http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/pollution-overview/>.

"11 Facts About the BP Oil Spill." 11 Facts About the BP Oil Spill. Do Something, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. <https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-bp-oil-spill>.

WWF. "Pollution." WorldWildlife.org. World Wildlife Fund, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. <https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/pollution>.

Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are used by people who want to have a competitive edge.  Most of the time these drugs are used by bodybuilders and professional athletes.  The satisfaction of becoming a star on a team or representing your country becomes too great and PEDs is what opens the door for these athletes to shine.  By taking these drugs you are giving yourself an advantage over players by using a substance that improves your abilities to perform.  As good as these drugs sound, there are a lot more bad qualities than there are good.  

Most people think that PEDs just consist of steroids but they are wrong.  There is a drug by the name of Erythropoietin that increase the count of someones red blood cells.  Red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body, so if one can increase his/her red blood cell count, there will be more oxygen going through ones muscles.  This is just one example and there are many more that are more effective.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/10-performance-enhancing-drugs.htm

http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/performance-drugs-3a.jpg

The people who use PEDs are putting their bodies at risk for a temporary boost of performance.  The effects of these drugs can differ between genders and different drugs have different effects on the body.  Anabolic steroids come with severe physical side effects such as acne, high blood pressure, risk of tendinitis, and more.  If one consumes Gonadotropin side effects could include joint pain, muscle weakness, diabetes, and fluid retention.  Taking these drugs effects someones in a lot more bad ways than good.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/performance-enhancing-drugs/art-20046134

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/uNONMyS0uwo/hqdefault.jpg

This is a very touchy topic to me because me being an athlete, all I want is a fair chance.  For someone to cheat and use anything for them to get an unfair edge sickens me.  Me personally I will never use any type of unfair advantage to get myself better.  I believe the only way you will ever progress is if you show hard work and dedication to whatever you want to get better at, no matter what it is or what level you are on.

I am passionate about sex education. Teens need to be taught about the dangers of       sex but also that sex is a natural thing. I’m connected to this topic, because I didn’t learn  much about sex in middle school, just abstinence. I went to a private school, so it was their choice to educate us about it or not. I think teens these days should have the right to be educated in a safe setting about a natural occurrence. 

 In most states, sex education is not mandatory. It is required in 25 states & Washington DC. Most of these courses are abstinence only anyway. Teens are already having sex, I doubt any type of course is going to change that. But what we can do is make sure they’re safe while doing it. That could mean giving them condoms, or telling them the dangers of unsafe sex. Of course abstinence is the only way to make sure of being safe, but do teens really care nowadays?

A pie chart about Texas sex    

education in 2009. Almost all

abstinence only. Abstinence plus

should be required in schools as well.

In a research done by Columbia University, virginity pledges increased the risks of STDs or pregnancy since those taking the pledges did not know how to have safe sex. Even 88% of those that took the pledge, had premarital sex. There are articles saying that abstinence pertaining to god forces you into marriage

In the state of Pennsylvania, sex education is not required. The state actually received over a million dollars in 2010 to teach abstinence until marriage courses. Even though the age of sexual consent in Pennsylvania is 16, so many kids aren’t taught safe sex at all. Most private schools don’t choose to teach sex education as a whole, because most private schools are religious & think sex before marriage is sinful. So if most public schools & practically all private schools are rejecting sex education, how do teens find their information? The internet is a fairly reliable source, but sometimes they learn some things that aren’t quite true. Most articles about abstinence make it seem awful if you have premarital sex. Nowadays people staying abstinent for god are more believing that its sinful and they’ll be punished instead of doing it for themselves.

A survey teen girls took about how they got educated

I am participating in this project called “You and the World Project”. It was given to me in my English class and basically what we have to do is find an issue in the world and interact with it. So based on this, I chose to have my topic be Sex Slavery.

Many people believe that slavery no longer occurs, whereas that is not the case. Specifically, I will like to inform the world of sex slavery. Sex trafficking is the oppression of women and children being forced into forms of sexual activity. I have done research on many personal stories from women and children who have gone through forms of this. According to this article, I have learned that sex trafficking occurs in places like Cambodia and India, but not only that, they also occur in places in the US such as New York. The sex typically happens in places called brothels, which are houses of prostitution.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/09/world/asia/cambodia-cfr-mira-sorvino-karaoke-brothels/index.html

It is estimated that there are 8.4 million children in slavery or practices similar to slavery. Girls being sold into sex slavery are more likely to be in between the ages of 10-15. There are 215 million child laborers 5-17 years old (2010). Sex slavery is recorded to be the worst and highest in Asian countries. Many girls in Cambodia are said to be dead by the age of 20 with AIDS because of slavery. Mother’s at times sell their girls to sex slavery because of lack of money. According to this site human trafficking produces $9.5 billion a year in the United States. A sex slave can be forced to have sex up to 20-48 times per day. Pimps here in the United States can make $150,000-$200,000 per child each year and pimps usually have 4-6 girls. All the money earned has to be given to a pimp and if the victim does not meet their quota for the day, they may be asked to remove their clothing so they can get a beating. Kolab, a survivor of sex trafficking in Cambodia was beaten with a stick until she fainted, often getting electrocuted and getting cut by a knife by her pimp. One out of every three runaway teens are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of being in the street. Most victims suffer from emotional trauma, are under mental and physical threat and have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

http://www.chestnuthilllocal.com/2014/08/26/sex-trafficking-victims-pa-treated-criminals/

In order to fight against sex trafficking, efforts must be made to eliminate gender discrimination and inequality. Poverty and the lack of protection from abuse and violence perpetuate and feed into the demand for sex trafficking. According to this article “It is critical to implement legal safeguards for women and girls to alleviate poverty and create greater possibilities for non-exploitative options for girls and women”. Sex tourism is also another form of sexual exploitation. A sex tour operator makes it feasible for someone that travels in from another country access to sex slaves in that city. Advocates against this type of tourism have worked hard to criminalize and prosecute sex tour operators under the law.

I am interested in this topic because, aside from women, forced sex happens to children my age! It is a mind blowing situation that needs to be discontinued and terminated. This hurts lots of families all over the world and  I expect to learn more about the personal encounters and stories these women and children have to share.

Annotated Bibliography

Anti Semitism is something that I have always been fascinated by. Throughout history jews have been faced with prejudice, exile and genocide. As a jewish boy who went to school in a private jewish school for 9 years I felt almost no ais very important because many innocent people are being mistreated and abused due to their religion. Many people are not aware of the struggle that a lot of jews go through. My first time going to school where their were almost no jews has been very different. A lot of people at SLA and other public schools do not know any jews and most people are not taught and educated about the struggle that jews have been through to keep their heritage and religion alive. If people knew more about what jews have been through and that kind of way we are treated in other countries in Europe and Asia their might be less anti semitism in Philadelphia and in the world. A lot of anti semitic countries are located in the Middle East and Israel has been attacked several times in the past and now.  Israel has taken part in 15 battles and wars and is still fighting once again to keep it’s freedom.  Countries like Greece are in high support of those who fight against Israel. For the first time since the holocaust NeoNazis have entered into government in Greece. The world is becoming more and more against the idea of jews having their own country.

A survey was taken asking people around the world whether or not they believed certain statements and stereotypes about jews. The results were astounding and scary. One statement was “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars.” 38% of people who were surveyed said that this was probably true.  

At this point in the project I am wondering what steps and actions are being taken the world and in the community. I want to learn more about anti semitism and how a lot of it started. For the rest of the project I want to make a difference in the community by showing how anti semitism affects millions of people. I also wonder why and how certain anti semitic thoughts are started and pushed to millions of people throughout the world.

While growing up I have heard many stories about people of all different ages being abducted for reasons such as personal entertainment, money, custody disagreements, and other things that you would never think of. Almost everyday I  watch the news and it is so mind blowing when you hear about the things that are going on today in the world. However when I watch the news there will always be that one thing that catches my attention the most and that is when they talk about the amber alerts. A lot of the younger people are not educated enough about the different scenarios that can be used to lure people into the danger of a strangers arms. I have always been interested in this topic because I have always wondered how anybody could take away another human being knowing that, that person has somebody that loves them and cares for them. How could anybody do something for their personal gain while knowing that it is hurting somebody else. By taking on this project I want to try to show people what kind of approaches could be used and I also want to inform people on what could be done to help yourself and others when a possible abduction could take place. If you keep up with my blog posts you can learn ways to protect yourself and others by. Together we can decrease the amount of people that get abducted a year..

https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/psc_english_02/page1.html

• Image number one shows the statistics for the abductions by gender and age.

• Image number two shows the statistics for the abductions by showing the percentages of who the perpetrator in non- family Abductions.

Approximately 4,600 children are abducted by strangers (non- family members ) each year in the United States. There are 300 long term abductions each year where children are murdered, never found, or returned back to their parents after months or even years later. Surviving an abduction can start a development of Social Anxiety, Eating Disorders, numerous hallucinations, and lots of other things. The 450,700 children that ran away from home did not think about the possibility of being picked up by a stranger. More than 758 kids have been saved from Amber Alerts in all 50 states.

If you ever see someone being abducted you want to try to be as helpful as possible without putting yourself in danger. To help out the police you could try to look for scars, tattoos, or even the logos that could be on the clothes of the abductor. Also if you the abductor came out of or is in a van or car try to take pictures the vehicle so that way the police can run it through the system. If you can get a picture of the vehicles license plate that would be even better.

Everyday innocent people are being ripped away from their families and are being held captive by a stranger or family member. We can help teach this generation of kids to learn how to protect themselves and others when in danger. After being abducted they life is cut short, they can not live their life anymore without fearing that someone is going to take away their happiness again. I hope to dive further into my topic so I can inform others about how to be aware of your surroundings and how to protect yourself. I can not wait to learn more about abduction and make a positive change.

Throughout my life, I witnessed animal abuse through many aspects. For example, commercials, infomercials, videos, pathlets, and movies. I have also noticed animals injured throughout my neighborhood. I see glimpses of cats with no tail, walking without a leg, and ears chopped off. Before I walk over to them they run away because they are afraid of what humans can do. Luckily, some people have gathered together and formed shelters and fundraisers to help animals in need. In my experience, My father and I used our cat box and fixed it with a heating pad. We built this for a cat to survive the winter who was occasionally at our house. We have helped this cat many times by feeding it and giving it water.

For my “You and the World” I chose to focus on Animal abuse. I decided to go on further with trying to help animals and the “You and the world” project is a chance to get motivated and have a visual of what I should be expecting. It will also give me an insight of what I will be dealing with if I continue with this activity. I mainly chose this topic because I have seen many animals abused and injured and I could not help, but now I know I have a chance to help make change. The average amount of abused animal is growing each year. Approximately 7.6 million companion animals enter animal shelters nationwide every year. Of those, approximately 3.9 million are dogs and 3.4 million are cats.

• This is Oogy, he was tied to a stake and used as bait for a Pit Bull. The left side of his face including most of his ear was torn off. He was bitten so hard a piece of his lower jaw was crushed. Afterward, he was thrown into a cage and left to bleed to death.

• This is Lincoln, he is a Plott Hound mix who was brought to a high-kill shelter. A local rescue group saved him on the day he was to be put to sleep. He was immediately taken to a veterinary clinic for medical attention because of a severely injured back leg. Xrays revealed it was old fractures. His left hind limb had sustained such damage that it was thought impossible to save. Sadly, it had to be amputated.

Whenever veterinary surgeons see cases of “non-accidental injury” in pets, they know that there’s a serious risk that humans in the same household could be at risk of similar injuries. The second way that animal cruelty has serious consequences for humans is a phenomenon known as the “erosion of empathy”. It’s been known for some time that most serial killers start their murderous careers by killing animals: Jeffrey Dahmer impaled the heads of cats and dogs on sticks. The self-named Crossbow Cannibal from Bradford was reported to keep large lizards which he fed on live rodents. Cruelty to animals is the first step; once this moral hurdle has been stepped over, it’s much easier to be cruel to humans. It follows that if animal cruelty can be prevented, or stopped at an early stage, assault and murder of humans will also be prevented.

Animal cruelty is basically when an owner hurts an animal or does not care for an animal responsibly, like not giving a dog or cat food and water. It is against the law to be cruel to or harm animals, even your own pets. It’s also called animal abuse, or neglect. Animal abuse is important for people to know because people need to understand the importance of keeping animals safe. If people see animal abuse, they should know not to stop the abusers, but to call for help. It would be very dangerous to stop the abusers alone.

Bullying is one of the biggest problems in schools all over the world. It all starts with an annoying comment then it leads to sever matters. We've seen it happen and unfortunately, lots of people know how it feels. No one likes it, especially people who can’t fight back whether it's physically or verbally. Those people or students are immigrants and English Language Learners (ELLs).

My interest on ELLs being bullied is very personal. Two years ago I moved to the United States knowing only twenty words in English.  I went to a new school where people were nice to me, but a few other students were making fun of me. I remember they were making fun of my accent and a few words I used. They continued to do that for a full school year and it really bothered me. It wasn't just me they were making fun of, there were more of my classmates that had to go through their bullying and act like everything was okay.

The issue is that these students can’t fight back in any way other than inappropriate behavior. There are many ways these kids get bullied. For example, students get taunted and sometimes physically abused. They are made fun of the way they dress or what they believe in and many more.

This is important because if all these non-ELLs are getting bullied and not a lot of peple know about it. There a many difficulties that these students have. Like, learning disabilities, adjusting to the environment and meeting new people. Language differences, they might not understand what is being said or cannot respond to the point. Bullying experiences may lead to inappropriate behavior and self-harm.

Research shows that about 50% of students say that they make fun of non-ELLs accents and 29% say that they use physical force to bully them.

Frequently asked questions

Annotated Bibliography

For my ¨You and the World¨ project, I decided to research the abuse of drugs. Drug abuse is when a person use more of a drug than they are suppose to. Drug abuse interested me because drugs have encounter in my life in many ways. For instance, Some people that I personally know are addicted to drugs and don’t know that they are. In addition, I am interested in this topic because drugs are frequently used in and outside of school. Drugs that are prescribed from the doctors is not abuse; It becomes abuse when people continue to use the drug after the amount or days prescribed are over. A person is usually addicted when they continue to use the drug for the pleasure that they receive while taking that certain drug. Risk for addiction is influenced by a combination of factors that include individual biology, social environment, and age or stage of development.

"HarmCausedByDrugsTable" by User:Tesseract2 - "Scoring drugs", The Economist, data from "Drug harms in the UK: a multi-criteria decision analysis", by David Nutt, Leslie King and Lawrence Phillips, on behalf of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. The Lancet. 2010 Nov 6;376(9752):1558-65. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61462-6 PMID:21036393. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarmCausedByDrugsTable.svg#/media/File:HarmCausedByDrugsTable.svg

In this picture it shows a list of severe drugs. The picture depicts how many people each drugs harms. It also shows how many people around that person is harmed even though they do not use the drug.

Drug abuse is a problem that occurs all around the world. Most people who use drugs are influenced by their environment. Although a numerous amount of people use drugs, Not many know the effect it had on your brain. It is important for you to know about drugs because they can cause lifelong problems or even death. You probably know that the United states is in debt, but did you know that drugs are a big reason why we are this predicament? The United States spend about $193 billion on illicit drugs, $193 billion on tobacco, and $235 billion on alcohol yearly. It is significant to inform you about drugs because you as a reader probably didn’t know the effects drugs have one people and the country itself.   

Before doing this project and research, I already knew an iota amount of knowledge on drugs such as if a person is addicted to a drug and they really want to stop, it will be a hard process because of your brain not the person. From the research so far, I have learned some new types of drugs. In addition, I also learned how drugs disrupts your communication system inside your brain. Learning all these negative things about drugs made me think of other things. As I continue to this project, I would like to discover if there are any ways that these horrible drugs help a person in a positive way. I hope to learn that there are other people out in the world trying to find ways to lower the drug abuse rate. Also, I hope to learn that the government or police are trying to eliminate any illegal drugs from any users.

In conclusion, My ¨ You and The World “project is on the abuse of drugs and how it affects people. For my outside portion of the project I will be doing a survey and a visit to a rehabilitation center.