The Latino community has so many different skin colors, hair textures, and traditions. In my first post I did research on other Latinos’ experience with colorism and discrimination with other Latinos. Some of their confrontations were with their family members, friends, and even random people on the streets. I also talked about how there isn’t much representation in the media of dark skinned Latinos or Latinos with kinky curly hair. In my second blog post I did my own research because I wanted to hear different experiences of colorism or if they had even heard of colorism in my community. I sent out a survey to get my information, and I didn’t get the results I was expecting. I was expecting the darker Latinos to be more discriminated against for their color, but my responses were the opposite. The lighter skinned Latinos were being denied as being Latino. People were telling them that they were “too light” to be like us.

The next step I had to take for this project was how was I going to make difference for this issue in my community. I wasn’t sure at all what I wanted to do. I knew I couldn’t fix everything and change other people’s minds easily. The least I could do was bring awareness and educate others of this issue or at least bring up the conversation because “we, as a community, need to start having the conversation about colorism and anti-blackness within our circles. We need to better educate each other about Afro-Latino identity and how Afro-Latinos are just as great a part of our community as anyone else.” To spread this word around,  I thought a video would be a great way to reach people. There would be different Latinos in the video with different looks, expressing they are proud of who they are. I emailed some Latinos at my school and they agreed to be in the video, and I also had some people at my church say that they would love to help me out. In the video you see Latinos of different ages, shapes, sizes, skin colors, and nationalities. This is how I chose to display a glimpse of our diversity.

In the video you see Deliah, who is Afro Latina and standing next to her are her two children. She and her family are darker skinned with curly coily hair. Deliah and her family never shy away from who they are and celebrate their culture just as much as anyone else. Also in the video you see Carol who is Mexican American and is so proud to be who she is. Some people might say that she is “not the typical looking Mexican” but what does that mean? How could one culture all look the same? Just because Carol isn’t slightly darker or have pin straight black hair makes her less Mexican American as anyone else who is Mexican American. Those comments have never stopped her from embracing her culture and her beautiful features. The last person you see in the video is Luz, 93. She is Puerto Rican and says something that speaks volume. “I feel just like anyone else. What vary between culture is the costumes and behavior. We are all human beings.” Luz is right, we are all human beings. So what does it matter if someone doesn’t look like you? Or if their hair has different texture? Or if their skin is a different shade?

After the making of the video, I showed it to some of the people who were featured in the video. They said it was “quick and to the point” which is exactly what I wanted this video to be. My goal was bringing awareness so people can ask questions and bring acceptance to the diversity within my community. My mom uploaded my video to her Facebook and I got so many comments! One person said “Isabella is right, there is so much tension within our own community and people don’t even talk about it.” Another said “Isabella is so young to even know about this division in the community. When I found out about all the colorism, I was an adult in college! She did a lovely job at making this video.” I got many comments complimenting me, cheering me on, and encouraging me. Seeing all of the positivity really put a smile on my face and they inspire me to do more for my cause.

The countless hours I have done researching, gathering, and documenting information for this project has inspired me to move forward. Information given to me by the Facebook viewers have also inspired me to continue spreading acceptance and awareness against colorism within my community. I wish I had more time to be able to let you know everything I have learned but through this method is simply not possible. I think this project has taught me a lot about myself and people in my community.  This has been a cool project for me and something that I have become more passionate about. Because I am 15 and Puerto Rican and proud of me and my curly kinky hair.

ANN BIB!

Before you continue reading this post, go to my previous two posts, Where Are Their Voting Rights? and Asian American Voting Rights Activists’ POV. My first post, Where Are Their Voting Rights?, talks about the issue with Asian American voting rights and what have been done about it. For example, an issue with Asian American voting rights is language barrier and there are organizations like Asian American United (AAU) that help non-English speaking citizens with their voting registration when it’s election season. In my second post, Asian American Voting Rights Activists’ POV, I wrote about my interview with Xu Lin, one of the board members of Asian American United (AAU) and Wei Chen, the Civil Engagement Coordinator of Asian American United (AAU). I also talked about what I learned from them and how I can play a part in this issue.

There are many things that have been done to help Asian Americans with their voting rights. For example, organizations helped non-English speakers citizens with their voting registration. From my interview with Wei Chen, I learned that engaging young citizens in volunteering with Asian Americans can help with Asian American voting rights because they are informed about what’s going on in their community and they are able to help family members with voting or voting themselves when they pass the age requirement. During the presidential election in 2016, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had their own ways to increase their votes with Asian Americans. Hillary Clinton had her own Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Outreach Director and Donald Trump worked with an Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee. There are studies that shows that the population of Asian American voters has increased during the 2016 election. From the 2012 election to 2016 election, there was a difference of 2 million voters. The UCLA Study for Center for Inequality and Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) predicts that from 2015 to 2040, Asian American votes would grow by 107%. Language barrier isn’t the only issue for Asian American voters, there are others problems like intimidating voters and more. I think that because voting rights for Asian Americans is an issue that can be solve in a day, I think that the ways that are used to fix this issue are effective because looking at the increase of Asian American voters at each election slowly the problem is getting fixed.

For my Agent of Change, I presented to a class of seventh graders at my old school, Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School (FACTS). My original plans for my Agent of Change was not only to present at my old school, but also to volunteer at Asian American United (AAU) to help non-English citizens with their voter registration since on Tuesday, May 15 waas election day. I wasn’t able to volunteer, but at least I was able to inform a young generation of citizens about their voting right since most of the students were Asian Americans and what they can do to help their community. I decide to present at my old school, specifically seventh graders because in the future they would be the next generation to vote and not only they can understand their voting right, but also take the chance to help others around them out. For the first two weeks, I was thinking of other ways or things to do to help out with Asian American voting rights like a meeting or conference arranged to talk about Asian American voting rights or collaborating with an organization that mainly focus on voting rights. On May 9, I went to FACTS and had a present about Asian American voting rights and overall I think the result came out pretty good because I allowed them to understand how important it is for everyone to have a vote and in this case it’s Asian Americans. I think it is effective to make a change to the issue because I was able to spread the message, which allowed more people to understand what’s happening in their society and inspire them to help out with the issue in their own ways.

Here are some of the images of me presenting to the seventh grade class.

Overall I think that the You & The World project is one of the most interesting topics I have ever done because I felt like I grew a lot in this process and learned a lot about the society I am in, especially I got the chance to research something that is meaningful to me. Although, this project takes a lot of patience and hardwork, I think it paid off in the end because I think that I learn a lot about myself and different lessons that may come in handy in the future. What I learned about myself is that I am really realistic and I can help others out more than I can help myself because in this project I noticed that I won’t really believe someone or trust someone easily unless they prove to me that they can be trust. Especially through their writing and the way how they talk. I also noticed that many of the advice I give to people around or my classmates are really realistic and helps them out a lot because of my experience I had. For me, it is like I have to find someone more experienced than I am or more creative than I am to give me advice about something because I am pretty hard on myself and whether it’s an assignment or not I do not want to accomplish something that doesn’t really challenge my limits in specific way. To clarify, I am not saying that if someone advise me to sky diving to conquer my fear of heights, I would do it, but it has to challenge me to try something new and step out of my comfort zone. I think one thing I could have done better is time management for my Agent of Change because I believe that I could have done more than having a presentation. I think there are many things left to make a change in Asian American voting rights since it’s a problem with all fifty states in America, but I believe that the little changes we make now will eventually make a change for Asian Americans.

As you all know, for the past couple of months I’ve been researching problems in the WNBA. As I stated before the WNBA has a funding and publicity problem. In my first post, I introduced my problem. In my second post, I gave some solutions on how we can better the WNBA, like expanding or advertising more. Over the course of the past months I’ve learned about people like Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins, who are underpaid in their profession. I’ve learned about  over 5,000 women college basketball athletes that are told they won’t be able to live out their dreams. All this is because the WNBA can’t afford to expand their organisation.

For my You and the World project, I wanted to bring attention to a problem that not to many know or care about. Among further research, there’s about 202,000 people that view the WNBA on ESPN. The NBA has 1.5 viewers. Are there any guesses why? Publicity plays a huge role when you have an organization so I feel like the WNBA would be better socially and financially if they had more supporters. It helps that the NBA funds the WNBA, but many people don’t know that. Due to the fact that the NBA barely talks about the WNBA.

I felt like Gatorade would be a great organization to change this. Gatorade is one of the top sports drink in the world. There brand is everywhere, in commercials, billboards and many professional games. Everytime I see an advertisement for gatorade though, itś mostly a famous man talking about or drinking the drink. I feel like this should change. The WNBA doesn’t even have a third of the NBA’s supporters. If Gatorade put more female basketball players in their commercial, it can open so many doors for the WNBA. There will be more supporters and viewers, but it can also build a better relationship. between Gatorade and the WNBA.

At first, I didn’t know what to do for my Agent Of Change. I had the idea of raising money for the WNBA, but I felt like I wouldn’t raise it enough for it to really be effective. Then, I thought of a presentation but that wouldn’t get as much supporters as I want to feel like my Agent of Change would be successful. Finally I came up with the idea of informing people about my problem and getting some to write letters to Gatorade about letting more female basketball players in their advertisements. I knew informing people wouldn’t be an issue, but getting people to write letters would be the challenge. Writing isn’t everyone’s interest. Luckily, I got my friends Randy and Sofia to help me write letters. All three of us wrote our letters one doc. We all edited each other’s letter and I emailed all three letters.

This is a picture of Randy Le typing his letter.

In conclusion, I think my You and the world project was successful. It was a lot of work for me,and stressful at times. I learned so much about the profession I hope to one day have. Even though it was challenging, I am glad I did this project.Some things that went right for me was my research and my interview with Diamond Wallace. Some challenges I had were writing a slate post and getting people to wright letters for me. Overall, this project was a

This is where you can find my Annotated Bibliography.

For my last two posts, “Illegal Animal Trafficking” and “New Information on The Illegal Animal Trade” I wrote about illegal wildlife trafficking and everything I had learned about it. I found out about the magnitude and consequences of animal trafficking, the conditions animals are kept in when they are traded around and about how animals that are endangered are more valuable in the trade since they are rarer. I also talked about my interview with the Vice President of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Susan Lieberman, and how the laws on illegal animal trading are too lenient. I now continued my research to the next step of the You and The World Project, my Agent of Change, where we have to actually make an impact on our topic.

For this post, I wanted to learn about what was being done to combat this issue. I knew about big organizations like World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which I previously talked about on my other posts. The WWF is educating people about illegal animal trafficking and trying to make sure legislation is followed. Also, they “research illegal wildlife trade routes, the effects of wildlife trade on particular species and deficiencies in wildlife trade laws. This information is essential for CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) and supports new plans for confronting illegal wildlife trade.” They do this to make sure stricter laws will be put in place to protect animals. During my research, I also discovered a new organization called Conservation International (CI) who is working to help animals that were trafficked and prevent wildlife threats. There are many organizations working on preventing illegal animal trading and hopefully with our help they will be able to stop animal trafficking.

For my Agent of Change, I was not sure what I wanted to do for it in the beginning. I finished my last post with the idea of maybe creating a poster to inform people about the illegal animal trade. After getting feedback from my peers and teacher, I decided to create a poster to place all over my school (SLA) Philadelphia so that people could learn more about the issue of illegal animal trafficking. My hope is that people will become as captivated with this topic as much as I have and will learn all they can about it as it is not a well-known topic. I also hope that the people who read my poster and even my posts will share their knowledge with others to spread the word and help animals.

Here is my illegal animal trade informational poster.

Even though I had created my poster and gave people the opportunity to learn more about the issue, I still wanted to do more. After doing more research on the websites of big organizations that work to help protect animals, I found symbolic adoptions on the WWF website. I had heard about these before and instantly became interested. As I learned more about the adoptions, the question of what animal I would adopt appeared. I filtered my search results on their website to find the most critically endangered animals. Then, I decided to do some research to see what the most endangered animal in the world was, the Sumatran Rhino. Rhinos are greatly affected by poaching and their habitats are also being torn down. There are also only about 300 Sumatran Rhinos left living in the wild. It was the perfect animal for me to adopt. From adopting the rhino, I received a picture, an informational card about the animal, and a printed and online adoption certificate. The money from the adoption is used to help fund their organization (WWF) and help them to protect wildlife. I was particularly excited about adopting an animal especially since I had wanted to do something like this for a long time. I think it is great that people can make a change in this way. I will forever cherish my rhino and remember about illegal animal trading and how even though I am only one person I can make an impact in the world.

The illegal animal trade is an issue that I didn’t know much about in the beginning but I am happy to have picked. I came into this project not knowing what I wanted my topic to be. When I got the idea to do illegal animal trafficking, I barely knew anything about it. I learned so much from doing this project and from seeing other students’ projects. This evolved so much as I continued the project because I was able to learn about the many layers of my issue. I saw the horrifying images of the results of illegal animal trading, I even had the chance to interview an expert on the subject. I think that I could have managed my time better during this project, but overall I am really happy about how it turned out. This project has been a journey for me and I hope you have enjoyed my posts and will take this knowledge to help make a change because I know I will.

Annotated Bibliography

In my past two blog posts I spoke about how the Gender Wage Gap is an issue that affects all women no matter their race or sexuality. In preparation for this final post, I looked and thought of some ideas for how to solve this issue rather than just talking about it.

Before I tell you what I did I am going to talk about  I am going to talk about one way another business solved this issue.  On a website called SheCanCode they said that we have to take big steps rather than small ones to solve this issue. They talked about how wage transparency is one option.  Meaning that people in an organization can know how much money there peers are a making. If you do not know how much others are making then it’s hard to know if you are being paid less than others. Also, they highlighted a British company called brainlabs. They are paying their employees of all genders solely based on the work that they do. They found out that women were being paid on average 8.6% less than men. So, they introduced what they  called the “Pay Gap Tax.” This meant that they were going to increase what they paid women so that the average would be the same for all genders. To go along with this, they said that they are going to make people’s salaries equal to the height of there workload. So, if someone’s workload is higher they then that person would be paid more. Just as we thought that things couldn’t get any better they have promised to increased people’s salaries based on their experience and status at Brainlabs. At Brainlabs, they saw that they had an issue and went about solving it.

Now for my change, my original idea had been to host a panel of local experts on the topic. Sadly, I was not able to put this together in time. I was disappointed by this because  it would have been really great. From this experience, I learned that if you want to organize something you have to put down the groundwork pretty early on. Now, I know this for next time I want to put something together that involves other people.

Since my first idea did not work I chose to create a website to tell people about this issue. In this website, I gave an overview of the issue as well as the misconception that all women make 78 cent for every dollar that a man makes.  The image below is of this page

Overall, the website was pretty easy to make. The software took some time to load but after that, it wasn’t all that bad. A website was a good way to get the information I needed to get out in an easy an accessible way.  I do regret not being able to do something more interactive. I hope that this website at least lets people know about this issue; at least starts a conversation.

There is definitely a long way to go on this issue. People have been working on this issue for longer then I have been alive.  It will take 50 more years for white women to have equal pay and women of other races longer. I think that to solve this issue company’s have to be transparent about how much they are paying people. This would make it easier to spot issues when they come up.

This project overall has been really great for me. I got to choose an issue that I was passionate about and then do research and let others know about it. I learned that I like research but am not as good at taking notes. I also learned how to manage my time better and what happens when I don’t. I feel like I could have managed my time better especially in the last section of this project.

To see what you can do to change the gender wage gap in a work setting you can read this article.

Annotated Bibliography

All of my research from post #1 and #2 has impacted the way I have finally concluded my thoughts of catcalling. Both posts required my research for the impact of growing up in a society where catcalling effects any human in the world mainly women. Men feels as though it is appropriate to catcall any women they find flattering in their eyes. My first post was brought out to be just finding out basic information and the impact put on women from these comments made about their looks. Then for my second post it was my own personal research to see how true this actually is. Each of these posts had brought my attention that everyone at different age ranges faced a time where they had been verbally violated in a way where it made them feel self conscious about themself. If you would like to view my first post the link is here. For my second post the link is here

Currently in this time there are very little organizations that are brought together to end street harassment as a whole. In society they value other things more than the safety of humans in the world. Also there is a lot of work put into making any type of organization that their goal is to end something that has been going on for centuries so, it will be very difficult to get people to come together for a project that could have an impact or no impact at all. The organization that I had found was Hollaback or also known as Feminist Public Works is a global organization that is powered by people to end harassment in society. This organization goat is to develop innovative strategies that ensure a safe public environment where harassment is not involved. I feel as though this is the right track to be on in order to actually make some type of improvement for people to feel safe. Also they way that they encourage people to sign up and be apart of this movement to start up a group in their area.

For my agent of change I had decided to do a information presentation with interaction of the audience. My plan was to inform everyone about Street Harassment but also for them to see other peoples opinions about a subject that happens everyday and they either are targeted or are viewing it around them. My presentation consisted of background information about the topic but also questions that were asked to the audience to get them thinking and their initial reaction before watching a controversial CNN news broadcast about Catcalling creating the audience to have a lot to say which was my goal. My goal was to get the audience to be in a situation where they felt like the things being said was not correct but very ignorant because this initially shows how Street Harassment is. I did accomplish my goal of getting the audience to talk and give their own opinion on the ways would change things and how they feel of street harassment in general.

While doing this project over a couple months I at first felt kind of uncomfortable due to the subject being kind of harsh and you never know how people can take a topic like street harassment. After the first post I did feel pretty comfortable due to finding more information and the right way of approaching a topic like catcalling that occurs to people from the ages of 12 and on from men that can be from any age and without thinking how old the women could be. I learned that it is easier to talk to people that have witness these things and are more open minded about ideas then just some adults that don’t care or feel as though it is wrong for a topic like this to be brought up.There is alot to still be done in order for my change to actually be done but, this is such a topic where it is going to take years in order to get any movement in society to actually get any sense of understanding why catcalling is not a good thing at all.

​My You and the World Project,  was Police Brutality finding what was the cause of this problem currently plaguing America to see my earlier post on the issue click the following links https://scienceleadership.org/blog/one_side_of_a_story and https://scienceleadership.org/blog/the_punishment_of_the_people . I found a lot of things during my research, what I found most interesting is in 2017, 457 White Americans, 223 African Americans, and 179 Hispanic Americans were victims of police brutality. I think what some people fail to realise is in the words of 44th President Barack Obama. Obama said. “And it is incumbent upon all of us as Americans, regardless of race, region, faith, that we recognize this is an American problem and not just a black problem or a brown problem or a native American problem, this is an American problem, when anybody in this country is not being treated under the law that’s a problem and it’s my job as president to help solve it.” Misconception creates biases and stereotypes that divide society instead of unifying it.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

For my You & The World Agent of change I chose to make a documentary interview like video(Which is not that good) to create a way to get the issue out there and to make our community aware of the situation. I gathered interviews from African American History teacher, Mr.Symonds and Science Leadership Academy Principal Mr. Leahman. From their heartfelt interviews, I saw the care for the people in the community and also the fear that the issue of Police Brutality could affect any of us. Something that stuck out to me while interviewing Mr.Symonds was when we all say good-bye to one another instead of saying “good-bye” or “see you later” we tend to say “stay safe” is this the America we really want to live in? This was the most eye opening part to me doing this interview because I never really paid attention to that. While reading the LA Progressive Newsletter  I found an article called 25 Ways to Stop Police Brutality and I found this ( List Below )

#1: Radically diversify America’s Police Departments

#2: Require American Police to have more training than cosmetologists

#3: Police must be routinely and randomly tested for steroids and other illegal drugs

#4: Bad Apples MUST Be Fired – they are toxic and dangerous

#5: Police must be required to earn 4 year degrees – it changes everything

#6: Policing for profit must become a banned practice. A profit motive must never undergird law enforcement.

#7: We must overhaul 911 – particularly for calls made about the mentally ill. It is the rotary phone of emergency services.

#8: Take women from 12% of police to 50% of police – they are more professional, less brutal, and just as effective

#9: Require cops to live in or near the areas they police. It’s too easy to mistreat strangers.

#10: Communities of color actually need less policing. Start by decriminalizing addiction and petty offenses.

#11: American Police must be regularly tested for racial bias

#12: American Police must be regularly tested and treated for PTSD

#13: Why we must take bad laws on policing all the way to the Supreme Court

#14: Good police officers must actually speak out on bad cops

#15: We must decriminalize mental illness

#16: We need to unleash the full power of body cameras

#17: Police departments must create and enforce reasonable new use of force standards

#19: Police must be banned from using violence based on their imagination of a threat

#20: Every city and state in America must ban racial profiling

#21: Police must be immediately filmed making a statement after each use of force incident

#22: Independent review boards must oversee investigations of police misconduct

#23: Police misconduct cases must be tried by special/independent prosecutors

#24: Police departments which fail to obey the Death in Custody Reporting Act should be cut off from all federal funding.

#25: We must focus our fight against police brutality on the local and state level

After reading this I was given hope, hope that if the justice system tries to effectively use these steps or at least one we can make a change for the betterment of society and societies future. When I first began this project I thought I could never make a change for my topic, but I later found that I was somewhat right and wrong, because it’s one thing to start a change, but if you build a movement off of your belief of change then you have made a change. I learned that I and everyone else around me have a hope or dream of change, but we can’t do it by ourselves we as a society and as a people must find that we are all important and that we all need a change and hopefully with the help of one another we can strive for a change. I feel I could’ve tried to make a better Agent of Change to really make a change, but we live and learn from the choices we make and I’ve learned from mine. Lastly I think if we all are implanted with the knowledge of Police Brutality and ways to avoid we could prevent the rise in numbers, but we must also find a way to inform our government of ways we can create a change for the betterment of us all. It has been an absolute privilege to be given the opportunity to study Police Brutality, but to also try to make a change I thank you all for reading and would like you all to walk away with the question, “Is this really the age of equality?” If you all do that then I was effective in making a change even if it may have been a small one.

Annotated Bilbiography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13wTzYcJCdMGtSsozTe1VAUYwjLW3z1r577zruis1Vrw/edit?usp=sharing

Link to Video: https://youtu.be/Yoap3LIGv3g

SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch. https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/03/01/rideshare-mission-for-u-s-military-confirmed-as-second-falcon-heavy-launch/

“Side booster ignition! 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, and liftoff of Falcon Heavy, building on the history of Saturn V Apollo, returning pad 39A to interplanetary space!”  Since the cancellation of the constellation program, NASA has struggled to put anything onto the table when it comes to manned spaceflight.  It has stuck with the SLS program, which has fell very far behind its goals of a 2017 launch despite reusing old shuttle technology.

In the private sector however, SpaceX has quickly made progress with the Falcon series of rockets, including the Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in use currently, doubling the possible payload to space of the next most powerful rocket, the Delta IV heavy, with the added benefit of being reusable, which saves money.  In my previous blog post here, I talked about SpaceX being able to save money, which they have already before even reusing the rockets, and they have also proven that they could launch the world’s most powerful rocket, however, they still need NASA to reach their goals as they do receive funding from NASA for the commercial crew program.  

For my agent of change,  I have decided to spread awareness of NASA’s funding.  I created a petition on Change.org which can be found here.  I also created 2 posters with the phrase “This is our future.  Make it happen”.

The first one has a Falcon heavy rocket during launch.  The idea behind that one is showing what SpaceX is doing and how they are going revolutionize space travel by first, making the largest rocket flying today, and second, make it reusable. They are already on their way to that goal with the Falcon 9 block 5 and the Falcon heavy rocket, but they plan to go one step  further with an even larger rocket called the BFR.  However, the BFR is an absolutely massive rocket, with obscene payload capabilities.  So what will the BFR be used for exactly?

The second poster is an image of “Occupy Mars” logo, which depicts Mars in it’s phases of being terraformed into a life supporting planet.  Again, SpaceX is at the forefront of this innovation with a plan to colonize Mars using their within the next century, with the first cargo missions launching on BFR around 2022.  

Something that I have learned via my agent of change was to never underestimate a human’s ability to procrastinate.  My petition I created only amounted up to 18 signatures as of May 18, however, change is already happening in the industry around us with such minds as Elon Musk.  Rather than working at the question of how NASA can get more money, he is achieving more through having the space industry spend less to do the same thing. Although the change that I pushed for in particular is not happening, there is definitely change happening in the industry of space exploration as a whole, and it seems like it is for the better, and I think we should leave it at that and see what the future has in store for us.  

In the previous posts that I have made, I have talked about my issue. For you all who have not yet read my posts, I am talking about the issue of player safety in the NFL. In the first post, I talked about the main issue of player safety and how it affects the players, coaches, fans, and everyone involved with football. I also talked about major injuries in football and why there needs to be stricter rules that are set in stone so those players do not get hurt. If you want to read up on that blog post, click here and it will take you to the post.

The last post that I made, I did my own original research for the topic. I did multiple interviews with many different people and I also did a survey. The first interview I did was with Dave would is a youth football coach. He told me very interesting things about the Heads Up program and how youth football programs and becoming very safe. The next interview that I had was will a current football player for the Denver Broncos, and his name was Will Parks. He gave me interesting insight of what NFL players had to the issue with player safety. The last interview that I had was with Troy Vincent. I did this interview after the second blog post was due. If you want to hear the interview with him, please click this link to listen about it.

One of the major programs that is trying to help player safety in all the different levels of football is the USA Football Program. USA Football is a football program that helps with safety of football. One of the main ways that they are doing this is with Heads Up Football. This programs teaches both coaches and the players a safety way to play football. Instead of tackling with the helmet and hitting players head on, they would use their shoulders and upper body. This will limit concussions and other injuries around the head and neck area. This is also known as Rugby style tackling and Seahawk Style tackling. This is what Dave was talking to me about during my interview with him. He was saying that his Heads Up tackling is changing the ways of football and is bringing in more kids to play football. It makes the game safer and more inviting to both the parents and the kids who enjoy football. The NFL is also changing rules like making the helmet rules which makes hitting the helmet to another helmet an automatic penalty. I think that this new change is helping the issue with player safety. In the next few years, who knows how far the NFL will go and how much player safety will improve.

So for my Agent of Change, I had no idea what to do for it. I could have done a website, play some flyers, show a movie, but none of those were something I truly wanted to do. I didn’t think that they would have made an impact that I could record. I then came up with the idea to make a PSA. A PSA would be short enough so I could make it within the time we had, but it would still get my message across. Now with my PSA, I could have gone may ways. I could have made it really short and goes straight to the point, I could be in it, I could not be in it. After thinking about all the different ways I could make my PSA, I decided to use football clips and shows the brain. I think that this will really make a strong point and will stand out. It does not contain me speaking or me in the video. It would just have impactful video clips and moving music.

Doing the PSA was that bad. I had to find some clips that I liked but also that fit the “theme.” I did not want clips of football players getting hit in the knee, because I want to find videos of players getting hit in the head/neck. That is what could lead to CTE and other bad brain related issues. Once I found all of my clips, I had to find music that also fit the “theme” of my PSA. After that, I edited it all together to get my PSA. I do not think I was effective in making change. I do not think that making a PSA will change anything. I think that it will make people think and understand the topic more, but my PSA was not meant to change the world. It was to make people more aware at the issue at hand and to make sure they can do something if they wanted to. Once I posted the video, I got about 200 views and counting. I don’t have any screenshots that are relevant, since they are not all my social media accounts. My parents and my brother posted the PSA on their social medias as well and that helped the video spread to different people. I think that getting over 200 views is a lot of people to watch my PSA.

After going everything for the project, I highly enjoyed it. I enjoyed researching a topic that I have enjoyed almost my entire life. Even though I will not make a change, I got to interview an NFL player and the next man down from Roger Goodell. I feel like I have learned a lot more that I knew at the beginning. I learned that the NFL is trying to combat these player safety issues and that the youth level football coaches are also trying to protect the kids. I think that I put a lot of effort into this project, and I think that it shows. I am really proud of what I did and what I think might happen in the future. I think that I could have made a bit of a better agent of Change, but I still think my PSA is very impactful and is very well done. Other than that, I did a great job (that is what I think). I did great research and did great interviews as well. I now pass the baton to the people reading this post and NFL to make a change that the NFL needs.