Peer Pressure!

Today I'm going to talk about peer pressure! I found this information in a page called Kids Health, I also used info from a web page called Teens Health. It is very useful because it doesn't have any hard or strange words, so it was easy to understand.

Peer pressure is when people your age, called peers, influence you to act a certain way or do something. Sometimes peer pressure can be good because your friends can influence you to study for a test for example. In other cases it is bad because they can force you or try to convince you to try drugs or similar stuff. That type of peer pressure is what I'm going to write about today.

Some teens give in to peer pressure because they want to be cool or be accepted in a group of people. They're scared that if they don't do what they are pressure to do, they will be rejected from their friends. Other people just do it because they are curious to try new things. Some teens just do it because 'everyone is doing it'. Peer pressure can lead you to wrong things that could ruin your life, for example, drugs.

Luckily, there are some ways to stop peer pressure. It is better to be with someone who also wants to get out of peer pressure, that way you'll feel supported and you will be stronger. Choosing your friends is also very good. If you choose to be friends with someone who smokes, drinks alcohol, or skips classes, then that friend will probably want you to do it with him. A good way is to be friends with people who are similar to you, so if someday someone is telling you to do something you don't want to do, you can get help and support from that friend.

Stress in your life also comes from peer pressure, which makes some people have a depression. It is when they feel very sad about everything. There are two types of peer pressure, direct or indirect. Direct is when your peers try to convince you with threats to do something that you don't want to do. Indirect is for example, when cigarettes are available at a party but your friends aren't actually forcing you into trying them but you see them doing it.

People of all ages have peer pressure some time in their lives, whether it is positive or negative. Some people are more likely to give in to peer pressure, though. People that have a low self-steem, don't have confidence in themselves, and follow other people's lead are more likely to do what they are asked to do whether it is against their values or not. People who are new to a group of friends are also likely to give in. Also, using alcohol or drugs has a higher chance of giving in to peer pressure because the substance affects judgement and the ability to make good decisions.

So, that was all my research about peer pressure. Next, I'd like to investigate more about what some tobacco companies or the governments of some countries are doing to decrease the amount of teens smoking. Bye, see ya!

Smokingggg.

Hii! Since the wiki was remade, I decided to change the topic of my project since too many people are already doing global warming and it was a too much scientific project, which I didn't like. So now, instead of doing it about that, I'm going to do it about smoking, mainly teens.

I found this Kids Health page. It says that smoking can cause many diseases, such as cancer and emphysema, a heart disease. Also it can shorten your life by around fourteen years. I think that that is a very hard and weighty reason as to why not smoke, but some people do smoke even though they know it is bad for you.

Cigarettes and tobaccos in general contain a chemical product called nicotine. Nicotine is a substance that makes you addict. It is hard to stop smoking because your mind and body become used to tobacco and nicotine, and to feel normal with yourself, you smoke.

Most smokers start before they are older than eighteen years old. Some do it because it makes them feel older, but really it makes your teeth look yellowish and causes wrinkles in your face. Other people smoke because they say it is relaxing, but really, it makes their heart beat much faster. Some girls smoke because they want to loose weight. It is true smoking causes weight loss, but it isn't a good way to loose weight. Finally, some people do it to feel rebellious, but that is not good because you're really ruining your life.

Some ads from smoking companies were really common in the past. They were as common as seeing a McDonald's ad. In recent years, governments control how many ads about smoking go into T.V. so people don't get tempted to try. Still, in some commercials, smokers are showed like really cool and fun persons, though they don't appear as often.

There is no physical reason to smoke. The body can do perfectly without nicotine or other smoke gases. In fact, the first time you smoke, you feel a burning in the throat or lungs, and some people even throw up. This happens because the body is rejecting the smoke. Smoking can damage lung tissue and create several breathing problems that lead to death. Bones are also affected, they get weaker and have a higher chance of having osteoporosis. Since lungs are also affected, smokers aren't that athletic because their lung capacity isn't to the max.

In my opinion, this is very interesting information. There are some things I didn't know, such as heart diseases. I just thought that smoking could affect your lungs. Also I didn't know it causes wrinkles, which makes you look uglier. This article made me think that smoking is a giant mistake that some teens make. Smoking could ruin the rest of their lives.

In my next research, I would like to learn more about peer pressure and smoking. I think that starting to smoke because of peer pressure could be stopped if teens knew how to stop their friends from influencing them so much. Yesterday in school we had a program called Teen Aid, and we saw a movie about a teen that smoked drugs and a girl that almost started to drink because their friends pressured them to do so.

Peer pressure would be the next step in my investigation because it is a mayor cause of teenagers smoking. Luckily today, there are many programs in schools to warn teens about peer pressure. Also they teach you methods to handle it.

Bye! Post a commentttt! :D

Global Warming Research

Hi! It's me again. Today in class we had to start with researching about our topic for the project. I went to Google and found out the website for the EPA. It is The United States Enviromental Protection Agency. Inside, I found an interesting article. It gives a general information about the causes of global warming and an idea of what is the problem. This article helped me out a lot because it made me understand the general causes and consequences of global warming.

I learned that the greenhouse effect are concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. These gases don't allow heat, smoke, and things like that escape into the Earth, which has made the temperatures on Earth rise a lot lately. According to the NASA, 2005 and 1998 were the hottest years in history. This is very alarming because they are very recent.

Something that really shocked me was the following quote from the article.

If greenhouse gases continue to increase, climate models predict that the average temperature at the Earth's surface could increase from 2.5 to 10.4ºF above 1990 levels by the end of this century.

This made me realize this is a big problem and humans really need to solve it. If it isn't solved animals and all living things, including plants would die, leaving no food for humans. Also there would be severe droughts so there wouldn't be any water either. I couldn’t imagine leaving in a world with super high temperatures. I don’t like the climate in Cartagena because it is hot and humid so it would be really hard for me to tolerate more heat. I would like to leave in a cold place with snow and ice like Canada, lol.

The article also mentioned that scientists hypothesize that all this climate changes are happening because of humans carbon dioxide emissions, fossil fuel burnings, and more. They don't know for sure how much will the temperature increase or at what rate, though they know it will affect the planet very badly.

I think humans should work together by doing campaigns or such to encourage others to stop global warming. One way to stop it would be recycling, not wasting water, and such. Also certain organizations, such as Live Aid are making special fundraising concerts with artists from all around the world to earn money to solve this problem. A Live Aid concert for global warming is planned in June or July.

Next I want to know about which places are the most pollutants. I would also like to know some long-term consequences of global warming. This will help me to gain more general knowledge about my topic so then I can research about other things such as the greenhouse effects and carbon dioxide emissions. I also have heard that the theory of global warming is totally wrong, and instead there is global cooling. I think global cooling is something very interesting because that would make me much happier and less worried about sweating all day in a couple of years.

So that was all my research. See you later in my next post! Bye! :P

Our School

I was looking at the project wiki and I saw that April in Mr. Fisher's class asked about how was our school so I decided to answer that question in this week's post. :)

Our school is a little bit small but it is going to move to a bigger place out of the city in about two years because it is only being constructed now. I'm very excited to be in that school because I think it will be very cool to have new rooms, soccer fields, and things like that.

Our school from now is in the middle of the city. It has a big building of four floors for grades 3 to 12. One floor is down and it doesn't have any classrooms but it is the place were we have flag ceremonies and things like that. High school is on the second floor, middle school is on the third floor, and grades three, four, and five are on the last floor. I'm happier now that I'm in middle school because I didn't like going up all those stairs.

A very cool thing about our school is that it is right in front of the beach. You just need to cross the street and you get there. We do many activities and experiments there. Like a week ago we went to the beach for science class to study something about the sand dunes with the sand. It was very cool to get out of the classroom but it was so hot outside!

The school also has three places to play sports. A basketball court, a soccer field, and a court where you can play basketball, volleyball, or micro soccer. It also has a playground where the little kids play. There are six recess through all the day. Two recess for elementary, two for middle school, and two for high school. This happens so the lines in the cafeteria aren't that big and also you are always with your friends. Our school cafeteria has two cashiers. They sell food like brownies, sandwiches, chips, soda, juices, yogurt, crackers, and things like that. Most people buy in the cafeteria and don't bring their lunch from home.

We have many classes each week. We have normal classes like math, science, social studies, Spanish, and things like that. Also, each four months we can choose between drama class or art class. 7B right now has art and 7A (us) has drama which are one day a week. Also we have fun and academic electives. Our fun electives are like board game creation, destination imagination, reading for pleasure, kindness and leadership, digital photography, and others. Academic electives are fun with physics, singing, percussion, and much more. You can only choose one academic and one fun elective. I am in board game creation and fun with physics :-S.

So, that was all my answer for April's question about how our school is like. I wrote about how our school is physically and what are the classes, etc. Hope you enjoy it! Bye! :D