TLP Reflection

Hi! Today in class Mr. Hide asked us to write about what we think about the project. I think that this project has been very interesting because we've worked with lots of people in other different places on the world. We have exchanged information about our topic and we have also learned new things about what we are working on.

When in class Mr. Hide told us we were going to do a teen life project, I thought it would be like all projects. I thought we would just need to prepare a presentation in front of all the class about teenage life. I really didn't know what that had to do with class but I wasn't very enthusiasmed and I didn’t know what to expect either because I had never done anything like this.

In this project we have had to post and write about our research and other things in our blogs. The most interesting and fun part of this project is that we are working with totally new people. For example, I would never have thought I would meet someone from a far country like Malaysia in Asia. I have had a lot of experiences working with different people.

The people in my group about teen smoking are Yoko, Aron, Toni, and Ashley from Canada and Malaysia. My partner from my school is Eduardo. One of the things I did in this project and that I’ve never done before is making our project into a documentary. We’ve had to find public domain images. Public domain images are images with no copyright, so it has been kind of hard because we can’t just search for it in Google, where most of the images are copyrighted.

In conclusion, I have had many fun experiences with this project. I’ve worked with people from different countries and I have learned a lot from the places were they lived. For example, I’ve exchanged information with people from Snow Lake, which is a small town in Canada. Working with people from Malaysia has been different because since it’s an international school, there are people from all parts of the world, for example Australia. I’ve also learned to work in team work. Since we can’t meet at a house, we need to talk a lot with the other people in our teams so we all agree on what to do.

Finally, I have learned many things in this project and I have exchanged information and experiences with other people. At first I thought this project would be very boring like other projects we’ve had, but it actually has been really different from any other I’ve had done and I have met other people from other places which is fun.

Final Researchh.

Last week on my post, I said I wanted to know what some companies are doing to reduce the amount of teens smoking. I went to Google and found this article on MSN. I also found some useful info on Wikipedia. Hope you enjoy!

A couple of months ago, some representants of more than 35 US states asked movie companies to include ads against smoking in DVDs and videos. They did this because most teens watch DVDs and videos so it would be a good way to advertise not smoking. More than 73% of movies teens watch include actors smoking, so the ads would be a good idea. The anti-smoking commercials will come out in the next months probably.

Goverments of many countries are also doing things to prevent teen smoking. In most countries, such as Australia, Brazil, and Canada, the selling of tobacco products to underage persons is forbidden and it could result in jail or with a fine. It is also forbidden for an adult to buy tobacco and then give it to a kid. In most US states, the minimum age to buy cigarretes is 18, while in others it is 19. In countries such as China and Turkey, though, kids and teens don't have many problems with buying tobacco because their parents tell them to go to the store and buy it for them.

A new thing some goverments are doing is raising taxes on smoking. Some of the tax money is destined to anti-smoking programs in schools or other places. This helps a lot the community and stops some people from buying tobacco. In some countries with high taxes for smoke, such as the UK, each pack of cigarretes costs around $10.70, goverments from other countries, though, don’t raise their taxes at all, and no improvement is being done. The problem with that country is that some sellers avoid the taxes so people buy their products. It is estimated that more than one third of the smokers in UK don't pay tobacco taxes.

In some countries, there are no smoking ads on television, magazines, etc. Also cigarrete packs come with warnings and ways to quit smoking. If cigarrete companies don't include that, then they can be banned from the market. Some commercials in TV have impacting images of people with brown teeths, smokers in the hospital with respiratory problems, damaged body tissues, annual death rates, and more. This has decreased the number of smokers by 25% because people realize they don’t want those things to happen in their bodies and they react.

Finally, many American and European countries make places were smoking is forbidden. Some of these places include restaurants, bars, gas stations, hospitals, etc. This is made so second-hand smoking is reduced. Second-hand smoking is when smoking gases are recieved by the person near the smoker and he or she is affected aswell. Second-hand smoking problems include asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Well, that was my last research for the Teen Life Project to use in my documentary. Hope you liked it! Bye!!! :P xD