Independent Serive Reflection / Final reflection

I am Alex Hunter. My values are respect, honesty, caring, and sharing. This may sound very corny and childish, but these four core values as I call them, carry throughout your whole life. If every person on earth could embrace these four values, the world would be a much happier place. There would be no war, crime, hate, or racism. These are my values. For service learning, I was put in the recycling group with Ms. Thomas. Our goal is to educate people on the importance of recycling and to eventually set up a recycling system for the school through showing people how important it is. We will do this through data and research we have found. 

For my 15 independent service hours, I monitored and helped clean the boys bathrooms. Ms. Turnstall signed off for these hours. This entailed washing the floor, mirrors, and toilets. It also included monitorng the bathroom during lunchtime. The bathrooms I did this in were the 2nd floor bathroom, 4th floor, 5th floor, and occasionally the basement bathroom. This situation was far different than anything I do in the classroom, for obvious reasons. The bathroom was much more hands on that anything I do in the bathroom. One big difference I see in the two activities is that after working the bathroom, I see immediate results and am satisfied. In school, sometimes it is hard for me to see the purpose of many things I do. Perhaps I will learn later in life why I did or learned them, but right now I don't. The situation I would change in my service learning group, recycling, would be to do less research and sitting around and more doing. I felt that a lot of the sample trash, and preparation was very unecessary. Everyone knows what trash looks like, so why did we need a sample. 

Service learning will change my outlook on my future career in a few ways. I have learned how much you have to go trough to get things down. This includes proposals, research to find out if the propostion in necessary, and funding. Now that I think about, I would rather be a bum than a businessman in life. 

Service Learning Planning for 5/28

This week I plan on coming in with more data for my neighborhood. I plan on walking around my neighborhood one more time tonight. We will average each group members data eventually to put into our report. Besides this, not much has been going on. I believe the next step is to start to put the report together. Ninth graders in the group surveyed fellow classmates to see their opinions on recycling, which will be published in the report. I also believe we are soon going to be putting together a short film as well as the report. 

Service Learning Reflection for 5/15 session

Last week was a good service learning session. We compared eachothers data from our walks in our neighborhoods. It's great that our group is so spead out across the city geographically. We have people from North Philly, South Philly, Southwest, Northeast, Northwest, and Center City. I can't believe I am already almost done the school year. Throughout the serive learning meetings, I had become very frustrated because I did not see where my group was going with what we were doing. After asking Ms. Thomas this, she gave me a much more understandable explanation. I now know the objective of the group much more clearly. What we are dong is simply educating others on recycling, and coming up with a proposal for a recycling system. We will do this by using facts, figures, and data we find. Through service learning, I have learned the following about the issue of recycling and trash. I've leanred many people either do not care about recycling, or are not educated on the benefits of recycling. I have also learned about many materials that can be recycled that I had no clue could be before I started my research. These include but are not limited to phones, sports equipment, tennis shoes, toothbrushes, razors, ink cartridges, eyeglasses, clothes, and even batteries. My values have defenetly changed through service learning. To be honest, I used to litter all the time, not caring of my actions. I also used to not taking my mother seriosuly when she would tell me to recycle or what to put in the recycling can. After being educated more on recycling, I have a broadened appreciation for why my mom wanted me to do that. I also have more of a desire for a cleaner city after walking around my neighborhood the past few weeks.

service learning reflection for 5-9 workshop

Last weeks service learning workshop went very well. Though a few group members were missing, we stayed on task and got a lot done. We wrote thank you letters to the men that funded our scales. We are using the scales to measure trash we find. Right now, I am collecting data on trash I found in my neighborhood. The goal of what we are doing is to propose for a recycling program for the school district. To get to this, we need to educate and show people the importance of recycling. Many people do not understand this importance and take plastics and other things for granted. Hopefully by the end of the school year, we will have put together a good proposition. For this weeks meeting, which is in 25 minutes, I prepared myself by walking around my neighborhood to see not only the amount of trash, but the days with the most and the specific time of day. THIS IS SPARTA!!!

Superdelegates

A superdelegate is a party leader or elected public official chosen as an uncommitted delegate to a national political convention. There a few pros to superdelegates and some cons. They have a big impact on which candidate the Democrats nominate to run for president. In the 2008 primary season. another con is that the Democratic superdelegates could use their status to choose a candidate, instead of supporting the one ahead in the popular vote.

Service Learning

Not much has been sucessful so far in service learning this year. We are doing a lot of research and collecting sample trash, but I ask myself why. How is this research going to help the schools future recycling program? I have not learned much so far, except a few things that can be recycled that I didn't know could be. These objects are listed in my last blog post below. In the coming weeks, what needs to be done is we need to establish a recycling program. I say enough with this " research" and sample trash. I could see if we needed the research/data to convince some one, but we don't. Enough talking and planning, and LETS DO IT! What needs to be changed for next year is that we start service learning earlier, maybe in Early to mid March. This is so that the groups have time to actually get things done.