BCDRB NEWS!

TODAY'S BIG NEWS

A Big Fat Problem

One out of every five children in the U. S. is
overweight or obese, and this number is continuing
to rise at an alarming rate. Children have fewer
weight-related health and medical problems than
adults. However, overweight children are at high
risk of becoming overweight adolescents and
adults, placing them at risk of developing chronic
diseases such as heart disease and diabetes later in
life. They are also more prone to develop stress,
depression, and low self-esteem.!
!
Children become overweight and obese for
a variety of reasons. The most common causes are
genetic factors, lack of physical activity, unhealthy
eating patterns, or a
combination of these
factors. These factors are
problems that could occur at
home and at school. It is
important we put an end to
this epidemic. !
The health of
Americas children is
decreasing. Kids are getting
more and more obese each
and every day. Why, or how
you might ask? Well, in a
time in which parents feel
their children are not
getting enough math or
english, new studies show that even more parents
think their children arent getting enough physical
education at school. however, the reality is that
physical activities are lacking at home as well.!
!
Currently, less than half of our kids meet
the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services Physical Activity Guidelines for
Americans recommendation of at least 60 minutes
of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.Why
do people not work out today? Why has the
mentality of all people changed? Professionals say
that people today don't even know their purpose
anymore. 19/20 people don't even know what they
want to do for the day when they wake up. And this
goes the same way for staying in shape, people do
not see a benefit to working out anymore, parents
just want their kids to be smarter. Yes, 1/3 of your
health is based on your mental status, but if only 1/3
of your health is mental, should not 1/3 of the
school day be social and 1/3 of your school day be
physical?
!

Page 1

January 23, 2015

Why do people not work out today? Why has the

mentality of all people changed? Professionals say
that people today don't even know their purpose
anymore. 19/20 people don't even know what they
want to do for the day when they wake up. And
this goes the same way for staying in shape,
people do not see a benefit to working out
anymore, parents just want their kids to be
smarter. Yes, 1/3 of y our health is based on your
mental status, but if only 1/3 of your health is
mental, should not 1/3 of the school day be social
and 1/3 of your school day be physical? !
!
Who is really at fault here though? Lezlie !
Hawes believes she is doing her job the best of her
ability and there's not much that can be done.
While defending her school's physical education
system she states, "The
biggest factor of the kids
health is not how much
physical activity they get,
rather how much they want
to be there, in gym, or
physical education." She
continues, "Health is not
something that just comes
to adults or children, they
must work at it, and they
must want to be healthy, in
all ways possible." !
People like David Bailis and
Delia Pacenza agree with
Lezlie Hawes. They can all
agree that people have to want to be healthy to
become healthy. They need...inspiration. What is
inspiration exactly? Inspiration is the process of
being mentally stimulated to do or feel something,
especially to do something creative. An
inspiration could be one of 3 things, a person, an
object, or a previous event. Kids today need
inspirations, they need to have goals, fitness goals. !
!
It's almost impossible to guarantee that
you can inspire someone. However as adults and
parents, you have to lead by example and either
work out on a common basis. This is why,
overweight kids have a 70% chance of becoming
overweight adults; a scary statistic considering
that, today, 1 in 3 American children are
considered overweight or obese by BMI
standards. To reverse the epidemic of obesity, it is
imperative to educate children on healthy lifestyle
habits which they can teach their future children,
when they get older, and help to build a new
generation of healthy, strong American adults.

BCDRB NEWS!

January 23, 2015

Community Service Plus School Equals

What?
!

There are many dierent community service

organizations out there. Popular ones like Live United.
On Disney Channel, they promote kids to help out in the
community, but what are the eects and benefits of doing
community service? Community service teaches kids
empathy and compassion towards others which will
increase chances for success in life. It is very simple to
start a community services group. Just gather a group of
friends and trash bags and clean a local park. Kids that
start their own group or organization teach themselves
about leadership and management.!
In fact, when you proceed into high school, you will have
to do sixty hours of community service. If you do not
complete the sixty hours of community service you will
not be able to graduate. !
!
It seems that it is dicult to do, but upon
research it is very easy to do. There are many dierent
opportunities. An easy way to be prepared for this is to
make community service a part of your life as early as
possible. Making it part of your daily routine makes it
something to expect and want to do. !
!
Doing community service is so important for the
community. If we didnt even try to help out the
community, it would be a terrible place. It may seem
small at first, but just picking up a can that was thrown
on the ground makes a big dierence. Maybe someone
will see you trying to make the community a better place
and they will get encouraged to do the same.!
!
There are many dierent ways to do community
service. For example you can commute your time at a
local retirement home. Some of the elderly folks have
family members that are too far to visit and they sit alone
like theyre in a prison. A nice visit by you to just watch
TV with them, play a board game, read a book, or just
talk with them will brighten their day. !
!
Doing community service is great for you too. It
brightens your day to see the impact you made for
someone else. The simplest thing as seeing a smile on
their face lets you know that you brightened someone's
day. Like the story, a man on a beach surrounded by
hundreds of thousands of starfish that were stranded on
the beach by low tide. He tosses them back one by one. A
man asks him what he is doing. He replies, The sun is up
the tide is going back and if I dont throw them back they
will die. The man says back, There is miles of beach of
starfish you cant make a dierence. Then the man bent
down picked up another starfish and said, It made a
dierence for that one.!

Page 2

Upon interview with Kaitlyn Blair, a student

attending West Chester University ex worker as a
cashier at Pet Supplies Plus, I discovered that it is
required to do sixty hours of community service in
high school. She didnt only do sixty hours of
community service but one hundred five hours and as a
reward for that she got a silver cord on her graduation
cap. !
!
Doing community service enhanced her life
because it helped her get accepted into more and
better colleges. Even though her grades were really
good, doing community service opened more doors. !
!
Even though Kaity Blair was able to balance her
social life, grades, and job she does not believe that
work outside of school should be required. Students
should be allowed to pursue their interest outside of
required !
!
Kaity Blair did not enjoy being required to do
community service because of the inconvenience of
transportation going to and from community service
jobs. She also hated it because she felt obligated to
help people. She would of rather of help them because
she wanted to instead of having to.!
!
I also interviewed Brandon Miller: student of
Penn State University a worker at the counter of a local
bowling alley called Earl Bowl is a member of a local
community service organization that started out as a
small group of friends and expanded greatly. With
Thousands of people and helped out by doing over a
hundred community projects all over. They are really
surprised that their organization grew immensely,
starting o so small and growing as big as it has is
amazing! quote Brandon Miller.!
!

BCDRB NEWS!

January 23, 2015

Is School for the

Students?
!

The teacher paced the room in front of the

dusty chalkboard as he drawled on and on about the
students favorite subject: English Language Arts.
More specifically, grammar. A few kids yawned and
stretched from tiredness in their seats. Some
students sat with their heads propped up on their
hands and eyes half lidded, trying, and failing, to
mask their obvious disinterest and desire to plop
their heads on the desks. Although the man that
walked throughout the room could see his students
reactions, he continued to lecture about punctuation
and sentence structure. The kids groaned in
annoyance and exasperation. They knew they had to
learn grammar, but couldnt it be a bit less
challenging?!
One eighth grader especially disliked the
topic. The student actually felt like she was
beginning to loathe it. She knew how to punctuate
with your basic period and comma and so on. Why
was that not enough? The girl did her best to keep
her eyes open and show she was paying attention,
but her teacher was making the simple task an
arduous ordeal. The girl could see her peers
reactions werent much dierent from hers, so that
gave her some relief, but not much. There was so
much complicated information to process that it
was seemingly impossible. She knew she had to learn
grammar, but couldnt be a bit less challenging?!
!
Grammar is one of the basic elements of
eighth grade Literacy and English classes. It goes
along with analyzing texts, writing narratives and
persuasives, and presentation conduct. Although the
curriculum has changed over the years, the core
topics have mostly stayed the same. This also means
that the students succeed and struggle in the same
areas.!
!
A survey was conducted with some select
eighth grade students to see what their most
troubling areas are in ELA and Literacy. Seven out of
ten students put that they felt it was hard to use
precise language that wasnt wordy or redundant to
express ideas. Six out of ten kids said they had
trouble with areas of persuasive writing. Especially
backing up the claims or arguments they presented
in the text. The main problem seems to be that
students know what they want to say or write, but
cant express it in they way they want.!

Page 3

!
Now that the student view has been established,
we should see how a teacher feels their students are
faring in literary areas. Lisa Rodriguez is an English
Language Arts teacher at East Hills Middle School.
She has been teaching for nearly thirty years!
!
As was mentioned earlier, seventy percent of
students feel that it is hard to use precise language
that is not wordy or redundant to express ideas and
sixty percent of them said they had trouble with areas
of persuasive writing like supporting their arguments.
Miss Rodriguez said that most of her students have
trouble in these areas, so she already knows what the
kids need help with. The kids need more time being
taught about grammar and persuasive writing. The
problem is making the time for it. The question we
should be asking is what should less time be spent on
to make time for the harder subjects? !
!
We should spend less time with subjects that
eighth graders have already grasped. Miss Rodriguez
feels that her students do very well with connections.
This includes connecting events in a text to
themselves, the world, or even to other texts. Also, she
said that identifying whether the authors purpose for
writing the text is to entertain, persuade, or inform
seems easy for her students. Anything involving
technology or computers is another area the eighth
graders find rather simple. Collaborating by using the
devices and incorporating multimedia and visual
displays into presentations is included in that
specification. Since the students find these areas
rather simplistic, less time can be spent teaching the
kids about them. So the answer to the previous
question is connections, authors purpose,
technological collaboration, and multimedia
presentations. !
!
Now we know what troubles the eighth graders,
what the teachers notice from their students, and what
areas of literature the kids find a bit easier. The plan is
to take the time spent teaching subjects that students
already understand and spend it teaching areas of
literature that are harder for the eighth graders. All we
need to do is take action and make a change.

BCDRB NEWS!

Technology in the
Classroom
Computers in the classroom are becoming more
and more common. In fact, 97% of classrooms in
America have access to computers. And even
more surprising, 93% of those computers have
access to the internet! Only 40% of those
teachers say that their classroom uses them often,
and 29% say that they only use them sometimes.!
!
There are upsides and downsides to
using computers in the classroom. An upside is
the fact that students can collaborate on a single
project at the same time. Teachers report that
they have seen their students helping each other
on the computer more than on any other type of
project. The students also
pick up on what they need
to do faster when another
student is helping them.!
!
One of the
downsides, however, is that
sometimes, students will
spend a lot of time on the
layout or finding a font that
suits their topic, all for a
piece of work that wasnt
even been written yet. One
very common problem that
many teachers face is that
students have a mindset that computers are for
games, and that can be a problem. If a student is
doing an assignment and they get bored, they
may stray o and play a game if the teacher
doesnt use this to his/her advantage, it can lead
to problems.!
!
Technology is an excellent resource for
teaching elementary school students how to
research. A study shows that technology actually
improves the chances that a student will go on to
research in outside sources, for example, they
might go to a library, read a newspaper or
magazine article, or even interview somebody
related to their topic. !
!
Technology also helps because the
students can also work independently at their
own pace. Instead of waiting for the teacher to
explain each step slowly to the students that
dont get the concept, the teacher could just
make a video series that teaches the student how
to do the concept.!
!

Page 4

January 23, 2015

!
!
!
!
!
Our district has something called Open
Campus. The kids can bring in their own electronic
devices to use in the class. There are certain
restrictions on the screen size; it cant be a tiny
iPod. It needs to be iPad or Kindle sized.!
!
Mrs. Marshaleck said that the kids know
that they will get caught. In 5th grade, kids like to
snitch on other kids. They know that if they play a
game on their device that they arent supposed to be
doing, they will not be allowed to bring it in
anymore. She says that the kids usually follow the
rules. Every once in a while, kids stray o and play a
videogame, but they get caught every time they try.
This is a great way to make sure they are doing
everything that they are supposed to be doing. Lisa
Rodriguez english teacher of East Hills Middle
School said that since the technology at East Hills
Middle School is not student-owned, kids are
damaging property by taking o
or replacing keys on the
keyboard. They are also
changing screen resolution
settings so that other students
will have diculty when trying
to use their computers.!
!
Technology can, however,
negatively impact a students
learning environment. For
example, teachers are pressed
to make every minute count.
When the students are waiting
for the computers to start up,
which may take from 30 seconds to a full 3 minutes,
the teachers usually end up wasting precious time
waiting. Also, many people need to physically
interact with what they are learning in order to
understand and remember the concept. ! !
When using a computer, however, these students
needs are not met. They may never understand the
concept, or may not remember what they need to.
In some classrooms, technology is overused, which
can lead to other problems. Some teachers use the
computers in place of writing a simple paragraph.
The students dont get a chance to develop
handwriting skills.!
!
All in all, technology is a great addition to
the classroom if used properly. If it is not used
correctly, the students may not get their academic
needs. As an elementary school teacher once said,
Kids like the immediate results. It's not a result
that you can get anywhere else except on the
computer. . . . For them it really is a big deal. Much
more so than I ever thought it was going to be.

BCDRB NEWS!

January 23, 2015

STEM, What is it?

Here you go sir, the counselor says as she
hands you a pristine white sheet of paper. On it
is a wall of text explaining what it is, and under
it, the main show, what youve been waiting for
so long. The sheet every 8th grader is given at
least in your school district at the near end of
their last middle school year and the main
action under that text is nothing to most, but
to you something that may change your future
by miles or nothing at all, this thing high
school classes and electives. Like most other
kids in your class you will be taking as many
honors classes as you can but like adults always
say you're special and you want to take
electives that include things you love science
and technology due to band you only have one
left free so now you must chose extremely
wisely and your mind has been made up for a
while now.!
!
Early computing and coding
something you know a little about but not
much and you know it will help you in the
future because getting a job in the STEM field
has been you dream for quite a while because
its your hobby and passion. Your friend John is
taking the photography and woodworking
electives nothing surprising he loves making
things and nature you wonder what hell be
doing twenty years from now will he become
just another typical oce worker or will his
dreams stick with him and will he become a
photographer or furniture maker. Something
you have always feared fills up your body
uncertainty what if he couldn't find a job it
would be terrible but you know how much the
world needs people in the field you love and
then the feeling leaves your body and
anticipation takes place you can't wait for this
school year to end. Next to start it will be so
much fun new school new kids new teachers,
and after you snap out of this trance. !
!
!

Page 5

The counselor begins speaking again going over

what the paper says at the top after a few seconds
drowsy boredom kicks in and its a fight to stay
awake. !
!
This is the story of typical early high
school orientation for many many kids around the
country a story of a bright and expanding future
and that future is the dream of working in the
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics) field. Something a near 50 percent of
high school students keep a interest in and get a job
in. Kids that have an interest in STEM have futures
that are very bright in many ways here you'll be
given a few reasons why. Lets start o with one of
the greatest points when people get Jobs in a
progressing field they are most likely going to be
creating new technology and discovering new
sciences, and by doing that they aren't just helping
themselves with a possibly bigger paycheck they are
usually helping the world to making tons of new
and exciting discoveries constantly which
contribute in all to the world making it better
which is always an amazing thing. Also most if not
all stem jobs consist of an extraordinarily high
annual paycheck some with just requiring a
bachelors degree starting at nearly $100,000
annually which will always help to pay of college
debts something that always plague grads. "like
anyone will get a good jobs nowadays" you say like
always many people insist attempting to get a job
with pay like that or so many other people
interested in it is insane but truly over 3 million
stem jobs are left unfilled yearly, and almost
everyone who gets a STEM job ends up getting
payed more than jobs in any other non-stem field
also jobs are very stable something many people
also worry about when looking for jobs.