The Notes of the Podcast (Paul Polak, Tackling Global Poverty His Own Way)

Paul Polak is a founder of the nonprofit International Development Enterprises. And he has spent 25 years working to eradicate poverty in Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and other countries in the developing world.

Instead, Polak teaches families and farmers — many of whom live on a dollar a day and own perhaps an acre of land — how to increase crop yields with simple technologies, such as cheap, foot-operated water pumps and inexpensive drip hoses for irrigation. He helped the farmers very well, and it's very useful. After Mr. Polak's teaching, the farmers actually knows how to schedule their own things about money, and so that they can give good academic.

Current Event- Global Warming is going to be a BIG problem

The world is a facing a big big problem, which is global warming. I know everyone knows what is global warming. But I am still going to explain it, just encase. A global warming is an increase of the earth's temperature by a few degrees resulting in an increase in the volume of water which contributes to sea-level rise. There are many things that shows the global warming is going to be very dangerous. Like there are mosquitoes in the summer, and it's not really cold in the winter, also it's extremely hot in the summer. We need to help to safe the earth now. Because if we don't, then we will die soon. Global warming will increase in the volume of water which contributes to sea-level rise. So like Taiwan and some other small islands will be gone, because we are too small. So then the ice mountain melt, and then the sea-level will rise and also submerge us. So there are many groups that are trying to help to safe the earth. And what they do is that they are teaching people from every single place in the world that how should we do to safe the earth. Like take more buses, to safe the dirty airs and also oils.

current Event- A Bomb Happened On a Bus

April 23, there is a bomb happened in a bus, I think this bomb is very big, , it kills 23 people, and 52 people are injured. And the bombing came two days after more than 100 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed and another 400 wounded during an advance on a Tamil stronghold in the northern Wanni region.

Student Outcome

This week we are still working on our Africa Project, for us which is the Liberia Project. And this time we have more and more researches from last time, because we went to many website. And this time Mr. Carpenter gave us some website that can let us to see some videos and also podcasts about our own country, and try to make it better and better. And the most important thing is that we need to know that how are we going to spend the money after we get it, so that the government will give us the money.

What we've Learn about Liberia so far with Mathilde

I went to this site :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6564773.stm

And it is talking about the way the IMF could improve the Liberian economy.
I really like their ideas:

The most important thing that I picked up was that since there is food shortage and that the prices are going up so much they could produce more agriculture. To improve that there could be money going into the improvement of tools (truck farming) and irrigation systems, fertile soil. Another thing that could be looked at is whether or not the land is divided equally between the farmers and the rich people. If the rich people own all the land and the poor people just are heired as slaves to work on the farms and are not well payed, then we could make the government tell the rich people to give land to the poor people. For that we might need to hire a consultant from the IMF, to work in the government to make sure that there is no problem with the way the government use the money. For example so that they don’t just give the money out to the rich people’s hands, and that when the members of the IMF ask what they have done with the money, anybody can just pull out the bill of what they used it for.
Another thing that might be good for Liberia’s economy is that Liberia produces iron and different types of metals. So if once again we could have a consultant, the mines will be safe (helmets, protections...) and well payed, people would come to work and so then we could sell that to other countries and make money. For that we will also need good transportation (roads, ports...) This is also another place the money will go.


By Mathilde + Jean
:D

Current Event- Peace Plan for Liberia Seeks to Demilitarize the Capital

West African leaders want to avoid full-scale civil war in Liberia. So they approved a broad peace plan. The capital of Liberia Monrovia restore the country's fractured governing council. Liberia's four principal approved the plan, they called for an immediate cease-fire. and remove all the weapons that are in the capital. They also need to return a $20 million worth of vehicles and equipment. This is really good for Liberia, because the leaders and the four principles stopped Liberia from a big scary war.

Notes of the podcast(world disaster)

The world is facing problems, like global warming and the world is going to be out of food. So in this podcast Dr. Sachs is talking about the bad things that the world is facing. The oil prices up, food prices up, many people ignoring the crisis, and pollution a lot in many countries, just like Taiwan, Taiwan is a very small country, but there are like a lot of people live there. After I listen to the podcast, I felt ashamed, because humans are those problems, we make the world look like this. I think if there are no humans in the world, then the world will be very clean and also "healthy."

Student Outcome

I think I am an active learner and a community contributor this week, because I ask many questions to Mr. Carpenter, and I also answer some questions from my friends(also classmates). And obviously I didn't "fight" with Mathilde this week(maybe not yet, I don't know). And I am also a good problem solver, because I divide works up, and so that we can work faster and the quality is better. :D
What a HAPPY WEEK!!!!!!!
:P
:D
:)

Current Event-Where is the beautiful place in Athens?

There is a very beautiful place in Athens, it is the Lycabettus Hill, and some people said that the Lycabettus Hill makes Athens popular and better. This hill is tallest hill in Athens, and it is at about 900 feet above sea level. This hill is really beautiful, and also the view on the top is gorgeous, so we need to buy tickets to climb the hill. When you climb up that hill, you can see the view of almost the entire Athens city. It is beautiful in the day time, but it is more beautiful when the there is sunset, and many couples went there that time, because they think it's romantic. The most beautiful time is at night, because there are colorful lights on the hill. And at night when you climb up to the top of the hill, you will see the entire city is like the sky with the stars. Because imagine that the black part of the city is the sky at night, and the lights are just like stars. Many visitors trek up the hill during the day, but at night it’s best to take the funicular to the top. It runs every 30 minutes until 2:30 a.m. from the corner of Aristippou and Ploutarchou in the Kolonaki neighborhood; tickets cost 5.50 euros.

Current Event-"The Walworth Farce" (a play)

“The Walworth Farce,” staged to huzzahs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year and scheduled for the National Theater in London in September, is unmistakably an Irish play. Its cheerful integration of homicidal horror into daily domestic routine brings to mind the bloody hearths in Martin McDonagh’s Leenane trilogy(a group of three related novels, plays, films, operas, or albums.). Its depiction of storytelling as a necessary defensive art is at the heart of works like Brian Friel’s “Faith Healer” and Conor McPherson’s “Weir.” As for its mock-heroic exaggerations, well, they’re as old as Ireland itself. This play is by Edna Walsh, and it's direct byMikel Murfi.

Being a Community Contributer in the Africa Project

I think I am not a community contributer in this Africa project, and we almost fight every time when we are doing this project.(not really fight, but just like talking fight.) Because I am a new student in school, and I am not actually use to the technology things and some of the programs......., so sometimes I screwed up or mess up some important messages for the project, then Mathilde will start getting angry and mad, and some other things that are related to "angry." I think some part it is my fault, but some part is her fault, because she is a old student in the school(not talking about her age), and she knows almost everything about the school(i think so). But the part that is my fault is I sometimes screw up things, and not paying attention to her when she is talking, also didn't give 100% in this project(I'd only give like 80% in this project), and sometimes I didn't explain things properly to Mathilde, so she doesn't understand what am I talking about. But some how she didn't explain some of the things properly either, so we both have some things to improve, then we can be a community contributer too.

China and Taiwan Report Small Steps in Easing Tensions

These days Taiwan and China are having discussions, and we went to China to have the discussions. Normally we can't go to China if we are Taiwanese(I think so), and China people can't come to Taiwan. Because if we did, then we will be count as you are stowing away(I think so). Anyways, some people thinks that the new president and the new vice- president are better, but the people that are on the green side doesn't think so, and they think Taiwan will become a part of China. So yeah, maybe Taiwan has hope or not, I don't know.

Bloom’s Hierarchy of Learning

Remembering: In wellness class we need to remember the rules of the game, and so we will know how to play. And also in language arts we need to remember all the vocabularies, and some of the grammars.

Understanding: In humanities class we need to understand the history and some things about different nations, and also understand about what happen in the world. And also in math we need to understand some of the equations.

Applying: In language arts we read novels, and then we will have a essay test, and on essay test we always experiment the novels and write good paragraphs on the essay.

Analyzing: In language arts and digital journalism class I make some notes and we did many different kind of works, so I need to analyze them into different categories.

Evaluating: In humanities class we talk about current events, and we also make opinions about it.

Creating: In science class, we did a disaster presentations, and I did earthquake, and I search for many web sites and also books, and I combined/gather all the informations together.

How Our Africa Research Going

This week in the humanities class we are still working on our Africa Project, and obviously the work hasn't be done yet, because this project needs a lot of work. As you can see in the last post about Africa project. Last week I am working very hard on it, but my reading skills is not as good as some of my classmates, so I need to spend twice of the time that some of my classmates spend. But I find out something this week, I can read faster than last week, and I also find out that if I read more than I will know more vocabularies, then I can read faster, and I can sace more time to do other things.

My Growth in One of the Student Outcomes

Active Learner: Demonstrate, I think I am an active learner, because I like to discover things by myself, and I did, now I am doing some researches for being a good example for others, and the reason I am doing that is because I want to prove I have that kind of ability of learning English. And also I want to be a teacher when I grow up, so I want to do things perfect.

Our Africa Research

This time we are working very hard, and I almost finish my question. I think this project is pretty hard, because it needs time to read all the informations about ONLY ONE question, so I think we need to do it in class, and we also need to work it at home. I was reading some informations these past days, and I felt tired, because I don't really like to read things, and my vocabularies are poor, so I think I need to spend more times on this.

Current Event- the election

I think everybody knows that the result of the election, and somebody are happy about it, but some are not. Ma-Ying-Jiu-馬英九 won the election, and he is our president now. Some people said that new person new hope, so we all hope that he can lead Taiwan very well.
Ma-Ying-Jiu said that he won't let any of us down, because many people vote for him.
In this four years, we hope we can get benefits from him, and we hope that Taiwan could change.

Researches that we are doing now for the Africa Quest Project

Basically we are doing researches for our humanities homework- Africa Quest Project, and the work is for two, so my partner is Mathilde. And our country is Liberia. And I was shock when I got this county to write about, because I think I have never notice that there is a country call Liberia. So we are having a hard time, because we are not familiar with this country. We even hope that we can switch the country with Dillon and Duke, because their country is Egypt. The reason that we want to switch with them is because we are more familiar with Egypt. Okay, back to the topic, we are suppose to do researches during the spring break, but it's all my fault, I didn't contact with Mathilde. So we didn't do any of the things in the spring break.:(