Procrastination is Damaging

By: Teanne Z.

 

 

Sitting at your desk, legs shaking, hands sweaty, your teacher in your face, breathing down your neck. “Where is it?'' she asks in such a stern way you feel like crying. All you can do is sit there and wait as the regret floods in. Imagine feeling like a disappointment. Procrastination is a brutal thing, not to mention horrible for your future. It can feel so good to just say you’re going to do it later, watch some tik tok and forget all about it. But when it comes time you push it off even longer. Later, later, later. Until you're at that exact position, feeling like you're about to pass out.

I think we all can agree that procrastination is tempting. A lot of people think of themselves as a bad person afterwards, but it doesn’t make you a bad person. A professor in physiology actually says, “It’s not about time management.” So then what is it about? Many things. Most of the time it's because of having the mindset of, "if I don't do it, they can't judge my ability." People who procrastinate because of this are usually very taciturn or reticent, meaning they keep to themselves most of the time. Another cause of this problem is simply just not wanting to take responsibility. Based on a study, about 85 to 90 percent of students procrastinate. Procrastination is usually based on anxiety. To top it off, procrastinators usually blame their failure on lack of time.

Procrastination also has super negative impacts when you're older. According to a study, “one in two adults say that procrastination has had a bad result in their future, and one in five adults say it impacted them horribly.” According to Oxford Learning, “students who procrastinate experience higher levels of frustration, guilt, stress, and anxiety.”  It can end up hurting your career and threaten your happiness. Oxford Learning also says that procrastination can get worse and worse over time. Maybe missing a couple of assignments in middle school can lead to missing bigger projects in high school. It also creates anxiety, which of course is something that you don’t want. The worst of all, missing opportunities, and there's nothing worse than sitting on your deathbed and realising you let life pass you by.

If it's hurting your future that bad, just stop, right? Wrong. “Telling a chronic procrastinator to just do it is like telling a depressed person to just cheer up,” states Joseph Ferrari. Based on a wgu.edu study, procrastinating is so hard to stop because there is a chemical released by your brain. The more feelings you have the more chemicals are created. It’s almost like your brain gets addicted to the chemical. To try and stop you can motivate the person or yourself. Before you can start, because procrastinators commonly feel guilty after, forgive yourself. Let go of the past and focus on the future. Some ways to stop procrastinating are promising yourself a reward and limiting distractions. If you have a friend, sibling or parent nearby, you could ask them to check up on you every once in a while. Another option is trying the “eat an elephant beetle” method. It means to do the hardest  thing as early in the day as possible so you have the rest of the day to relax. One way I personally stop procrastinating is listening to music to try and block out my thoughts. Getting into a comfy position might help too. Sometimes, if I really can’t complete the task because I can’t focus, I’ll do something else productive.

For the sake of our futures, we must stop procrastinating. You do not want to be the person who no one can trust or rely on. We must stand above procrastination. Next time you have something important to do, try some of these methods. I guarantee you, if you stop procrastinating you will have a much healthier and happier life!

 

 

 

Global Poverty

By: Paarth S.

 

 

As you walk into the house, you set your backpack down after an exhausting and tiring day at school. You open the cabinet and grab a bag of chips, as well as a beverage from the fridge. Nothing’s better than being able to relax after a long day at school. Unfortunately, school and food isn’t a reality for many people.

Most Americans don’t realize this, but 85% of people in the world make only $30 per day. Additionally, poverty-stricken people spend 60 to 80% of their money on food, which makes purchasing anything besides food nearly impossible. Statistically, three million children die from lack of proper food and water each year.

Most underprivileged people in the world have little to no education, limited electricity, and are starving. In fact, 70% of people in extreme poverty who are over the age of 15 have little to no education. Electricity is also a major problem for developing countries. Liberia, a country in West Africa, uses less energy than the Cowboys Stadium - a football stadium in the United States. The entire continent of Africa uses only three percent of the world’s electricity. In fact, 1.3 billion people - who account for 22% of the world’s population - lack electricity, as well as water and proper education.

            Poverty undeniably takes a major toll on people’s health. "Poverty is a negative, independent factor that influences lifelong health," says Dr. James Duffee. Poverty is something that can cause major stress, and Duffee explains that major childhood stress leads to illnesses such as diabetes, or cardiac disease. The health of adults is affected by poverty as well. Poverty forces people to work increasingly stressful jobs for extended periods of time. Working a long or stressful job can cause mental illnesses such as depression, which can lead to suicide. These illnesses may not be able to get properly treated, as people living in poverty usually lack access to proper medical attention. This makes treatment for any kind of disease or illness impractical.

Global poverty is a prevalent problem. The lives of many people are changed drastically because of poverty, which affects their health conditions, living conditions, and education. Children who aren’t able to receive a proper education are denied a healthy, prosperous future. So, if you wish that school doesn’t exist or say that school is useless, think again, because more than 1.3 billion people are willing to take your place.

 

 

Don’t Take The Car if You're Not Going Far!

By: Rachael H.

 

How often do you leave the lights on in your house? There is an absurd amount of energy being wasted in the U.S. today. Leaving the lights on when you don’t need to builds up over time. The energy you waste leaving on the lights costs a considerable amount of money, and it ends up harming the environment. A study from 2009 showed that Americans waste an alarming average of 130 billion dollars a year.

According to an article written by Sarah Battaglia, the U.S. is the number one energy-wasting country in the world. American efficiency is 42%, which means that 58% is being wasted. That is more than half of the U.S.’s energy consumption.

When energy is made, usually either coal or another fossil fuel is being used to make it. Natural gases are being used as well, which release methane and other atrocious emissions into the atmosphere. This causes our atmosphere to decay. Some scientists say this helps to cause global warming. That means that all the coal and gases being put into the air to make energy are being wasted. A study by Arcadia says, “Coal, for example, is the second-largest fossil fuel used in the U.S.”  The pollution coming from these fossil fuels is tremendous. When people waste energy they are technically polluting the environment.

If we take a look at the light bulb, the amount that gets wasted is 66.7%. About 14 million people leave the lights on; an example is when you leave for work. Have you ever felt heat coming off of your lightbulb? Then you should know that the heat is also wasted energy. When we leave the lights on for too long or use outdated lights, we end up wasting energy, causing it to make heat. Using LED bulbs can save 25-85% less energy. An article from Energy Central says, “Since the sole purpose of a light bulb is to produce light, all of the energy that goes into producing the heat is a complete waste.” 

The next problem is money wasting. The electricity bill average per month is $111.67. (this can vary depending on where you live). You should also think about all the things you are doing that wastes energy. Sorry, but that's going into your bill as well. There is an abundant amount of ways we can help lower the cost and drop the amount of energy being wasted.

This all may sound extreme, but as I said, there are ways you can be part of making cleaner energy, saving money, and being helpful to the environment. So let's get started!

There is solar energy, which is the most common. This is where we take the sun's rays and use that to make energy. Solar panels help us do that! We can put them on our roofs, and some communities have big fields full of them.

Wind energy is another option! We could use the natural wind to make energy for our homes. You may have seen this before, but there are big spinning poles in the sky. These are called wind turbines. There are ways to have this in our backyard, but there are rules and regulations that go along with it. For example, it would be 30 feet higher than anything within 200 feet of it, including trees.

There is also Hydropower. The U.S. has tons of dams, but did you know that some of these are producing energy too? When water flows through a dam or river, it flows through a system.  That's what makes the energy.

Those who want to help can, even at home, by turning off the lights, not running the AC while you're gone, having clean air filters, not loitering at the fridge, and using LED bulbs. If it is cooler outside, then pop open a window. Overall, about 66% of energy in housing gets wasted.

When we are using transportation we could walk, bike, carpool, and/or combine shopping trips. The amount of energy we waste on transportation is 71%!

The world needs to stop being lazy, especially the U.S. So don’t take the car if you aren’t going far; it's simple. When we can, we should help to not destroy the environment with pollution, gases, smoke, and other fossil fuels; the world needs our help!

 

 

Is it safe?

By: Hailey E.

 

 

It’s hard to imagine a world without wearing masks. It’s also weird to think that's how it used to be; I’m so used to it by now that it will be weird to not have to wear them. The effects of the Covid 19 virus have taken a toll on all of us.  Not going on vacation and not visiting family. One of the biggests effects Covid 19 has had on kids is not being able to play sports. I wish I could be outside with all of my friends, playing the sport I love. I’m guessing a lot of athletes are wishing that as well, to be able to go outside and have fun without the worry of getting a deadly virus. But the real question that we’re all thinking and racking our brains to try and find the answer to is, is it safe? 

Doctors and medical scientists have all shared their opinion on kids being able to play sports during this crisis. Some say no way, it’s not safe, while others disagree and say that we should be allowed to play. Jerome Adams, a U.S surgeon general says, “We know that being outside will likely lower your risk of getting COVID because it’s good for your immune system.” She also says, “The virus is going to be less likely to spread outside than in enclosed indoor spaces. And both heat and humidity have been shown to decrease the amount of time the virus lives.”

When we are allowed to play outside sports, we still have to be safe and take extra precautions. The CDC recommends wearing masks and social distancing, as well as using hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol in it very frequently. If we were to play we would have to follow all of these rules very thoroughly to stay safe. This doesn’t include indoor sports, but we would still have to be safe.

Sports teams are doing as much as they can to get back to playing. Indoor sports in our community are not allowing spectators to watch sports in person to limit the spread of the virus and keep players safe. In a Times Union article, the governor announced that there will be capacity limits and negative Covid tests or proof of immunization to begin to allow college sports fans to attend games.

I’m not saying that we should just go out on the field and play without a worry in the world. We would slowly get back into things. It will be hard to follow all of these to keep everyone safe. Hard, but not impossible. I know that some people will be very reluctant to the idea of getting back into sports during a time like this. It’s slowly getting better, and the only thing we can do for right now is get back to our normal lives. We are all very hopeful that we will be back to some normalcy in the near future.  

 

 

Our Future

By: Hannah C.

           

 

Imagine a future where our entire way of life is different. Where unpredictable weather, unbearably dry and sweltering summers, and learning about all the extinct animals are normal. What if I told you that in the future, because of global warming, that could be a reality?

            Global warming is known everywhere, but you almost never hear people talking about it even though scientists are referring to it as, “The biggest global health threat of the 21st century!” Climate experts predict that by 2100, global temperatures will have increased by eight degrees warmer.  Considering the increase in temperature recently, that doesn’t seem so far off.  Imagine what two hundred years from now would be like if the temperature continues to increase. Even farther than that too!

First of all, global warming has been affecting the weather. The greenhouse effect is pollution that we've released into our atmosphere acting like a blanket and keeping in warmth from the sun, which in turn makes the Earth get warmer. Evidence of Earth warming includes the fact that we have found 2000 through 2009 to be the hottest decade since an estimated one thousand three hundred years ago. Higher temperatures caused by that effect makes storms and water-related disasters much worse. This costs us extreme amounts of money. In just 2015, ten weather and climate disasters have cost us 1 billion dollars. You might assume that's normal if you didn't know that ranging from 1980 through 2015, the average cost was 5.2 billion from disasters. “Extreme weather events are costing more and more,” says Aliya Haq, deputy director of NRDC's Clean Power Plan initiative.  “The number of billion-dollar weather disasters is expected to rise.”  That once again raises the question what our future will be like if we continue like this.

The weather isn’t the only thing that’s changing because of global warming. Global warming is affecting animals too. Shifting life cycles are when natural events that animals take part in at a specific time start at an unusual time. For example, global warming has caused some species of bird to start migrating at a different time, whether it be earlier or later. Some animals that hibernate are waking up from their hibernation at a later time also. You could brush that off, but shifting life cycles can have dangerous effects. The World Wildlife Fund ran a study that showed this. In that study they found that warblers, also known as perching birds, when immigrating from the United States to Canada, ended up spreading a type of mountain pine beetle, which destroyed copious amounts of balsam fir trees.

This brings us to another detrimental problem, habitat disruption. Habitat disruption is when an  ecosystem undergoes many developments, which usually change the ecosystem so much that the ecosystem no longer fulfills the needs of the animals that live there. Some animals can thrive in another ecosystem, but even finding another ecosystem is difficult. For example, because of warmer temperatures, tundras have been turning into forests. The animals that live in tundras, such as arctic foxes, snowy owls, and caribou, can’t survive in forests. Since they can’t survive in forests, and because they live far up North, they can’t go anywhere else. For the animals that can survive elsewhere, even just finding somewhere to live is difficult. Humans take up a large amount of land, so when animals venture out, searching for a place that fulfills their needs, they are often restricted by land that they originally could have thrived in that’s taken up by humans.

In conclusion, global warming is a serious issue that deserves to be more recognized. The reason this is so important is because animals' lives are on the line. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that if temperatures continue to rise as they are currently on average globally, by 2100 around 20 to 30 percent of species of animals and plants are at risk of extinction. For animals to exist they need plenty of food, which includes plants. Animals may be doing ‘alright’ currently, but evidence shows that in the future it’ll be much harder to survive for many of them.

 

 

 

Homework: How much is right?

By: James G.

           

 

Imagine you come home ready to finally unwind after a day of school. Your relaxation quickly fades away as you remember about the piles of homework school has cursed upon you. You bite the bullet and stay awake until late at night doing worksheet after worksheet. Some schools give too much homework than is necessary, hoping kids will do better when they are assigned a lot of homework.

            A rule of thumb is ten minutes of homework for every grade level. For example, if you were in the eighth grade, you would get 80 minutes of homework every day. If you were in the third grade, you would get 30 minutes of homework. Are schools following the guidelines of the 10 minute rule?

            In the Journal of Experiential Education, they found that many high school students reported receiving over three hours of homework. The ten minute rule says that high school students should get at most two hours of homework. Robert Pressman, PhD, found elementary students were getting up to three times the amount of homework that the ten minute rule states.

            With schools giving so much homework, they are hoping students will do better academically. Is that actually true? In a 2015 study of Spanish students, they found that students who were regularly assigned homework performed better academically. However, when the amount of homework reached around 90 minutes, scores decreased. Another study showed that there was barely any correlation between the amount of homework and how well they did for elementary school students. The amount of homework for middle school students had a positive correlation until the amount of homework was about one to two hours. After that, the performance of students plateaued.

            Effects of too much homework are students being burnt out towards school, stress, sleep deprivation, and obviously, less free time. Students may also be stressed from parents' high standards, many giving them extra homework and tutors. This can overwhelm the child, and they may face chastisement if they can’t fulfill these tasks. Many students also have extracurricular activities, like sports and clubs. These activities give students less time to finish their homework. Kids also get less time for hobbies. Of course, being outside and active is important for their health, but even time on social media can give kids a needed break.

            Not only is the amount of homework wrong, but the type of homework is bad. Lots of homework is in the form of worksheets. You fill them in, turn them in, and the teacher checks them. This is an ineffective use of homework. A more effective way to learn is called the flipped classroom.

            A flipped classroom is where students learn about the material at home, usually through a video, and do problems at school. Basically, you’re flipping the work at home and at school. This allows kids to work at their own pace, rewinding the video as needed. At school, teachers can work with students if they need help.

            Homework is still important for kids to understand the material they learn. However, too much of anything is not good, and homework is no exception. This could be the era where teachers can finally understand how students learn best.

 

 

  Racks vs. Terrariums

By: Wyatt P.

 

 

Does a dozen reptiles dying sound good?  Even if you are a reptile hater, this can’t sound good to you.  The person it happens to could have lost hundreds if not thousands of dollars.   With the rack system, this can happen fairly easily.

Rack systems are when there are vertical tubs.  This does maximize space, but it minimizes other more important needs that the reptile requires.  One of these things is that it minimizes the space given to the animal inside.  It mostly provides little enrichment for the animal to play and have more climbing space.  With all this, if a thermostat fails, the animals that you have on the rack will be cold.  The reason for this is because all the tubs on the rack are connected to one electrical source and thermostat.  This might be good for people with large-scale breeding, but only one in four hundred people do large-scale breeding.  The other negative is that racks are hard to find.

Terrariums, on the other hand, have a lot of good uses.  They are easy to find at pretty much every pet store.  If you go to the reptile section you can find a great range of sizes and types for your individual pet needs.  Racks, on the other hand, are not found at your average pet store, so you would have to get them online.

            Terrariums have good viewing, so you can put all kinds of cool plants and logs to make it look good, and it will also make more enrichment, which will be good for your animal.  You can easily watch your pet at any time.    The terrariums are made out of glass, which makes you able to see your pet at all angles.  The rack system is made out of plastic with a small screen of glass, so it is hard to openly view your pet.

Terrariums are also very attractive. Since they are bigger, you can add cool touches.  With this, you don’t only make it look better, but you also add more enrichment and space for your pet to move and have more room.

Terrariums also are good because they can give all types of enrichment.  Enrichment allows your pet to become smarter, learn how to adapt to change and continue to hunt for food.  With this, your pet will become more open to face challenges.

Terrariums can also come in different sizes for a more diverse range of animals.  Terrariums can come in tall and long sizes, so they are more useful for the climbing geckos.  They are also well ventilated.  Terrariums also allow you to have UVB light for the animal, unlike most racks.

With more keepers talking about reptiles on YouTube, people are listening to them.  The YouTubers are spreading myths and supporting the minimalistic approach.  One of these myths is that if you use real substrate the animal will always get congested.  Though it is possible for them to become congested, there are ways to avoid this health crisis.  You could feed them in a special container.  Also, the wild reptiles live on a substrate, so this makes a more natural environment.

Terrariums need to be used by more people.  The thing about terrariums is they could be used for all reptiles and amphibians.  Racks, on the other hand, can only be used for ground-dwelling reptiles.   This is why terrariums are better for the animal than racks are most of the time.  With terrariums, we will change the industry of breeding and keeping.