The Nuclear Power Problem

By: Cooper R.

         Imagine yourself in the middle of the worst nuclear storage disaster in human history; the sky is red with tiny particles that burn wherever they touch your skin. Your eyes sting and don't get better no matter how much you blink or rub them. You know that you are on your final breaths as the world seems to become a flameless fire around you. The brening is only relieved by your parting from this world and into the next. This could almost be you. 

       When a family of four moved to Simi Valley, California, in 2018, they had no idea that the family’s new home was within five miles of a former nuclear and rocket testing laboratory. This comes with the added Radioactive cesium-137, strontium-90, plutonium-239 and tritium in their water source.  This could lead to cancer and other mutatious diseases. This is one just of 120,000 cases in the world of particles emitting ionizing radiation in the world.

       The staggering amount of nuclear waste that is produced by an average American household running fully on nuclear fuel every year would produce a staggering 30 grams of nuclear waste every year. This means with over 123.6 million households in the U.S. as of 2020, if all of America was running off purely nuclear energy that would equate to 4087 U.S. tons a year!

       This is assuming power only came from traditional reactors. However, 30g/year could be mitigated by using more fuel efficient reactors that recycle the nuclear waste by using a recycling plant to separate the fission products from the plutonium and the uranium to then be used again in the reactor as fuel once more. The grams per year using this method could be minagated to  0.3118445g/year when you use the recycling plant in tandem with the nuclear reactor.

       Another plus is that the nuclear reactor in tandem with the recycling plant is unlike uranium and plutonium that have a lifespan of 1,000,000 years; the fission product has only a lifetime of 300 years. That means less storage is needed and is overall cheaper to use nuclear power with the cost of 300 year storage facilities than for the cost of large 1,000,000 year storage facilities. And by bringing down the cost of the storage you could focus on the power distributing network to expand into places where power is not widely accessible. 

       The staggering amount of nuclear waste is stacking up, and the time to act is now or never; with more and more nuclear waste being made every day, the land for habitation also diminishes. In such a small world we are on, this will greatly restrict the goals for human civilization.This proves that nuclear waste management needs to be thoroughly revised for the hope of future generations.

How do video games affect kids?

By: Chase M.

       How often do you play video games? If not, how often do you see people play video games? Video games are very common in today's world with all of our technology, so how do these games affect the 3.32 billion active gamers that play and pass the time with them?

       Video games always have some sort of topic or idea in them. For example, there are video games representing sports, life scenarios, etc. When Robert A. was young, he played baseball and soccer. He tried his best at both sports and, “earned one year on a select soccer team,” as he said. But when middle school hit, his athletic career ended as he was no longer able to make any teams on baseball or soccer. He then developed a passion for Madden and loved to play Madden with his step dad. Sometime during middle school Robert decided that he, “was a football video game fan,” but still did not like football. As he grew up through school and became a college student, he would play in the school's Madden tournaments, and he “had no choice but to learn the ins and outs of the game.” He soon developed a passion for watching Baylor’s football games. Robert ended up loving the sport of football and became a super fan of the NFL. After all, he easily was able to develop a new passion for football from scratch by just playing Madden.

       More than you can tell, all of these video games that kids are playing affect them. Friendship between kids is really important in their lives as studies show that kids bond together as they play together, get to communicate, and use teamwork skills. Kids' communication is salient because they could become socially anxious or nervous to talk to others. “Parents should know what their kids are playing, and who they’re playing with. Parents can play, too. It’s a chance for you to have conversations and to think together. It can be a bonding time,” says Dr. Bilge-Johnson of the division of Pediatric Psychiatry at Akron’s children. One way that communication and teamwork will help is by getting to know each other and the other person's personality. Another way is by the kids getting to teach each other, and they get to cooperate to help one another.

       One of the biggest problems is, “It’s not as simple as it’s good or it’s bad,” said child psychiatrist Dr. Sumru Bilge-Johnson.  They can’t tell whether or not the good of video games outweighs the bad of video games. One of the many repeated good things about video games is that it helps with cognitive (knowledge) skills such as when you have cognitive tests. As studies show, the kids that played video games had a better score on a CogAT(Cognitive Ability Test) than kids that didn’t play video games. One of these factors could have been kids able to learn history through games. For example, a game that uses you as a real person's point of view would help teach history.  “Overall, neither duration of play nor choice of video game genres had significant correlations with the CogAT measures. That result shows no direct linkage between video game playing and cognitive performance, despite what had been assumed,” said May Jadalla, professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University.

       Video games increase hand eye coordination and reduce stress. Kids can also become more creative by playing video games, for they get to imagine and come up with more ideas. An active video game would really help kids because it can be really significant to exercise and stay active. “Games like Minecraft can benefit kids in several ways. Through these brain games they learn problem solving, strategizing, flexibility and also social skills,” said Dr. Bilge-Johnson.

       One of the biggest benefits of video games is that kids can learn to handle how to lose, yet they can also learn how to compete and try to beat other people. As if they play games online that have only one winner, kids would automatically become competitive and understand why you want to compete. Leadership skills can also be very apparent when competing against others, and when you are struggling in a game one person may take leadership and try to help another. Another example of a game giving a really immense effect on kids is games with memorization skills. Various tests and studies of kids' capability of memory ended up proving that kids could as well do better at memorizing different patterns and shapes after playing video games.

       With video games having over 3.3 billion players, all of the people who play video games get affected in some way. No matter what games they play there can be an impact. As long as you're able to manage yourself,  you can become a healthier person overall.

Puppy Mill? More like Torture House!

By: Bryn L.

       Did you know that 90% of the puppies in pet stores across the United States are from puppy mills? Well, it’s true! All those puppies have been poorly treated and harmed. Millions of puppies are brutally tortured, and many of them die.

       The scared dog was harshly dragged out of his cramped and filthy cage and worthlessly tossed into a bucket along with some dead dogs. He was left to die a long and painful death. Luckily, a worker nearby noticed he was still breathing. The worker pulled him out and gave him medical attention. Then the dog got his picture taken. The dog was a father to hundreds of puppies. The dog had heart disease, a fused spine, a broken tail, gnarled toes, and deformed legs. Also, the dog had a missing eye because he was in his cage while it was getting power-washed. 

       Rudi Taylor, the dog’s new owner, knew that the dog, Harley, was meant to be with her. Rudi drove a few states over to pick up Harley. Rudi wanted to give Harley a loving home for his final days. The vet had said that he would live for about three more months. Rudi gave Harley a soft bed, good food, and clean water, but most importantly, Rudi gave Harley love, something that Harley hadn’t gotten since the day he was born.

       There are approximately 10,000 puppy mills in the United States. In each of those puppy mills, there are around 200,000 dogs. That means that there are two billion dogs held in puppy mills across the United States. Out of that two billion, two million of them are dying each year.

       Breeding started during the Great Depression as a way to make money. Nowadays, the situation has gotten worse. Multiple dogs are held in small, makeshift kennels. Usually made of wire mesh, wood, tractor-trailer cabs, or just chains tied to trees, sometimes they’re even put in cramped cages, stacked seven rows high. The feces from the dogs on top fall on the dogs below. Dogs receive little to no veterinary care, even when they are ill. Most of the time, dogs are left outside in their cages through the roughest weather: harsh winters, rainy springs, scorching summers, and foggy falls.

       There are usually only two or three caretakers taking care of all the puppies in one puppy mill. Female dogs are bred until they can't anymore. Then they’re auctioned off or killed. Litters are ripped out of their mothers’ care as soon as they’re eight weeks old. Mothers and their litters lack proper nutrition from small quantities of poorly made food. They are given small dishes of water and are usually left thirsty and dehydrated. This leads to most of the illnesses that the dogs in puppy mills have. The dogs in puppy mills suffer from health conditions that include crusty, oozing eyes, red scabs all over their skin, raging ear infections, and abscessed feet due to bad floors. The dogs also suffer from severe genetic defects like physical problems and personality disorders that make people not want them.

       Every time you buy a puppy from a pet shop, you’re promoting puppy mills to just keep on torturing more and more dogs. Puppy mills are cruel places that harm the puppies that are held there. The only way to stop these heartless puppy mills is to stop supporting them. One way you can do this is by not buying puppies from pet shops but instead adopting them from an animal shelter. It’s been 94 years since breeding started in the 1930s; don’t you think it’s time for a change?

Video Games are beneficial to play

By: Ashton  H.

       If a surgeon plays video games then they will be 37% less likely to blunder their surgery. After playing video games you can develop or strengthen cognitive skills to better your brain.

       Some features in video games can sharpen your skills, such as “Quick Time Events” (or QTEs) where suddenly the player is given the prompt to push a specific button in a short amount of time. QTEs can improve the player’s hand-eye coordination and reaction timing. QTEs are mostly found in action-adventure games. One study by Dr. James Rosser Jr. and colleagues found that surgeons that play action-adventure video games for three hours or more each week perform better on surgeries, with 37% less mistakes and 27% faster than surgeons who don’t play video games at all. Reward systems can be stimulating to a player. Each digital trophy gives a player a sense of accomplishment. There are many multiplayer games out there, and each one encourages teamwork, whether it be by making the games easier for teams or by simply making a team required.

       The recommended amount of video games that a child should play per day is three hours. Playing for just three hours can go a long way. Three hours of playing video games can strengthen your Cerebellum and Hippocampus, which are the parts of the brain responsible for memorizing information, as well as hand-eye coordination. Playing video games also stimulates the frontal lobe, which is the part of the brain responsible for attention. According to some studies, spending three or more hours on video games can make your brain better at memorizing information, speed, and accuracy on brain tests.

       In one study, about 2,000 children played video games for three hours per day; this group performed better on cognitive tests than another group who had never played a video game in their life. “This study adds to our growing understanding of the association between playing video games and brain development,” said NIDA director Nora Volkow M.D. “This study suggests that there may also be cognitive benefits associated with this popular pastime, which are worthy of further investigation.” One ongoing study by the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) states that three or more hours of video games per day gives you more brain activity and attention span.

       Video games can be beneficial to play by improving your brain and coordination. We live in a time where your brain is more important than ever, so video games might be crucial to play.

Child abuse and the effects on children

By: Anna S.

       We all have someone we consider a minor in our life, whether that’s a child, friend, sibling, or even yourself. One out of four children will experience abuse in their lifetime. Child abuse should be given more attention.

       In 1860 a medical expert named Auguste Ambroise researched 32 cases, 18 of which were fatal. Adeline Defert was returned at the age of eight to her parents and for nine years was whipped daily, hung by her thumbs and beaten with nailed plank, burnt with hot coals, and had wounds bathed in nitric acid. Agusta said, “When we consider the tender age of these poor defenceless beings, subjected daily and almost hourly to savage atrocities, unimaginable tortures and harsh privation, their lives one long martyrdom – and when we face the fact that their tormentors are the very mothers who gave them life, we are confronted with one of the most appalling problems that can disturb the soul of a moralist, or the conscience of justice." He said it best. This is one of the most appalling problems, and one of the hardest things to accept is happening in our world.

       Not all cases of abuse look like Adelines. What she mostly experienced is called physical abuse. Physical abuse is the intentional injury or trauma caused by body contacts to another person. Out of all kids who experience abuse, 18% of them experience physical abuse. Physical abuse usually has long lasting effects on the child's development and is the second most popular form of abuse. Everyday five children die from child abuse, most of those kids being under three years old. Physical abuse is probably one of the easiest kinds of abuse to spot. Random bruises or marks on a child's body can be a sign that there may be abuse happening at home. Most children are too afraid to say anything about it as they might be too afraid to “tell on” their caregivers. This is why when we are suspicious that something is happening to a child, asking them if they are safe at home could change their lives forever.

       The most common form of abuse is neglect. Out of all the kids who struggled with child abuse, 78% of them had to deal with neglect. Neglect is when the parent or caretaker of the child fails to provide for the child's basic needs; this usually results in the child's physical and/or mental health being put at tremendous risk. Basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, medical care, attention, love, and supervision are essential for a child to grow up in a healthy and happy home. If the guardians or caretakers of these children fail to meet these basic needs, it can result in major effects for the child's health. These effects can include behavioral and emotional difficulties, such as internalizing problems, heightened anxiety and emotional reactivity. 

       One of the not as popular forms of abuse is sexual abuse. Only about 9% of the kids who have been abused were sexually abused. Sexual abuse is when someone over 18 uses a minor (someone under 18) for sexual stimulations and/or sexual acts, or when a minor forces another minor to do sexual things. Sexual abuse is one of the less reported mostly because the person who was abused didn’t know it’s considered abuse. This can be because the person who assaulted them makes it seem like it is completely normal. The website Child Protect says, “1 out of 3 girls and 1 out of 5 boys will be sexually abused before they reach age 18.”

       In the U.S. alone 600,000 kids are abused each year; 1,820 end up passing away. So if you know someone who's being abused or see signs of someone being abused, speak up; you never know who’s life you could be saving. 

Woman in sports get paid less than men

By: Alyssia P.

       Could you imagine doing the same work just to get less pay? Women in sports get paid 200% less than men in sports. There is so much work that needs to be done in fixing the gender pay gap. 

       In a recent interview with Kendell Conyne Schofeild, she pointed out that women's hockey has no pro league to play in after college. Kendall is also forced to be a head hockey coach because she isn’t making enough money on her semi-pro hockey team even though she is the highest paid player on her team. Growing up, Kendell knew hockey would be unfair in the fact that she is a woman. She knew this because she was the only girl on her childhood team. Kendall believes, “if women got the same resources as the NHL, it would be a great start for women to have the same benefits as men.”  Some of the benefits men have over women are sponsors, health care, and health insurance. For example, USA hockey offers two kinds of health insurance for men. Men also still earn money when they are hurt; they could even be earning their whole salary.  Overall, hockey has one of the biggest pay gaps and isn’t doing anything to help close it.         

       In an interview with the USA Women's Hockey team they spoke out about all the hard work they do just to be paid unfairly. The six time world champions speak out about how they cannot afford to play hockey as a full time job because they aren't getting enough pay. “We are asking for a living wage and for USA hockey to fully support its programs for women and girls and to stop treating us like an afterthought,” captain Meghan Duggan said, according to ESPN. “We have represented our country with dignity and deserve to be treated with fairness and respect.” This quote from Meghan Duggan expresses her feelings toward the gender pay gap in the fact that ESPN thinks they deserve to be treated with fairness and respect from not only USA hockey, but also from fans of hockey. The USA women's hockey team also protested the 2017 World Championship because of the lack of respect and fairness the league claims to be giving them. The league has come out and said they are making changes to close the gap, but the players are not seeing the effect. Hockey to this day has the biggest gender pay gap.

       Hockey isn’t the only sport that has an outrageous gap in pay. Basketball does too. The average yearly salary for an NBA player is $8.3 million dollars. The yearly salary for a WNBA player is only $75,181. The website Goal Five states that, “The highest-paid women's basketball player has earned less than the lowest-paid National Basketball Association player.” There is a 200% pay gap between men and women basketball players. Stephen Curry makes $50 million dollars a year and isn’t the highest paid men’s player. But take into perspective that Jackie Young is the highest paid women's basketball player making only $252,450. The WNBA is also not giving women the same perks as men. 

       One of the main reasons that the WNBA is suffering is the fact that they are not getting the same perks as men. These include media, the hype, the sponsorships, and sports coverage. Sports coverage is one of the main issues in the WNBA. Women only are getting 0.4% coverage compared to men. Media coverages aren’t giving women the same opportunities to earn money because they are not covering them. One example of this is in the 2023-24 college basketball season when six out of seven major newspapers had less than half of their stories about women's college basketball. The Chicago Tribune, on the other hand, had none.    Nneka Ogwumike, a WNBA player, also says that players feel that if they spoke out against the unfairness the league wouldn't make any changes. For example, a quote from the WNBA states, “It's not something we're thinking about at all. I know that's what comes to people minds that are not inside negotiations, but strike, lockout, that's nothing of any concern for us because that's not our goal.” This is showing that the WNBA is not planning to make any changes even when the players have spoken out against the unfairness.   

       Women's soccer is also affected dramatically by the gender pay gap. “Currently the male and female average salaries differ by 25% in international soccer and 2000% in club soccer.” Women in 2015 won the World Cup and only got paid two million dollars. But on the other hand, the men's team lost in the first round and got paid eight million dollars. As of today the highest paid women's soccer player, Alex Morgan, is getting paid $7.1 million. While the highest paid mens player, Cristiano Ronaldo, is getting paid $260 million.  Female soccer players are only making 25 cents to a male soccer player’s every dollar. Women's soccer players are affected each and every day with the amount of pay they are getting, or in this case, not getting. 

       Tennis stands out as being one of the few sports that is making a difference in the gender pay gap. As of today, the top ten highest paid women in sports are all tennis players. The U.S. Open, Australian Open, and French Open all pay their male and female athletes equal prize money. Men’s yearly income is 18% more than women's, but at least tennis is trying to make a difference and is one of the only sports that is doing so.  

       Women are working just as hard as men to get paid unfairly. There's so much work that needs to be done in fixing the almost 200% gender gap in pay. At least some sports organizations are trying to end the unfairness that continues to this day. As we move towards more gender equality in sports, then it would level the playing field for all children in the future. 

The Gun Violence Epidemic

By: Aileana E.

       In the U.S. more than 316 people die every day due to gun violence, a rate about seven times higher than Canada and 360 times higher than the United Kingdom. Gun violence has been occurring since the 1980s, and yet it is still one of the most prominent issues in the United States. But why, amongst all of the challenges our country faces, is gun violence so important to stop?

       Take Todriana Peters, a 12-year-old girl from New Orleans. Todriana was a sweet but stubborn girl who liked to clean, go to nail salons, and do people’s makeup. She also liked to dance and would perform TikTok dances in her living room with her cousin, Brione, who was her best friend. As her grandmother said, “She was a sweetheart. She was our sweetheart.” Then, on May 30th, Todriana and Brione threw an end of the school year party for little kids. On their way back from the party, they stopped at the party where Brione’s brother was to get a charger from him. During the few short minutes they were there, someone opened fire from outside. Two people were injured, and Todriana, who was shot in the head, died. Her family, like so many others across the nation, was plunged into a state of devastation and grief for the innocent life that was so cruelly destroyed because of a person with a gun.

       Gun violence is not just killing people in New Orleans, it’s happening everywhere in the United States, around the clock. Gun violence occurs so often that in just half a year, roughly 21,000 people die from the pulling of triggers. And to top that, there are more than 300 mass shootings every year. The level of violence is, “Most definitely a public health emergency,” says Daniel Webster, an American Health professor and director of the Center for Gun Violence Prevention at John Hopkins. Although many might not want to admit it, Webster’s words speak the truth. 

       Gun violence is an issue that stalks our nation throughout the year, with no less than 327 people shot each day, but some times of the year, like holidays, are more fatal than others. On the fourth of July in 2022, seven people were shot and killed during a parade in Illinois. On that same day, a mass shooting occurred in Chicago, killing ten and injuring sixty. Although mass shootings definitely catch the most eye, the rate of suicides has been rising as well, with 132 people commiting suicide everyday, and almost half of all suicides involving a gun.

       Even though guns evidently cause an abundance of death when put in the wrong hands, they are still fairly easy to access. In 2021, over 43 million guns were bought in the U.S., which led gun deaths to rise 44.1 percent, the highest rate of gun deaths since 1995. With 400 million guns in just the U.S., of course there is bound to be violence. 

       Some states, like New Jersey, have recognized the connection between easy access to guns and the level of gun violence and have tightened their laws to make it harder for people who are likely to commit violence to just walk into a store and pay for a gun. Some laws include needing a purchaser identification card to purchase rifles and shotguns, and you can only purchase one handgun within a 30-day period. This means that someone has to be verified that they are allowed to purchase guns, and that they can’t make a stockpile of guns very easily.  As a result, many of the northern states with stricter gun laws like New Jersey’s have seen a huge decrease in the number of gun deaths, with only 191 killed all year due to gun violence, whereas in many the looser-lawed southern states, gun violence has spiked, with almost all of them seeing over 1,000 gun deaths a year.

       Another issue that is sending gun violence prevention screeching to a halt is the assumption that the people committing violence with a gun are all mentally ill. The truth is that people with treatable mental illnesses only make up about four percent of people who commit gun violence but are actually more likely to be the victims. It’s clear that other factors are much more closely associated with gun violence, like trauma in childhood, being young and male, having poor anger control, and most of all, having easy access to a firearm. 

       It’s scary to think that someone in your own neighborhood might commit gun violence one day, so people put the blame on those with mental illnesses. “Gun violence is a tragedy that demands an explanation, and the stigma of mental illness is something that fuels pseudo-explanations," said Jennifer Skeem, a clinical psychologist and professor of public policy and social welfare at the University of California. “It’s a fake explanation.” 

       The real explanation of why the tragedy of gun violence is happening is that not everyone is getting the support they need, and everyone needs to step up to support their friends and family. It’s important in stopping gun violence that we support everyone, especially those with trauma in their childhood, as trauma can leave damaging effects on learning, behavior, and health, which increases the risk of committing gun violence. 

       The person who pulled the trigger is definitely the one to blame for the people that they killed or injured, but not as many people would have even been hurt if the person who killed them didn’t have a gun. “There is a self fulfilling prophecy of, ‘I need a gun because everyone else around me has a gun’,” says Sasha Cotton, Director of Minneapolis Office of Violence Prevention. It’s not necessarily bad to have a gun, and many people use guns for recreational purposes such as hunting, but the types of guns that have killed so many people are not guns that are used for hunting.  These guns are called high capacity magazines, and they allow the shooter to fire for a long time without stopping to reload.

       In the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, one of the most deadly mass shootings in the nation, the shooter used a high capacity magazine to kill fifty people without stopping. If the shooter had needed to stop firing to reload, many of those people would probably have been able to get away. Hunting does not use high capacity magazines, so there is no reason not to have a nationwide ban on them. It would certainly save a lot of people and would only make people’s lives safer. 

       
       Gun violence takes many innocent lives everyday, but it doesn’t get nearly enough attention to make a dent in the tragedy. While there are many problems that our country faces that can’t be stopped very quickly or efficiently, like global warming, if we work together to tighten gun laws and support everyone, we have the power to end gun violence once and for all.