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Final Project: For their final project, this class put together several ways to impact people who smoke. They recognized the public health risk that smoking presents to non-smokers and they wanted to take a stand against it here at MHS. They wanted to ask the school to change its rules to make the no-smoking policy more strict and they wrote and passed around a petition to do so. In addition, several student in the class are Chinese and they recognized that smoking is an issue within the Chinese immigrant community. They wrote up a second petition in Chinese with specific data about smoking in China. To better understand how many students here at MHS were active smokers, they write a survey about smoking and awareness of the effects of smoking. They collected and tallied their data but learned in the process that the careful construction of survey questions is incredibly important. Their hope was to use the data to convince the school nurse to provide smoking cessation support in her office for students but that part of the vision fell short. Finally, a group of students made posters to hang around the school to shock smokers into quitting--they used bright colors and photographs of rotten teeth, receding gums, tumors, and blackened lungs.

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ACTION GROUPS:

SURVEY: **(Jean-Cary, Elta, Muhammad, Kenya, Waagda, Farah, Benedick, Micky, Hardeep)**
 * responsible for writing all surveys for all groups to be polled (parents, teens, any others?)
 * must use effective questioning strategies to collect specific data
 * responsible for creating a survey on surveymonkey.com, organizing distribution of it (where and how to post it)
 * responsible for creating any paper surveys and organizing distrubution and collection of them
 * responsible for analyzing all information collected
 * strategies for getting people to take the surveys--how to get parents? how to get kids?

INFLUENCING DECISION MAKERS: **(Sebastien, Shuyan, Ping, Yanling, Yomarie, Jieling, Andrew, Philip, Andrew)**
 * be ready to explain why this is an important issue and why the public should care about it
 * identifying people in the Malden community who have decision making power
 * how to contact them
 * deciding how to inform them of our cause/work: meetings, emails, petitions, presentations, etc.
 * interviewing decision makers to gather information that can help us

GETTING MEDIA ATTENTION: **(Joaquim, Quianna, Rai, Patricia, Kira, Justina, Aldo, Thaycha, James)**
 * be ready to explain why this is an important issue and why the public should care about it
 * responsible for deciding how to use different aspects of the media to spread the word
 * responsible for deciding which types of media we should use--newspapers, tv, internet, posters, bulletin boards, etc.
 * organizing contact with media sources, arranging schedules, meetings, press releases, etc.

TAKING ACTION... what will you do with all this information you have acquired? how do you want to share this with the community? what is your message and how do you want to get it out there? What changes can you make in our community regarding this issue?

**Homework due for Thursday, April 7:** **1. Conduct research on your topic and the questions assigned to your Task group.** **2. Click on the 'discussion' tab above.** **3. Read your classmates comments.** **4. Post your own comment and summary of your research. (you need to be logged into your own wikispaces account to be able to post on my discussion tab).**

**CLASSWORK for Tuesday, April 5:** Today in class we will break into 4 groups to tackle the four tasks below. You can use the internet to search for answers to these questions, but mostly you need to brainstorm WHERE you might find these answers beyond online resources. You will need to think about people and organizations in the community who can provide us with information about this. //You will need at least one person in your group to record your thorough and detailed work today and then email it to me so that I can post it on your class's page.//

**Focus Issue: What is the problem/issue?**

Teens are smoking despite knowing that it's dangerous for their health.
** TASKS: ** **1. Identifying the Problem and Learning its History:** (Elta, Shuyan, Barbara, Philip, Waagda, Hardeep, Sebastien)

What statistics and evidence is there to prove that teens smoke?
What percentage of teens smoke? What percentage of teens who smoke try to quit? Do they want to quit? Is there support for quitting? How easy is it for teens under the age of 18 to get cigarettes? What percentage smoke substances other than cigarettes? What previous attempts have been made to address this? Have tobacco companies specifically targeted teens as potential customers?

**2. Resources:** (Kira, Yomarie, Justina, Kenya, James, Ojus, Joaquim, Mickyas) What sources can we access to learn about the history of this problem? What organizations exist in Malden, in Massachusetts, in the nation that can provide information? Who can we talk to who will help us to collect the needed information?

**3. Causes:** (Jean Cary, Yanling, Farah, Jieling, Rai, Quianna, Andrew) What specific factors lead to this problem? Is it a problem for all teens in Malden or just some? Why? What kind of data can we collect to prove that this is a real problem? How can we collect the data? What role do family and friends play in smoking--either in starting up smoking or in choosing not to smoke?

**4. Effects: (Ping, Billie Rae, Aldo, Xiuyu, Patricia, Benedick, Muhammad)** What impact is the problem having on people, property, environment, organizations, etc? What are the long term health effects of smoking on teens? What are the short tern health effects? Why is this an important issue to address and to raise awareness about? What data can we collect to know specific statistics of the effects of boredom on teens? How can we collect this data?

Classmates wikispaces pages:

ALAIN, ELTA: http://ealaingc7.wikispaces.com/ ALUSMA, THAYCHA: http://talusmagc7.wikispaces.com/ AUGUSTIN, MARIE KIRA: kiragc7.wikispaces.com CHARLES, JEAN-CARY: http://carygc7.wikispaces.com/ CHEN, PING: http://pingchengc7.wikispaces.com CHEN, SHUYAN: http://shuyanchengc7.wikispaces.com/ CHEN, YANLING: http://yanlingchengc7.wikispaces.com/ CINTRON ORTIZ, YOMARIE: http://yomariecintron.wikispaces.com/ COE, BILLIE-RAE: http://billieraegc7.wikispaces.com/ DESAUGUSTE, JUSTINA: http://justinagc7.wikispaces.com/ FRANCOIS, FARAH: http://farahgc7.wikispaces.com , KURBINI, ALDO: http://aldogc7.wikispaces.com/ LEI, PHILIP: http://philipgc7.wikispaces.com/ LI, JIELING: http://megan720.wikispaces.com/ LI, XIUYU: http://xiuyugc7.wikispaces.com/ LONG, QUIANNA: http://quiannalonggc7.wikispaces.com/ LOUIS, KENYA: http://kenyalouisgc7.wikispaces.com/ LOUIS, WAAGDA: http://waagdagc7.wikispaces.com/ MUSASA KAPALANGA, PATRICIA: http://patriciagc7.wikispaces.com/ NOEL, JAMES: http://jnoelgc7.wikispaces.com/ RAMIREZ, RAIDHIRYS: **http://raidhirys.wikispaces.com/ ** SEQUEIRA, JOAQUIM: http://joaquimsgc7.wikispaces.com SINGH, HARDEEP: http://hardeep.wikispaces.com/ ST BRICE, BENEDICK: http://benedickstbricegc7.wikispaces.com/ ST VIL, SEBASTIEN: http://sebastiengc7.wikispaces.com/ WALEED, MUHAMMAD: http://muhammadwaleed.wikispaces.com/ WILLIAM, ANDREW YIHDEGO HAGOS, MICKYAS: http://mickygc7.wikispaces.com/