Let's start with the obvious first: climate change. With everyone so caught up on how to solve the problem, many forget to wonder why it exists in the first place. According to an article called Global Climate Change: What You Need to Know by Melissa Denchak, “Humans—more specifically, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions we generate—are the leading cause of the earth’s rapidly changing climate…. the amount of these gases in our atmosphere has skyrocketed in recent decades.”

We aren’t just creating problems though, we also take from the environment; a lot more than we give back. Human Ecology by Bill Freedman states that “One reason [of environmental overexploitation] is the desire of individuals, corporations, and societies to gain short-term profits and wealth, even if this occurs at the expense of longer-term, sometimes irreversible damage to resources and the environment.” Has anyone stopped to think whether it is worth it? Creating irreversible damage to the environment, all for money? I don't know about you, but that seems very shallow to me. Does no one bother to consider their impacts on the environment?

An article in The New York Times, Tourism’s Crash Helped the Planet, And Harmed It, Too by Lisa W. Foderaro, “With flights canceled, cruise ships mothballed and vacations largely scrapped, carbon emissions plummeted. Wildlife that usually kept a low profile amid a crush of tourists in vacation hot spots suddenly emerged. And a lack of cruise ships in places like Alaska meant that humpback whales could hear each other's calls without the din of engines.” Although some people may think that this is good news, it just proves how much we have taken over and how the environment has adapted to learn to live around us.

All we do is take, take, take with any consideration for anyone but ourselves. Since we caused so much destruction and so many problems, it's only fair that we solve them ourselves. The New York Times article also states that Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist, says “‘It's a lot and it's a little,’... ‘Historically, it's a lot. It's the largest single reduction percent-wise over the last 100 years. But when you think about the 7 percent in the context of what we need to do to mitigate climate change, it's a little,’” when asked about the drastic drop in greenhouse gas emissions in the last year. And that’s just because COVID is keeping everyone restricted. We obviously aren’t doing enough to solve our problems so far, but if we are more aware and less selfish, little by little, we can make up for all the harm we have done.

I think that working online/ using tablets should be the primary way of learning in schools  because of the effects it has on our world and the amount of wastage. Around 115 million tons of paper that has been made THIS YEAR, one ton of paper is 200000 pieces of paper.There has been around 7,843 hectares of forest cut down or burned.One hectare contains around 1600 trees,  around 12,548,800 trees have been cut down or burned. Trees help keep us alive by converting carbon dioxide which is poisonous to humans to oxygen which we need to survive. Reducing the amount of co2 in the air is necessary for survival because co2 can kill you, many people have died from it.

I think that working online/ using tablets should be the primary way of learning in schools because of the effects on our overall health.Without as much travel time that means you get to spend more time with family which is good for your health. When you are with your family it usually reduces the stress level meaning your mental health goes up making you happier and more efficient. So working online lets you spend more time with family which as i said before was good for your health. When paper rots it releases toxic methane gas. The methane gas that paper releases is 25 times more toxic than co2 and people die from co2 poisoning so the gas is super deadly to the human body. Which could kill you easily.

Some people might say that learning online is hurting the current generation but i don’t think it is.“Is it really worth it to cut down our life saving trees for this product?” “Every tree produces enough oxygen for 3 people to breathe” ( Both quotes from The world counts:paper comes from trees) and if we cut down 12,548,800 trees then we removed 37,646,400 different peoples' breath. I  want the coming generations to not have to worry about oxygen and the amount of trees being cut down.Even if people think we are losing a generation to learning online, we may be losing some generations by not leaning electronically.

Think about the amount of trees being cut down, I think that we should all help save the forests and trees being cut down by reducing the amount of paper waste and being a little more electronically based. Why should the coming generation live in the problems that we created.

In the same article Neighmond also talks about how petting a dog makes your oxytocin (a hormone that makes you feel relieved of stress and anxiety), and how out of 4000 dog owners majority noticed a better mental state. “NEIGHMOND: And Brown says it's reciprocal. He points to research showing that when dogs are petted, they also experience an increase in oxytocin. During the pandemic, psychologist Lori Kogan with Colorado State University says it's a win-win for people and dogs. Kogan worked on an online survey of more than 4,000 dog owners. The vast majority described how pets reduced feelings of loneliness and anxiety.”. Dogs are great support, especially in the pandemic. Many people feel lonely and anxious due to the pandemic, but having a dog can help with that. Dogs make you feel less lonely and anxious, plus even just petting a dog can make you feel more relieved!

Not only can dogs help with your mental health, they can help with your physical health. In the article cnn Benifits Of Having A Pet, the author talks about an experiment on how dogs can help peoples health, especially with cardiovascular disease.”An analysis last year of nearly 4 million people in the United States, Canada, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom found dog ownership was associated with a 24% reduction in dying from any cause. If the person had already suffered a heart attack or stroke, having a dog was even more beneficial; they were 31% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease.”. This shows that dogs are great for your physical health. Dogs can reduce your chance of dying from any cause, especially from cardiovascular disease.

In the same article, it also talks about how dogs reduce your chance of dying in general. “Still, another large study published around the same time found people who owned dogs had better health outcomes after suffering a major cardiovascular event such as heart attack or stroke. The benefit was highest for dog owners who lived alone. Heart attack survivors living alone who owned dogs had a 33% lower risk of death compared to survivors who did not own a dog. Stroke survivors living alone with a dog had a 27% reduced risk of death.”This also shows that dogs are great for your physical health because dog owners who are heart attack and stroke survivors have a lower rate of death.

Some people may ask: What about people who are allergic to dogs? People with a dog allergy can get a dog. How you may ask? You can get a hypoallergenic dog like a bichon Frise, golden doodle, and many more! People with allergies still may get reactions when they first get a hypoallergenic dog, but some people overcome this reaction. When I first got my dog my older sister had reactions, but overtime she got better and now has no reactions when she pets our dog or even when our dog licks her. You can also bathe/clean your dog frequently, that can help with reactions.

As a final point, dogs are great companions that help your body be happier, and your mental state become better. How do you think a dog can beneficially affect your life?

People love feeling included. It is one of the main reasons why people start to use social media in the first place, and they want to express their opinion on events that happen. But you are playing a dangerous game once you get deep into talking about these events. The hedonometer is a tool that was created by Chris Danforth and Peter Dodds, and it takes lots of tweets that people post on Twitter, and finds the most used words to determine how people are doing that day. This tool was able to find that May 31, 2020 was the saddest day in Twitter history, because of the fact that the most used words on that day were “violence,” “racist,” and “terrorist.” This was about a week after the death of George Floyd, when lots of people were protesting the police. Another reason why people who start to get too included in talking about events on social media is because since the pandemic started, so many people have started to use social media, and mainly Twitter. In fact, in the first months of the pandemic, Twitter reported a daily 34 percent average user growth. Why is this a bad thing? Because all of these people who started to use social media in the beginning of 2020 all started to talk about these events, not knowing that the exposition to all these people talking about this was affecting them mentally in a very bad way.

Now, some people don’t feel the need to be included, but they still observe this behavior on social media. This can also be very bad. The people who are just exposing themselves to this also might leave in a bad state, because just knowing or seeing that people are saying all of this on the internet can affect you a lot. Being exposed to these kinds of things can overwhelm your brain. You start to constantly think about events that are happening and your stress levels start to go up, and all of a sudden you don’t know how to respond, but you still just keep going on social media. Another reason why too much exposition on social media can be a bad thing is because lots of people see other people on the internet who are just posting happy pictures of themselves, and they see how they are living, and they compare themselves to them. You then start to feel depressed because you want to live like them but you are just a random person looking at social media.

Some people might say that there are lots of people who use social media all the time and stay happy, like the people who are always posting pictures of themselves living the high life, or just pictures of them being happy. This is not the case. It might not look like it, but those people are just trying to convince themselves that they are happy. They might be just like the people who turn into brain-washed zombies who are always saying their opinions on social media. Pictures can be deceiving, and a lot of people just want others to think they are doing okay, when they really aren’t.

Some people might think social media is cool, because all the cool people use it. But, there is a lot of evidence to prove why it will leave you mentally insecure, and stressed out of your mind. So here is what I propose. You need to know that social media won’t do anything to benefit you in your head, and you need to tell that to everyone that you think might be going through a “social media phase”. I think once people realise that their opinions online don’t do much, and that they won’t be happy with themselves after exposing themselves to too much of this, us people on the internet might finally be happy together.

Increasing the minimum wage will greatly help workers especially ones with families who are struggling to make enough money to cover living expenses.  If you're wondering if there’s actually going to be a significant impact by upping the minimum wage to $15, there is! According to the Economic Policy Institution, if a $15 minimum wage is implemented by 2025, it will result in 3.7 million people moving out of poverty! Poverty is a big issue and increasing the minimum wage will be a big step in fixing this! In the Business Insider article, Gloria Machuca, a prior employee at McDonald’s, worked 80 hours a week making $9.25 an hour. She left her job to sell perfume to try to make enough money to support her family with 6 children. Gloria expressed how a $15 minimum wage would help her, "It would change my life a lot," she said. "Right now, I work all day and I rarely spend time with my family, my kids." This shows how increasing the minimum wage a few dollars may not seem like a huge deal, but it really is especially to workers with families like Gloria!

An increase in the minimum wage to $15 will not only help workers but also the economy! An American Progress article wrote about how an increase in the minimum wage would “make the economy more equitable and drive growth.” A $15 minimum wage will help the economy because it will give workers more money and it will be spent back on the economy, showing how a $15 minimum wage will actually help the economy. Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies explained how, “Boosting the federal minimum wage would lift millions out of poverty and serve as a huge additional pandemic stimulus boost for the entire economy." This shows how increasing the minimum wage will help the economy especially now well people aren't doing so well because of an unexpected pandemic.

 

Some people might say increasing the minimum wage will force small businesses to shut down. A CNBC survey found that most small businesses would be able to take in the rise in labor costs from state and local minimum wages. Also, an American Progress article stated that small businesses “would benefit from a more productive workforce”.

Increasing the minimum wage to $15 would be very beneficial to workers and the economy. You can take action by writing to your local government and asking for an increase in the state minimum wage ultimately leading to a country wide change!

My first reason for why homeschooling deserves more respect is because it gives kids a good education.The article, The Academic and Social Benefits of Homeschooling by Brian D. Ray and Carlos Valiente, talks about the many advantages of homeschooling as well as some other thoughts surrounding it. The article states, “11 of the 14 peer-reviewed studies on academic achievement found that homeschool students significantly outperformed conventionally schooled children. Both of the publicly available state-provided data sets showed higher-than-average test scores for homeschooled children.” Showing that homeschooling can result in higher grades and scores. There are also a lot of parents who think that the school system is either too fast or too slow for their child and gives their child limitations. Homeschooling is also good for this because homeschoolers can move at a pace that is perfect for them. Meaning that they can understand the work better and sometimes get through work faster than kids at public schools.

My second reason for why homeschooling should get more respect is because of the flexibility and safety of it. one main advantage of homeschooling is the flexibility in schedules. A lot of times, families choose to do homeschooling because they are traveling and want to have the ability to do so without messing up their children’s school program. As said in the article, My View: Common myths about homeschooled kids by Alessandra Oliveira, the author, as a parent of a homeschooled daughter states, “They find learning opportunities throughout the day, wherever they are...Homeschooling has built-in flexibility which allows kids to visit museums, galleries, bookstores and many other places much more frequently than children in traditional schools.” Homeschooling also can be much safer than public schooling. At home kids are able to express themselves without worrying about fitting in or being bullied. They are also not being pushed to do things that they are uncomfortable with. Homeschooling is also shown to not be as pressuring on kids. Parents like it because they feel like they have some control over their child’s education. 

Now some people think that not many colleges will accept students who have been homeschooled. However many colleges are changing their criteria for admissions in order to allow homeschoolers to be admitted. And even many years ago, with the increasing popularity of homeschooling, colleges have been adapting their admissions because of the increasing amount of homeschooled applicants. 

From the research I’ve done on this topic I've concluded that the decision on whether to be homeschooled or not depends on the child and type of learning they prefer and do better in. Also different beliefs and values family’s have. A lot of kids don't do well in public school but when they switch to homeschooling they do much better, simply because that is the type of learner they are. While your kid may do better in public school, others excel in homeschooling. So instead of trying to think of reasons why homeschooling is bad, let's just appreciate that kids are getting an education that is right for them.