Category: 5th Grade

Capstone Post #7 – Presenting

It’s presenting time! I was so excited to present my capstone presentation but I was also really nervous and scared. I didn’t want to mess up in front of a huge crowd so I had butterflies in my stomach. My stomach hurt so much but I was so excited to present. By the way, this is what I was feeling for the parent presentation, not the other classes.

Now let me talk to you guys a little bit about my feelings for presenting in front of other classes. For some reason, I was not scared at all. In fact I was so excited that I wanted to present multiple times. It was because I didn’t feel the pressure in front of other classes.

The one thing that I didn’t like when it came to presenting in front of the parents is that, we couldn’t choose who’s presentation that we watched, it was more assigned where you are presenting, and who’s you are watching. Although I thought the presentation where I was was amazing, I wish I saw more.

Capstone was such an amazing project and I’m so happy that I got to do it. It was a great experience to learn more about rescue dogs and I hope I have another project just like it.

Capstone Post #6 – Working on Final Product

It is almost presenting time! I have been working on writing and memorizing my script, and especially getting my presentation ready with all of the animation and photos. Let me tell you guys a little bit about what was hard for me, what was easy for me, and what I had the most fun doing.

Memorizing my script was the hardest part for me. It was hard for me because there was so much to memorize that it was a little overwhelming. You saw my script earlier in my blog post. And the actual one is actually even longer than what you saw. So as you can imagine, it took a long time to memorize my script and to feel comfortable enough with it to present it in front of a big crowd.

Finding photos to support my script was the easiest part for me. Luckily, my topic was easy enough to find really helpful photos to support what I am saying. It was also easy for me because since I like being creative, I get to use my creativity in finding photos and using animations for them.

Since I just mentioned it, let’s talk about how much I love animations. Animating my photos is fun for me, because it also let’s me be creative. But the hard thing about animations is that you can do them, but it can’t be to distracting to the audience. I think this part is fun also because I like challenges.

But overall, finding photos, memorizing my script, and doing animations was the most fun part of capstone for me. It got me excited to present because I knew it was coming soon, and like I said earlier, it let’s me be creative in so many ways.

Capstone Post #5 – Answering Main Inquiry Question

Sub Question #1 – What is a rescue dog and how are they different from puppy store dogs?

First you might be wanting to know before I get started, what is a rescue dog? According to Wikipedia, the definition of a rescue dog is, “a dog that has been placed in a new home after being abused, neglected, or abandoned by it’s previous owner.”

I want to tell you a little more about the comparison between a rescue dog and puppy store dogs, so here it is. Some differences between a rescue dog and a puppy store dog is that puppy store dogs cost much more than rescue dogs. Rescue dogs can cost two hundred dollars up to five hundred dollars, while most of this money is for the actual rescue organization so they can keep on rescuing more dogs and provide them with necessary, medical care. While that’s the cost of rescue dogs, a puppy store dog can cost over a thousand dollars! Another difference is that rescue dogs usually come from shelters or they are stray dogs and puppy store dogs usually come from puppy mills or as others may know it, puppy farms. Let me tell you a little bit more about animal shelters. There are two different types of animal shelters.

First is a high kill animal shelter. High kill animal shelters are absolutely dreadful because most of the animals they get, they kill in a certain amount of time.

Isn’t this just shocking? Way over half of these animals are being killed!!!!

Next comes the other type of animal shelter, the wonderful one. The other type of animal shelters are organization that rescue any type of animal and then wait until they find that animal’s forever home. This is the shelter that you want to get your dog from. These shelters are much better than the other ones. You also might be wanting to know what a puppy mill is. A puppy mill is a place that takes dogs and makes them get pregnant, and then they sell those babies to the pet stores. And one of the bad things about puppy mills is that they take horrible care of the dogs. They get horrible shelter, not a lot of water and food, and no love. Unbelievable right? I know.

Let me quickly show you a video of what a puppy mill looks like.

Sub Question #2 – What are the pros and cons of rescuing a dog?

Next I’m going to tell you a little bit about the pros and cons of rescuing a dog so you will be aware if you want to rescue one. One pro of rescuing a dog is that when you are buying one, you are donating money to these organazations so they can continue rescuing animals. Another pro is that you are saving an animals life. If you think about it, you are rescuing an animal who has been locked up in a shelter for a long time and now, your giving that animal a happy, free, new life. In addition, a pro is that once you rescue a rescue dog, you can learn more about them by taking care of them. There are so many other pros of rescuing a dog like spaying and neutering might be included in the adoption and your dog might already be trained well because of the organization you adopted it from, but let’s move on to some of the cons of rescuing a dog.

One con of rescuing a dog is that you won’t know the dogs past experience so you won’t know it’s personality and if it has been abused or neglected before. I can relate. I have two rescue dogs and one of them is as happy as can be, while the other one is still adjusting to our family because it had been treated horribly when it was younger. Another con of rescuing a dog is that if you are allergic to some breeds of dogs then it might be more difficult to find a dog that is good for you because with rescue dogs, you usually don’t know the breed of your dog.

Sub Question #3 – What is the process of adopting a dog?

You might be asking yourself, “If I want to adopt a dog, I need to know the process of it. So let me tell you it. First comes part one. Step one in part one is to find a dog that you want to adopt. Make sure you read all of the statistics about it like it’s age, gender, breed, and more. Step two is to go to the shelter or store that you are buying it from so you can go and meet the dog.

Next comes part two, preparing for a new dog. So the first step in part two is to buy all of the items that you might need to take care of the new dog. For example you might need dog food, a food bowl, dog toys and bones, a harness or a collar, a leash, a crate, and lastly a dog bed if you want your dog to sleep on one. The next step is to find a vet for the dog that you are going to adopt, so you can bring the dog to it when needed. This will be helpful later. Lastly, you have to make sure your house if ready and set up for a new dog, this is also known as dog – proofing your house.

After that comes part three, adopting the dog. So first you have to fill out the paperwork assigned to you in order to adopt the dog. After that you have to pay the place that you adopted your dog from for however much adopting that dog costs. Next up you have to set up a home visit with your shelter that you used depending on if your shelter tells you to do so. If they don’t tell you to do that then you don’t need to worry about this step. The final step for part three is you have to set up a time with the shelter to go get your dog that you want to adopt. Then you have to go get it.

The next part which is part four is mostly about what you need to do when owning a dog. So the first step in part four is to train the dog that you have just adopted if necessary. For step two you have to make your dog socialize with other pets. This is important because you want your dog to have other pet friends. Step three is that you have to bring your dog to the vet that you called up earlier. I told you that it would be helpful for later. And last but not least, just be patient with your dog. It can’t learn so many things at once just like us. Raise your hand if you have trouble learning many things at once. Well if you raised your hand then you can relate to these dogs.

Sub Question #4 – What are some organizations working to help rescue dogs?

You might be wanting to know some organizations as a guide on how to rescue dogs and take care of them, so let me tell you a little more about some rescue organizations.

One organization is Rescue Dogs Rock NYC. They are a non for profit dog rescue organization. Their mission is to save abused dogs, save dogs that are at risk for being killed in a shelter, and to provide loving homes to dogs. According to their website, the way they get their information out to the world is that they post stuff online and tell people in person in community events, school assemblies and more.

Another organization is the Second Chance Rescue also known as the SCR. The Second Chance Rescue is also another non for profit organization. Their mission is to reduce animal overpopulation in shelters, to rescue injured animals and make them become healthy again and more. Did you know that they rescue and give homes to about a thousand animals a year! Crazy, I know right! This is just one organization that’s rescuing a thousand dogs and by more organizations doing this, we can have so many dogs rescued. And not just dogs rescued, all animals.

A final rescue organization that we can look at is the ASPCA, which stands for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Want to know a fun fact about the ASPCA? Did you know that there the first humane society to be established in North America, and today is one of the largest in the world. Well I don’t think so. They are a giant rescue organization that is helping to rescue many animals.

Sub Question #5 – What are some bad things happening to dogs lately?

Now let me teach you about some horrible things happening to dogs lately. In the past few years, many things have been happening to all dogs that we should be stopping right this second.

One of these problems is dog fighting. Dog fighting is a sport when dogs are forced to fight each other to entertain people and the thing about dog fighting is that it is illegal but people still do it! Your probably thinking what a horrible thing, and if you are, your thinking is right. Dog fighting can cause numerous bad things like blood loss, lacerations, puncture wounds, and broken bones and in dog fights, mostly every dog gets hurt. Dog fighting happens in a fourteen to twenty square-foot pit. In rural areas, dog fights usually happen in barns or outdoor pits. But on the other end, in urban areas they can happen in garages, basements, warehouses, abandoned buildings, back alleys, neighborhood playgrounds, or even on the street!

Another one of these problems is animal hoarding. Animal hoarding happens when a owner of pets owns more pets than he or she can take care of. There are some horrible things that can happen during animal hoarding. Some of these things are animal starvation, illness, not a lot of nutrition, sanitation, shelter.

You might be asking yourself, in order to stop animal hoarding, we have to know how to look out for it. So let me tell you some signs of animal hoarding. One sign of animal hoarding is if someone owns many pets and they don’t even know how many pets they own. Another sign is if the owner’s home is deteriorated. This means that the persons house has been becoming worse. Also a sign of animal hoarding is if there is a intense smell of ammonia in the house. There are many more signs of animal hoarding but let’s get to my main inquiry question.

Main Inquiry Question

Now I’m going to talk to you guys about my main inquiry question which is, “What are the advantages and disadvantages of rescuing a dog and what can we do to make sure all dogs are being treated well?”

So for the first part of my question I talked about that earlier in the script. Just to sum it up, some pros might be that spaying and neutering might be included or your dog might already be trained well and more. And some cons might be that you don’t know if the dog is a breed that your allergic to or you might not know your dogs past experience with other owners.

To make sure all dogs are being treated well, first we can stop all of these problems that I was talking about earlier. As a reminder some of these problems is dog fighting, animal hoarding and more. Finally we can rescue dogs. By rescuing a dog, we can save a life and convince others to do so too!

Capstone Post #4 – Site Visit

Finally I was up to my site visit. A site visit is a place that you visit related to your topic where you can learn more about your topic and take photos and notes to help you. I know your probably thinking, “Why do you have to have a site visit and a interview?” I’m thinking that too, but later on all I realize is that it just is supposed to help you with your presentation and it really does help you.

Coming up with a place that I was going to be visiting was very easy for me. I know lucky for me right? There are many places that I could visit that would give me more information on my topic so I narrowed all of my ideas down to an animal shelter. I already knew an animal shelter that I could go to because I know someone that works there that can help me with setting an appointment to go visit the place and have someone to tell me about it.

For my site visit I went to the Humane Society of Westchester. The Humane Society of Westchester is a non high kill animal shelter that takes all different types of animals to then take care of them and then give them to their forever homes. I took a day off from school to come visit this shelter and learn more about it. Here are some photos of the shelter.

These are photos of the cat room. As you can see, there are many toys for the cats to play with and they all have each other as company.

This is what the dog area looked like. Each dog lived in it’s own area with information about the dog on the door to it’s area. The dog’s areas are all lined up in a line as you can see. In the third photo, their is a photo of a piece of paper written about a certain dog’s information. They have that on every dog’s door. It gives information about the dog like I said earlier to inform the people that work there, or the people that might want to adopt that dog.

I decided to go here as my site visit because I thought that visiting an animal shelter will give me a little more background information about them and how rescue dogs came from them. I wanted to know what it was like for dogs or any other animals that live in shelters like these that are NOT high kill shelters.

Capstone Post #3 – Interview

While I have been researching and taking notes on my topic, “rescue dogs,” I have been preparing for my interview with a girl named Jessica. Jessica works for a non for profit rescue dog organization called, Tracysdogs. I decided to interview her because I knew she could give me a lot of information on rescue dogs mostly because she works for a rescue dog organization.

Before I actually had my interview, I first had to find a person to interview, then I had to find a date that I can interview the person, and then I had to come up with some questions for the person that I will be interviewing.

The first step was easy. Why was it easy for me, is what you might be wondering so let me tell you why. My family has lots of experience with adopting rescue dogs from different organizations so they might know a few people that I can interview. Lately my parents have been looking at a rescue organization called, “Tracysdogs.” They once tried to adopt a dog from that organization and that’s how they got to meet a few people from that organization. I then thought that since my parents probably have somebodys contact that works at TracysDogs, I can maybe text them if I can interview them. And that’s how I found Jessica.

Then comes the second part, figuring out a time to have my interview. Since Jessica was in Texas at that time I knew seeing her in person was not an option. So then I knew that I could interview her over the phone, which would be easier to find a time because she doesn’t have to spent extra time flying to New York for me to interview her. I was thinking about my schedule over the next couple of weeks and I thought Wednesday at 5:00 would be perfect. So I texted her that time and it worked out perfectly!

Next was coming up with some questions that I wanted to ask Jessica. For a start, for five of my questions I just asked my five sub questions that maybe I could get a little more information on. Then I just started coming up with some questions that are more specific and maybe more towards her. At the end of this easy process, I didn’t have  a lot of questions but I thought, “hopefully I can get a lot of information on them.”

The last and most fun part was the interview! A little bit after school I got set up for my interview. I called her up and started asking some questions and I recorded the whole interview with her over the phone. It took me a little bit of time to start getting comfortable talking to her but after a couple of minutes, I started to feel more comfortable. After the interview was done, I took some notes on the video at school. Sadly I didn’t get as much information as I would have liked to have gotten, but luckily I was welcomed to interview her again. I had really fun preparing for my interview and actually interviewing her.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe #2

Many times in stories the author tries to teach you a lesson or two. In the story, “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe,” written by C.S Lewis, I think that the author teaches us a lot of important lessons that he is showing through characters and problems in the story. One of the lessons that I think he is trying to teach is about honesty, and I think he is trying to show it through a problem that is going on in the story which is happening with Edmund and his three siblings.

What I think the author is trying to say about honesty is that honesty really is important because it can lead you to the way others treat you. For example when you are being honest, others will treat you better and trust you more, and when people trust you, they will tell you more. Having other people trust you is important because it shows that they feel that you are a close/good enough friend to tell some secrets to. But on the other hand, when you are not being honest, that can ruin part of your life. Not being honest can lead you to having no friends, and no one liking you. Maybe not even your siblings. And this is the part that connects to Edmund and the problem that he is having with his siblings.

The problem that Edmund is having with his siblings is that after he has been lying and not being honest, his siblings want nothing to do with him. What happen is that Lucy was trying to tell her siblings that she took a portal to another world but none of them believed her when she tried to show them the portal. Then one day Edmund went with Lucy into the portal and when the came back, Lucy wanted Edmund to tell her siblings all about the world that they went to, but instead he just started making up lies. He was saying they were just playing pretend and how none of this stuff that Lucy is saying is real. Later in the story Susan and Peter (the siblings) found out that Lucy was actually telling the truth that their was another world. This got Peter and Susan upset with Edmund because he wasn’t being honest and then that affected his relationship with his siblings.

I think what the author is trying to show us hear is that being honest is really important because it really can affect how you are being treated by not only your friends but also by your family. Having your family members/siblings not really trust you is a big deal and should be to everybody. I think the author has a good point about honesty that we should all take into consideration.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe #1

In the story, “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe written by C.S Lewis, there is a evil character in the book known as the White Witch. The White Witch is evil and can easily trick new people with her strong powers and this is why I think that the White Witch has the power in the book right now.

One example of the White Witch having the power in this story is that she can control Narnia. For example the only reason why it is always winter in Narnia is because of the White Witch. The White Witch has the power to control the weather in Narnia and for now she is choosing it to be winter the whole time. The only way to stop the White Witch’s power of making Narnia winter all the time is that four people have to fill four thrones. This is not likely to happen because it hasn’t happened in a long time and so far in the book it hasn’t said that anybody is trying to stop the White Witch’s power of making Narnia winter all the time.

Another example of the White Witch having the power in this story is that she is able to trick people by using her powers. For example she is tricking Edmund to get his siblings over to her. The White Witch wants them because they are the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve and for some reason those people are special to her. She is tricking Edmund by being so nice to him. For example she gave him turkish delight which is a candy that he loves, but the bad part about the turkish delight that she gave him is that once he eats it, all he wants is more. This is the part where the White Witch has the power because now that Edmund is so focused on eating this candy, the witch can get him to tell her anything, for example, she can get Edmund to tell her more about the daughters of Eve and the sons of Adam (his siblings). Another problem with this is that Edmund doesn’t know that the witch is evil and that the witch is tricking him so this is going to cause a huge problem in the story later on.

These examples prove how much power the White Witch has in the story right now. It also shows that her powers can help her get what she wants. Sadly the White Witch is evil so she doesn’t use her powers in a good way, she uses them in a selfish way by doing what she wants to do. For example she wanted Narnia to be winter so now it’s winter. She wanted the daughters of Eve and the sons of Adam and she is soon to get them. I think the White Witch has more powers that we don’t know about yet and I can’t wait to see how she will use her powers in the story.

Capstone Post #2 – Choosing a Main Inquiry Question and Five Sub Questions

Of course I had another topic in mind right after I was struggling with choosing between a bunch of other topics, so I changed my topic again. I decided this because I was doing poverty as my social issue ignite presentation and since I already did a lot of research on it, I wanted something else to research about. So that’s when I decided to do the topic rescue dogs. I chose this topic because I love dogs and I am especially interested in rescue dogs.

So the next part after choosing a topic was to choose a main inquiry question. The main inquiry question is supposed to be a question supporting your topic and one that interests you. The hard thing about choosing a good question is that there has to be seven weeks of research on that question because that’s how long research time lasts. This is the part that I was struggling on.

While I was talking to my teacher I had some really good ideas in mind. I was thinking about doing a pros and cons list of rescuing a dog. After thinking of an idea for my question I had to now form it into a question. I also wanted to talk about how we can make sure all dogs are being treated well. So the question that I created using my interests on rescue dogs was, “What are the advantages and disadvantages of buying a rescue dog and what can we do to make sure all dogs are being treated well?”

So the next part was choosing five sub questions or maybe six. The sub questions are supposed to lead you to the answer of your main inquiry question, so of course they have to relate to your topic. I started brainstorming some sub questions that I could possibly use, on a google docs. After that I ended up with five questions that I really liked and I used them all as my sub questions for my main inquiry question.

My sub questions were this. My first one was, “What is a rescue dog and how are they different from puppy store dogs?” I chose to do that question first because I’m going to introduce my topic before I start going into deep detail. My second question is, “What are the pros and cons of rescuing a dog?” My third question is, “What are the conditions like for dogs who are placed with organizations waiting to be rescued?” My fourth sub question is, “What kinds of organizations are currently working to help and protect dogs?” My last sub question is,”What are possible things that can happen to dogs who are not rescued? (puppy mills, dog fights, …) ?

I might have to make some changes to these sub questions later on but for now this is what I’m going with.

Capstone Post #1 – Choosing a Topic

The first part of capstone is choosing a topic. This was one of the most difficult parts in Capstone because your whole Capstone project is about the topic you choose. One difficult part about choosing a topic is that there has to be enough research on it. For example if I choose a topic and I am having trouble finding information on it that would be a huge problem. Another difficult part is that you have to be interested in your topic. For example we shouldn’t just be picking a topic based on somebody that we could interview if we chose that topic. The last difficult part about choosing a topic is that when your choosing a question for your topic, your question can’t be easily answered by just typing it in google. It has to be a question that you research a lot on. And this is why choosing a topic is one of the hardest parts in capstone.

At first I was thinking about doing pickles. Not because I was really interested in them and wanted to learn about them, but because I know somebody that I could interview based on my topic, pickles. Then I realized this was a huge mistake, because if I started researching on something that I wasn’t really interested in, then I would be bored out of my mind during every time we work on Capstone at school. So this is why I changed my subject.

My final decision was to do my topic on poverty. I was thinking about something that I would be interested in while at the same time have enough information on it. I thought poverty was a big enough subject to research on so this is why I chose it.

I am really excited to start working on my Capstone project and I hope my final project turns out well. I also can’t wait to create my main inquiry question and my five sub questions.

Social Issue – Poverty

I have come across many  social issues and one of them is poverty. This one matters the most to me because when your in poverty, you can’t afford the things that you need in order to live a wealthy life. For example is you were in poverty you wouldn’t have enough money to afford food and water, and you really need those to things in order to survive. This matters to me because it is upsetting when I see people without the money to have a good life, so this why I think poverty matters the most.

My thoughts about poverty is that I wonder what it would be like to be in extreme poverty, to put my self in someone else’s shoes that are experiencing poverty. I wonder how upsetting it is to maybe not have a house, a car, a job food, water, and ect. By thinking about this it makes me want to research more about this topic.

Poverty is still a big problem these days. Many people are really poor to the fact that they aren’t experiencing a happy, good life. I know this because I still see some people on the streets asking for money, which is a sign of poverty. This shows that poverty is something big to consider about and how poverty is still going on today.