A Hero of the Nation

Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the biggest civil rights leaders in our country. He would march on for days trying to earn equal rights for all people. One of his biggest philosophies is that you should fight, but not with your fists. He used speech to his advantage, spreading the message that he wanted all people, no matter what your skin color was, to get along. Today we are going to take a look into the amazing life of MLK. 

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”  -MLK

Dr.King has many sayings that all send a great message. That is just one of them. The civil rights movement has been in the King family for decades. MLK’s father was a baptist and preacher, he was also an early advocate for the civil rights movement. But, we aren’t here to talk about him. Like his father though, MLK was always trying to do the right thing. He would lead protests and rally’s to try and change the unfair laws against blacks. Once again discrimination was one of the biggest problems in the United States. One of his biggest and most memorable moments was the March on Washington. In this protest  he led over 250,000 people and they marched onto the Washington Monument and the leaders gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial. This is when MLK gave his famous I have a dream speech. Here are a couple lines from that speech, courtesy of kr.usembassy.gov,’” I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” Just a tiny bit from that speech.

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Let's talk about what was really going on at this time. In the 1950’s ever since the beginning of the U.S. African Americans had little rights. First, they were slaves. Then slavery was banned. Segregation, the discrimination towards certain people, was still a thing all the way up to the 50’s and 60’s. This is when the Civil Rights Movement started. The Civil Rights Movement was one of the biggest turning points in U.S. history. This is when African American leaders led marches and protests for their rights. MLK’s father was one of these early leaders. MLK followed in his footsteps and is one of the most well known Civil Rights leaders ever.

Now, a little bit about MLK’s life. He was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. Life was hard for people like the King’s, and that is what drived MLK to try and change the unfair laws against black people. Dr.King Sr. was a priest as I said earlier, so in tradition MLK also was for a few years. He led years of marches and protests, and he kept marching. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his good work in this movement. A few years later in 1968 he was assassinated by James Earl Ray. It was the fall of a titan.

MLK was one of the most recognized and powerful people in the country. He was influential and he changed the lives of millions people with his work to change the discrimination in the world.

Works Cited

https://kr.usembassy.gov/education-culture/infopedia-usa/living-documents-american-history-democracy/martin-luther-king-jr-dream-speech-1963/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.

Link to the picture.

Pros and Cons

The Pros and Cons of Remote Learning

Covid-19 had taken a toll on all of us. But, for kids, school has changed more than we ever would have imagined. A study shows that remote learning sent 52% of elementary school kids into remote learning in the fall of 2020. Doing school from home has its advantages and disadvantages. Today I’m going to talk about the pros and cons of remote learning.

Let’s start the good stuff. Remote learning has its advantages and the first one would be that you can do your school from anywhere. Because of Zoom you can be in school and not be anywhere near the school. Zoom has allowed kids to pretty much never miss school. If you participate in something in your life that requires you to be quarantined pretty much all the time, it is easy to go full remote. Remote learning has allowed learning to be more flexible.

Another convenient thing about remote learning is that teachers can organize assignments easier. In Google Classroom, the teacher can put all the assignments under that day so the kids will know what they will be doing that day. Yes there can be technical difficulties but if kids are on Zoom, then they will be able to help the teachers. If kids aren't on zoom,(if it is an a-synchronous day), They can just email the teacher to get their problem fixed.

Remote learning can be helpful, but it also has its disadvantages. If you are doing school work from home there can be many distractions. If you are at home kids can be using their phones or playing games on their computers or watching YouTube. If the kids are distracted, they may get a lower grade because they

missed important information. In class I can tell when someone isn’t paying attention to the zoom. I can tell because when the teacher asks a question and the kid doesn’t answer for a couple of seconds and then says, What was the question again? That is called being caught in the act. Another small con about remote learning is that if the kids need a new workbook, it will be harder for the remote kids to get it. Their parents can drive to the school and get it, but it can just be a hassle because. if the kid forgets to tell their parents, they won’t have the book when they need it.

In this pandemic every kid can relate to these pros and cons. No matter what life throws at us, we will have to be flexible and change when we need to. If you work hard at home, everything will be fine and you will get a good grade.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/11/half-of-us-elementary-and-high-school-students-will-study-virtually-only-this-fall-study-shows.html

My personal experiences

Ocean Polution

 Save The Oceans  

   Plastic pollution is one of the world’s biggest problems. According to Seastewards.org, “An estimated 14 billion pounds of trash has been dumped into the ocean. Around 12 billion pounds of that is plastic. An equivalent of 1 garbage truck of plastic is dumped into the ocean every minute. Every minute! If we keep dumping trash into the ocean, bad things will keep happening. Let’s see why this needs to stop.

    Over the years people have thought that, maybe it is a bad idea to be dumping all of our waste into the most precious environment on our planet. People have tried to stop this, but the whole world has to agree to reuse and recycle instead of throwing all of our plastic into the dumpster. Most plastic is recyclable and still only around 2% of all the plastic in the world gets recycled. Here’s a cool fact about plastic straws. Did you know that every day we use enough straws to wrap around the world 2.5 times? The world has been looking at ways that you don’t need to use straws, and Starbucks has actually tried to go zero straws with their new cup lid. Some people still use straws though. It is hard enough for companies to stop using straws, but it is another task for the people to let go of these single use items.

    Picture a sea turtle that is in the ocean and is looking for food, and you see a jellyfish and think, ooh, there’s lunch. But when you swallow that jelly fish it has no taste. You just ate a plastic bag. That plastic bag can get caught in that turtle's digestive system and can kill the turtle. According to the ASEAN post,”over 100 million marine animals die every year due to plastic waste.” It is actually possible that we can get that plastic into our bodies. For example, let’s say a fish eats some small pieces of plastic. Then we eat that fish. The plastic in that fish has a small chance of getting into our bodies. I don’t think that you want plastic inside your body. If we stop this from happening the ocean can be saved and these marine animals won’t have to suffer from our doing.

    Today organizations like 4Ocean have been determined to stop the pollution of our oceans. 4Ocean is an organization that picks up the trash from coastlines around the world. They have picked up over 12 million pounds of trash. This organization has a bracelet that they sell. These bracelets are made of the plastic and trash that they have picked up from the ocean. A lot of efforts are being made to stop this global problem. If this doesn’t stop then the oceans that we love, will get swallowed by the massive amounts of trash being dumped into the waters.

    This is one of the biggest problems in the world right now. You now know why it needs to stop and the world knows that it needs to stop. Try not to use single use items like plastic straws. Make the world a better place. Stop polluting the oceans.

http://seastewards.org/projects/conservation/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_pollution

https://theaseanpost.com/article/plastic-pollution-we-need-act-now

My First Blog Post

A Brief history of Hockey

  Hockey is a fast, high contact sport that is played around the world. But, a lot of people still don’t know that much about its history. This blog will tell you a little bit about the history of this incredible sport.

    Let’s start where it all began in Montreal, Canada. According to the International Ice Hockey Federation, (IIHF),  ”On March 3rd, 1875 the first ever organized game of hockey was played.” This game was played in the same format as today with ten skaters and two goalies. From there small hockey organizations were formed and eventually the National Hockey League (NHL) was founded in 1917. The NHL was first made up of six teams known as the “Original Six.” These six teams were the Montreal Canadians, the Boston Bruins, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the New York Rangers, the Chicago Black Hawks, and the Detroit Red WIngs. These six teams were the only that existed until 1967 when the 1967 NHL expansion occurred. When the number of teams went from six to twelve.

    

    Let’s take a quick look at a couple of the best players to ever live. First of all the best player of all time is Wayne Gretzky. He has set dozens of records that he still holds today. He has also won four Stanley Cups. Gretzky played for a total of twenty seasons for which he played on 4 teams. He started out just like a normal kid, but his determination sent him all the way to the Hockey Hall of Fame. There have been many players who have come close to breaking his records, but none as close as Alex Ovechkin. Alex has been playing in the NHL for 16 years and scored his 700th goal in his sixteenth season. Just like these players, if you put your mind to something you can accomplish anything.

   

    Hockey has evolved over time with all the new technology and training programs and now the game has never been at such a high level. The NHL rink is 200 feet long and fastest skaters can even skate around it in under 15 seconds! That’s as fast as a car driving at 20 miles per hour! The overall technology in today's sticks is unreal. Older sticks were literally pieces of wood. Today people have combined composite and different thicknesses and lengths to calculate a flex, which is how much the stick bends. With the best stick some players have even shot the puck over 100 miles per hour! The technology of today has made the game faster and more fun to watch than ever.

    Hockey has been around for so long and the sport is still growing. We’ll see where it goes.