Portfolio Training 7/27

Portfolio Training had to be the worse one ever. we posted like three blogs, they were all at least a page long. We talked about Post Secondary Education and things like that. Better yet check it out for yourself Just Click Here

Meet &Greet With Street

On Wednesday, we met with former Mayor John Street. He seems like a very fun, interactive, and generous guy. He played little games with us for prizes like money, sweatshirt, tees, etc. I had a lot of fun. He talked to us about success and how to achieve it. He also gave us a lot of advice that you could use for a lifetime, in and out of business. The one thing he told us to remember is that even if we do not remember anything else from the whole time he was there always remember this: "A man who stops to throw stones at every barking dog [he sees] will never reach his destination." Which mean that if you let every little obstacle distract you then you can never stay on track because you constantly lose focus, in other words, if you don't stay focused you'll never finish anything. So remember that if you want to succeed in life don't let others distract you and lure you away from your goal(s). "Everyone's given an equal opportunity, it's up to us to make the best of it."

A Garden of Eden's

Today we watched a movie called Edens Lost &Found: Philadelphia. The movie was about Philadelphia in all of its natural beauty. It talked about the founding of Philadelphia and it's rise in Horticulture. It was sort of a documentary which let people tells about their experiences in Philadelphia and their communities. one man, Ed, talked about how he was an antisocial person in his neighborhood who only kept up with his property and didn't care too much about the appearance of the lot across from his house. At least not until his generous and outgoing son tried to make it a better place with the help of his sons, but the dream ended shortly when Ed's son died of overdose after experimenting with drugs just two weeks later. Ed seeing the lot reverting back to it's original way set out to make his late son's dreams a reality. After weeks of work he and a few neighbors, who join in on his cause, figured that they needed outside help. They reached out to Philly green association who agreed to help them, only if they could get more neighbors to join in. Determined to reach his goal Ed decided to break out of his shell and talk to his neighbors about his goal. The reason I picked this story is because it reached out me the most and actually makes me want to try to make a difference in my community. If Ed can then so can we...

MAPS!!!

Today we went on a little field trip mapping out all of the places where you can find food on Temple's campus. Our goal was supposed to be for everyone to draw a map from their opinion so that we would bring all of the information together to make a larger one. Only problem was EVERYONE had a different opinion on where places were, how to draw the map, by the time we reached a common idea on how the map everyone was so frustrated and confused that we just took a break, now that we're back from lunch no one really feels like getting back into all of that again so we're going to push it back for another day. At least today was a good day to go out and collect the info, it may be the best day we have all week at least weather wise. Sunny &not too humid unlike the past few days we've had with 90% humidity, showers, thunderstorms, etc. But I can't say today was all bad, we all actually opened up a little more. Slowly but surely we're becoming somewhat of a team, well at least that's what I think.

Portfolio Training

Yesterday we did portfolio training wit Zak, a Temple student who works with the BITS program. He showed us what to do, wear, and even how to smell at a job interview. I had a lot of fun, we talked about career goals and how to put them into affect. We even did an exercise that showed us which career would be most suitable for us, based on a survey we took of things we like to do or would like to do. My career was Arts, Entertainment, and Media. I like music, acting and all that but I don't think I could see myself wanting to do that forever, but hey you never know. My actual dream job is to become an architect, designing skyscrapers, hotels, etc. I'm currently enrolled to attend classes in the fall majoring in architectural engineering at CCP. Thanks to Zak when the time comes hopefully I'll have all the skills I need to get the job, the rest as they say is history.

Going Green

Going green means becoming environmentally and economically friendly. Ways to do so would be to Recycle to conserve energy and natural resources, Reduce the pollution, amount of energy we use, and other waste products of our daily lives(garbage, chemicals, etc.) and hopefully we can reduce bigger things like the holes in the ozone which cause global warming.

Sustainability describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time as stated on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability.
To put in simpler terms sustainability is the capability of being continued over a long period of time with the least possible affect on the environment.

Last week, we talked about both of these topics and how we could use them to benefit us in efforts to help make our communities better places to live. We discussed how sustainability could be used in growing the foods that we eat, sustainable agriculture. So basically we are at least one step closer to achieving our key goals.

Introduction

My name is Karon and I'm from Philadelphia, one of the biggest cities in the nation, even though it's in one of the most rural states. Which means we get most of our foods from farms. To keep things simple I'm your average teen, I like shopping, texting, music, facebook, etc. I'm writing on this blog to tell you about Greenworks, a program that I am an intern for with Temple University. We apply an effort to try to make Philadelphia a better place one community at a time.

My group's goal is to find and list the city's stores, stands, markets, etc. which sell food, water, and other produce. After we have made the list we will then find out where they get their produce from, whether or not it's healthy, nutritious, or just enjoyable. Our main goal is to have a map of our neighborhood which will contain all of our data, so that it may be used for the general public.

Greenworks is part of a program called BITS, which stands for Building Information Technology Skills. It's a STEM education program involving 90 inner city high school students with an experience-based approach to learning about &contributing to the development of a community geographic information system. In other words, it's a program where students like myself learn and put into action ways that can help make communities like ours a better place.