Speech:Animal Testing!

Speech- Animal Testing 

While lathering your head in shampoo or applying make-up to your face ever thought, ‘How is this safe to use?’, ‘How did scientists figure out that these products are safe and non-toxic?’ Well the procedure that is taken place to answer these questions is Animal Testing. Yup! Feeble and vulnerable animals are being tortured and abused without any say in what happens to them. I think this topic is not talked about commonly and inhumane. From the horrible things I've learned throughout writing this, I think it’s important to share and persuade you that this is a disgusting and cruel action.           

   The definition of animal testing is ‘Animal testing is also known as animal experimentation, animal research and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. What this means is that scientists or people who experiment on animals are testing out new products or medicines on animals. This is because some of these products may be harmful to humans and if the animals react negative to the chemicals from the product, they know not to use it on humans. During this process what happens to the animals are appalling. Some of the gruesome events that have taken place while the experiments were carried out are the injection of harmful substances into the skin, abdomen and muscle of the animal, the animals are exposed to drugs that cause them illness, pain, distress or death, they are forced to eat and inhale toxic chemicals and most of the animals die by the time the experiments are over.

   Animals are a part of our world and without them I know lots of people whose lives would change drastically. My neighbor had a dog that sadly passed away and she cried for days. Imagine if that same dog or any other pet had died from an unnatural cause such as chemicals in his/her system or injections into their skin; she would've mourned even more. All of those animals that are just lying there slowly dying out don’t need that. What they need is that a home and people to love them and take care of them or they need to be put back into the wild in their natural habitat, it depends on what type of animal they are, the animals should not be left to rot in a lab. All of the creatures are just taken against their will and I’m sure they don’t want that. We don’t see scientists taking random people off the street without asking them and just going to experiment on them, so why do it to animals? 

   Another reason why animal testing should be discontinued is that our human bodies might not react the same ways an animals would because the human race is a different species. Earlier this week while I was doing my research I started to read this article from huffpost.com. Part of it states that ‘Although we share most of our genes with other mammals, there are critical differences in how our genes actually function.’ An example of this could be a piano, you play all of the same keys for each song but yet each song comes out in a different tune and has a different melody. So this means that if a product is tested on an animal and comes out positive, if we use it on humans it might act negatively on us. If this happens all of these poor animals are dying for no reason.  

   Animal testing does happen in Canada. Canada only supports animals testing to help in health and medical care but this is still injustice. I still think this should be banned and not used at all. I don’t think we need animals to help us improve our medicine. We can find many other ways with the amount of science and technology we have. It’s shocking to see the products that are tested on animals. Some of them are the most common products in many households. Some of them are Vaseline, Windex, Dettol and Dawn. 

   ‘To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man’ 

-Mahatma Gandhi 

I think this is true. Animals can’t speak up for themselves because they can’t speak and we cannot take advantage of this. Like the quote said the more helpless they are the more protection they need. I think that animal testing is brutal and relentless and with all the science and technology we have today we can find other ways to ensure that products are safe to use on humans.

                     Thank You!

My favourite Rebound Pictures!

This was a photo assignment we did earlier this year. It was on a book named Rebound by Eric Walters. We had to recreate 3 scenes from the book. When we were done taking the pictures we chose which ones we liked, edited them and then use an app called Over to put text on them. What the text said were lines or quotes from the book. 

These are some of my favourite pictures.

 

My Favorite Journal Prompt!

Should schools be year round? What would be the benefits of a full year of school? What rules would have to be changed to make it work? What would be the limitations to a full year of school?

   I think that schools should not be year round. I think this because it will cause more problems than help us; there are more cons than pros. The benefits of having school year round are probably that you won't have a two month gap in summer so you won't for get what you learned. Also you will get to see your friends more frequently. The cons of having school year round are that it wil change our lifestyle. We go to school from September to June, we have breaks in between and a couple of P.A. days. Families are already accustomed to this, if they want to go on vacation they know the exact times their children don't have school. Also in summer kids have recreational activities and clubs/camps they join, this will be taken away if we have school year round. Another example  to add is that in summer kids want to do nothing and sleep in but they have to wake up early if schools is year round. 

   Personally, I think that schools should not be year round because it's less stressful and you get two months off. Plus I really don't want to see everyone throughout the whole year. It would be less stressful because you have two full months off to think about things other than, when an assignment is due, what to study for on a test or how to do an arduous math equation. I say I don't want  to see everyone because I think that ten months is enough. 

   What I think the benefits of a full year of school would be that I won't forget what I learnt and I won't have to do drudging chores all summer long. I say this because since every month you are going to school without a two month gap you definitely won't forget anything. I wouldn't have to do chores because I won't be at home most of the time. Every time I have a day off my mom makes me do stodgy house work; I have to clean the rooms, vacuum the carpets and do the dishes. 

   Some rules that would have to be changed to make it work is that we cannot have summer school for kids who need extensive help. Also you will be going to school in July and August so your family vacation time will be cut short. Also since the breaks are going to be spaced out more, you will have to change how many days of school we will be having for one week. So instead of having 5 days of school and 2 days for the weekend, we can have 4 days of school and 3 for the weekend. 

   The limitations to a full year of school would be that we have to have not mare than 4 days of school per week, in the summer at least 2 weeks off for vacation and the students have to be present at school for most of the time in summer because of their not what's the point of there being any school in summer? 

   

News Report: Grade One Science Fair!

On April 29th 2015 the grade one classes of Beaumonde Heights JMS were hosting a science fair to display their wonderful science projects on structures! The children had to construct buildings, houses, beds, bridges and lots of other structures by themselves or with the help of a parent or guardian. They had to have a purpose, so a reason why they wanted to build their structure, what materials they used, the fasteners they used to hold their structure together and was their structure stable or not. 

Here are some pictures from the fun event! 

All of those structures look great and stable!

8A's job was to interview two students and ask them about their structure. 

1. The first grade one I talked to was a boy named Mohit. He built a beautiful bridge, it really stood out to me because of all the different colours of Popsicle sticks he used and because it has a road that looked pretty cool. Here is a picture of his structure. 

Here is what Mohit told me: 

His structure is a bridge and the purpose for this is to get cars from one side to the other. He also mentioned cars can drive on both sides of the road. His mom and sister helped him and it took exactly 20 minutes to build, wow thats fast! The type of fastener he used to hold his bridge together was glue, he glued all the  parts together to make it stick and not fall apart. He also said he used the coloured Popsicle sticks to make it look good and colourful, and it does. The structure is stable, to test this he had some of his cars to ride on it. 

2. The second grade one I talked to was a girl named Gabby. She built a wonderful stool. I know it doesn't sound very cool but it is. I think her stool is one of the most stable structures I saw in the whole science fair! Here is a picture of her stucture. 

It was so stable some other grade ones sat and stood on it and it didn't break! 

 

When I interviewed her this is what she had to say:

Her stucture is a stool and the purpose for the stool is to help people reach higher places or to sit on. Her mom and dad helped her to build the project and it turned out great! The fastener that she used to hold the stool together was glue and the materials she used was I think really strong cardboard or wood I can't exactly remember what she said. But a really excellent thing she did was put triangles under the part of the stool where u had to sit. I know this really helped the structure because I'm my science class I learned that triangles are one of the most strongest shapes and I think that's why her structure was able to hold so much weight. 

I really enjoyed all the projects and hope for the grade ones to have another fair so we can see some other types of awesome work they can do. 

My Beautiful Artwork!

One of our earlier art projects was to create a drawing of mountains. To do this we had to use pencil to draw or sketch the outline of the mountains next we shaded and blended black, white and blue to colour in the sketch. We used a video from YouTube to guide us along and help us create our finished art work. 

Here is a picture from when I sketched it to when it was finished.  

It took a while but it turned out great! 

Our latest art assignment was to draw a nose and mouth by using art pencils to shade. We also used a YouTube video to help us. 

This is the drawing I drew of a nose and mouth! 

Poem!

On March 11th and 12th 2015 8A had a Poetry Soiree that was help in the library. It was a successful event, lots of classes came and loved our work. We had live performances, tables with our poetry board so the kids and teachers could walk around and have a look and we have workshops to teach kids how to write poems or use technology to present their poetry. 

My poem I wrote on the book Rebound:

There was a boy named Sean.

In grade 7 he made some mistakes for friends, they made him think he was tough and brawn.

Now it's a new year and a new grade,

and Sean needs to stop all these charades.

On the first day of school,

he tried to stay calm and cool.

But he got into a fight,

And his year didn't start off right.

David was his opponent during the duel.

Even though David was in a wheelchair he was the most cruel.

As punishment Sean had to be David's host.

And David hated that the most.

As the year went on Sean and David became better friends .

But just like every friendship it had twists and bends.

David was having some troubles and Sean helped him out.

Now they are best friends without any doubt.