This week, I worked more on the PowerPoint for the presentation. At this point, I know what I will be talking about and I know how to present it. However, I feel that there are many holes in my presentation. There will be missing information, or information that I won't be able to present as well as I would like. For this reason, I want to spend more time trying to find more details on the information I will share with the class so I can be better informed about the subject. An example of this problem is HOW the gap between the developed and developing countries will change. I can say that technology that allows more efficient work, better communication, and cleaner environment will help the gap close, but I have no examples or details. I hope to look up articles from Galileo and Google Scholar to find what I am looking for from good sources. I am also practicing what I am saying. If I don't present my project well, it could sound like I came up with it in one day. I will be doing research and working on my presentation skills until the day I speak (next Friday).

The Actual Presentation

So it has been a while since I last posted, and I apologize. However, I have not been idle in this long period of time. I have started the presentation and thought about specifically what to talk about next Friday. Through this, I have realized something; it will be really hard to put my research in a particular order. I want to talk about the future of the world environment, economy, and technology in developed and developing countries. The problem is many facts and findings overlap. I am having a hard time deciding when to talk about what. So far, I know that I will start by introducing the topic, the specific subtopics, and then show how and where it did my research. The future is a hard thing to predict, and I want to establish my ethos in the beginning. In reality, I actually did spend a lot of time trying to find more trustworthy articles that actually explained the reason for why certain changes would take place. There were many journalists I found, and it was interesting that they had different views and opinions on important matters. This would normally hurt my final conclusion, but it actually is beneficial because I can now analyze all opinions and the given facts to make my own conclusion instead of stealing someone else's work.

My Presentation

I think I now have enough research to start planning my presentation. I want to do it in two sections: the developed countries and the developing countries. Within these two sections I will have subsections that cover economy, the environment, and technology. I will discuss how these three components will either change or not change in the near future. After this, I will discuss the difference between the two types of countries. I will try to figure out whether the gap between the two categories has increased or decreased. The point that I will focus on the most is technology. This is because I believe that this will be developed the most and will also affect the other components of life the most. It will also be the deciding factor of the difference of developed and developing countries. Though I want to have key messages in my presentation, I will also have facts that will make my presentation interesting. Now that I know what I want to do for my presentation, this week I hope to start creating a PowerPoint or some kind of presentation to make my findings more clear.

technology continued

This week I decided to just look up how technology will change the world in fifty years. I must say, people are very ambitious. I read on many websites that technology would bring a drastic change almost every aspect of our lives. This includes transportation, communication, energy use, and food production. Many believe that solar energy will be the major method of energy in less than fifty years. One website (http://www.businessinsider.com/10-ways-technology-will-change-the-world-by-2025-2014-6) lists out all of the future technological innovations by 2025. It was interesting to see what another person meant by technology. While I was focusing on computer/engineering related changes, this author also explored how technology would affect medicine an economy. For example, one of changes listed that technology would cause was the prevention of type one diabetes. Borison claimed that “A human genome engineering platform will make it possible to modify disease-carrying genes and prevent conditions like Type I Diabetes.” However, it seems that not all technological change will be good. Some sites indicate that more technology use creates more energy consumption, which is bad for the environment and bad for the economy. I feel that I need to spend more time to fully understand the world’s future in technology, so I hope to look further into it before I start to make conclusions and decide how to present my research.

Technology in Fifty Years

This week I researched the technological advances in developed and developing countries. From what I found from both this and last week, I now believe that this world is rapidly experiencing globalization. This means that the people in the world are communicating, sharing knowledge, and becoming less ignorant. For example, English is known as the global language, and it has become almost necessary to learn it. Nations as well as people can connect and communicate with others very clearly and quickly. Furthermore, technology is increasing the speed of globalization. Phones are used almost all around the world, from developing countries like Senegal (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-larry-hollon/developing-world-technology_b_3764553.html) to prospering countries like UAE. New technology will also affect other proponents of people’s daily lives, including the economy and the environment. Throughout the 20% time, I have researched how this world will change environmentally and economically. However, the world will not change technologically; but rather technology will change the world. New technology can help decrease pollution, increase health, eradicate disease, and create demand for newer products. One product that technology has altered to help many is the straw. In developed countries, people are using steel straws to reduce the plastic pollution. Plastic is really just processed oil, and takes a very long time to decompose. However, people living with poverty do not care about the health and pollution of the world. Instead, they care about the polluted nutrients they have to consume because they have no other choice. Technological innovations made to help them are the smaller and easier-to-use pollution measurement devices. Before drinking water, people can check to see if the water is safe to consume.

Next week I hope to find more information in how technology will change the future and start to tie all my research to make conclusions about how Earth will be in fifty years. 

Developed Countries Versus Developing Countries

When I was in middle school, my teacher would call developing countries PINGs and developed countries PEDs. Since then, I have known the obvious differences between the two categories. However, I wanted to learn about the economic differences, and how they will change in the near future. Though America still has one of the largest GDP in the world, the GDP of India, Japan, and China are growing the fastest. This means that America is at the top, but it is likely that it will not stay there for long, depending on future progress. Through this research, I feel that the gap between the PINGs and PEDs will start to decrease as time passes by. Yet, there are still a numerous amount of other countries, such as Ethiopia and Libya, that are struggling to help their people and economy survive. Fortunately, many seem to think that conditions are getting much better. The literacy rate is growing, while the fertility rate is shrinking. Furthermore, there is a lot of trade between Africa and China, as well as a project, called Trade Africa, between America and Africa-- it's designed to help the currency and quality of life in many countries of Africa gain more value. Both of these things are helping Africa significantly. The economic future looks much better than the environmental future. 

World Economy and American Debt

There are not that many solutions to solving American debt. Honestly, most people are unsure of all the debt and more focused on decreasing the deficit. However, I did find more information on the economy of developing countries. There was an article in TIME that explained how the success of Alibaba foreshadows the success of the developing world. It even went on to say that people living in developed countries will most likely start to find jobs in developing countries like China and India (http://time.com/3401924/china-alibaba-ipo-world-business-trade-internet-economy/). Though this is a strong statement, I was not very surprised. The GDP (real) of United States and Japan is decreasing, while the GDP of places like China, India, and Bangladesh is increasing (http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/categories/32291). According to the CNN website, America's economy is growing nowhere near as fast as developing countries, particularly throughout the different parts of Asia. Although USA does not have the world's fastest growing economy, it does still have the largest economy, which the same website shows will not change for at least five years (http://money.cnn.com/news/economy/world_economies_gdp/). I also researched the reason for our debt. This became quite political, but one website clearly showed at what time the debt started to accumulate. It explained that if Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W Bush had correctly balanced their budgets, the debt would not have existed. In fact, it shows an alternate graph that shows how the debt would have been much lower if different paths were taken in the 1980s (http://zfacts.com/p/318.html). Of course, this website is highly biased, but it does give a reason.

Starting next week, I want to find the differences between developed and developing countries in fifty years. I need to see whether the economic and environmental gap between the two increases or decreases.

The Economy of the Future

This week, I was not able to do enough research, because I was in a trip for a school club. However, from the research I did after I returned, and from what I have learned so far from my AP Macroeconomics class, I have learned about what people expect the world to look like economically fifty years from now. Many sources indicate that the economy is getting better slowly and that we have successfully come out of a recession. However, many economists say (including my teacher) that this past recession is nothing compared to what we will have to deal with in the future. My economy teacher explained it to our class through the following story: “Pretend that we all are in a plane. Not only are we flying, but we are sitting in first class. Though we have the luxury of flying in style, the plane is actually headed directly downward, and we will crash and burn very soon.” I first laughed and took it lightly, but when he showed us the statistics, I realized the urgency of the problem that we were facing. At this moment, America is in a debt of $18 trillion (FRED). The worst part is that the yearly deficit in America has still not stopped, so the debt is growing. In order for us to rid ourselves with this huge problem, every person would have to give the government around $51,000(including the child just born now). The whole class had only one though after hearing this: how do we solve this problem in the future? There are many ways, but the simplest solution that we were told was to increase taxes. In fact, he said that he could see the next generation paying as much as 50% taxes in the near future.

            Next week, I hope to find new sources that give me more perspectives on the economy of the future, as well as new solutions to the huge debt America is in.

According to last week’s blog, my job this week was to find some solutions to what people could do to help this world become more sustainable. Thankfully, I did not have to research too much because I am taking AP Environmental Science. I have already learned so many ways that people are hurting this world and even more ways they could prevent it. For example, Dr. Tolmich, my teacher, has a huge problem with plastic water bottles. His claim is that not only is the excess plastic, which is essentially oil, polluting the environment, but it also causes people to waste their money buying it. The water inside the bottles is no cleaner than purified tap water, which can be found in the school’s water fountains. His solution is the reusable water bottle. Though some are also plastic, they will not be thrown away because people can keep using them.

            Basically, environmentalists want humans to just act more sustainably. They know that people will not suddenly stop using cars just because they pollute the air; they just want people to be smart about it, like carpooling or using a bicycle instead for short distances.  On the website 50waystohelp.com, I came across many other ways to help the world without being too out of the comfort zone we Americans enjoy for granted. Some that caught my attention were to turn off computers at night to save power and to use the internet and computers more to transfer, read, and write documents to save paper. Though this was truly inspiring, I did not understand the environmentalists’ approach. Why were they being so passive? I would be petitioning to only use electric cars in America or something. The reason why people are not really imperative about living in a way that does not harm the world at all is because most people think it’s impossible. For example, it is true that cars like the Nissan Leaf don’t require any petroleum; but the batteries needed to make these cars work are also terrible for the environment. We have become so dependent on nonrenewable resources that it is very difficult to get rid of them. So, environmentalists do the next best thing instead, and try reduce pollution instead of get rid of it.

            Next week I hope to learn of other aspects of the changing world in the future, perhaps politically or economically. 

50 Years into the Future

In my 20% time this semester, I had a choice to either learn how to be ambidextrous, learn sign language, or do enough research to learn how the world will be fifty years in the future. Mrs. Finco was content with the sign language and the ambidextrous projects, but she thought of the future project to be a little unrealistic. Naturally, I chose to learn the future.

My basic motive is to understand how people in both developed and developing countries will live in fifty years. Some questions I will ask myself are:

1. What will be some technological developments in the future?
2. How will the environment change?
3. Will any of the global ways of government and communication change (i.e. Will English still be the global language? Will China still be a communist country?)
4. Will the economy and quality of life decrease or increase

This past week, I researched how environmentalists think the world will change in the net fifty years. Many sources indicate that pollution is increasing, and depending on how the human race decides to act on this issue, things could get worse environmentally. China has 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities, Beijing being the most polluted. However, some reports indicate that people are polluting less. Though the world is still being hurt, the world is becoming more sustainable. For example, the number of trees being cut in South America and Africa in decreasing. In the far future, there is a strong chance of environmental problems. But in the next fifty years, nothing too devastating should happen. I hope to record this information as well as find out more about it as this project moves along. Next week, I specifically want to find what new ideas and inventions are being developed to help the world environmentally.