TEDxDHS - Day 2

001[Music] do [Music] do [Music] welcome to our sixth tedx dhs event today we'll be presenting cohort b present presenters ms true and i are thrilled to present to you this exciting event here at dartmouth high school this is an independent organized event this year will be broadcast via live stream by dhs tv media productions this is a a change from our previous format of having a live audience a live stream event along with participants wearing masks has been updated to meet all the covid 19 guidelines our theme this year is sociology moving forward one step at a time students from cohort a core b will be presenting various topics that are engaging and stem from their personal passions these students have volunteered their time to this group indigently prepare presentations to enlighten you on various

002topics you may be new to ted and you might be wondering who is this ted guy well i'm here to tell you there isn't a person instead ted is an acronym for technology entertainment design the ted organization has covered many ideas worth spreading in various fields of study you will see this the same diversity in the topics being presented to you here today the topics today will be on modern feminism the importance of linguistics and the truth behind your meal for today our first presenter is elizabeth mckinley elizabeth is a junior here at dartmouth high school elizabeth is a member of the debate club political science club in the student voice club she also loves international news in politics and enjoys traveling elizabeth chose her topic because she is very interested in feminism in the

003fight for equity among the genders although we have made many improvements in women's rights in the last century elizabeth would like to see more equitable change become a reality please welcome elizabeth mckinley as she presents modern feminism [Music] so i believe that before we discuss before we discuss modern feminism we need to look into definitions and we need to discuss the definitions that we need to understand to learn about this topic um sorry after we discussed the definitions we're going to talk about the history behind feminism in order to understand how we got to where we are today next we're going to go into modern women modern women's issues and discuss the reasons that we're still fighting today and finally we'll discuss solutions and how you can help specifically those who already have privilege so

004first off we're going to go into definitions the definition of feminism i believe is different for each person but the one i relate to the most is the one on the screen which is that feminism feminism is the belief in equality for women in all aspects of life socially economically and politically intersectionality is a newer aspect of feminism that's very recently become prevalent and the definition of intersectionality is to be a part of multiple groups such as gender race or sexuality that creates a different set of potential discriminations next up is equity versus equality so a lot of people ask for equality when we really should be asking for equity equality is when one gives everybody the same thing in order to succeed while equity is giving everybody what they need to succeed so getting

005different things this is an example so you can see here on the first part of the picture this is demonstrating equality everybody got the same thing but they all need different things because you can clearly see the first man can see well above the fence but the second or the third one still needs more height on the second part of the picture you can see that they have equity because the first man doesn't have a box because he doesn't need one while the shortest one needs two boxes in order to see so now this brings us to the history of feminism so the major events in recent history especially include the 1848 seneca falls convention which launched the women's suffrage movement suffrage is asking for the right to vote in 1920 the ninth or the

006yeah the 19th amendment was passed which gave all women over the age of 21 in the united states the right to vote during the mid-1900s women entered the workforce due to world war ii and this led to more of a equal society because before this women weren't believed to be able to actually work whereas now while the men were in war they could people could see that women were able to work and they actually contributed to society more than if they were just a housewife next up in the late 1900s was the attempt to pass the equal rights amendment this would have given women the equal equal rights by law in the constitution of the united states however this didn't pass which discouraged a lot of women so and then finally in 2021 we have

007our first female vice president which everybody knows about and our first female vice president in the united states i should clarify so this is significant because it shows that women now have a real say in what goes on in our country which is really important because women need to have a say because we represent half of the population next up is the waves of feminism so there have been four waves of feminism most believe so the first wave was really focused on votes for women and once this succeeded we moved on to the second wave which had the main slogan the personal is political this means that women's personal lives were coming politicized and some believe this was a good thing and some believe this was a bad thing because sometimes personal lives have to

008be politicized in order to actually make a change we then moved on to the third wave which has been focused on intersectionality which is which i defined earlier intersectionality is as a reminder when you're part of more than one group that creates a sense of discrimination sometimes so the third wave some believe is still going on but there's also a fourth wave that some people believe has started the fourth wave has really been the era of the metoo movement and using social media and the digital world in order to to portray feminism so the fourth wave this can bring us to modern issues so the modern fight for equality has three main things we can talk about the hashtag metoo movement intersectionality and stereotypes the metoo movement was started by tarana burke and it was

009beginning to raise awareness about sexual harassment so the phrase me too gives a sense of unity so for example if one woman were to say this happened to me i was sexually assaulted then and nobody responds then she feels like she shouldn't really have said anything but if someone responds with me too then there's a sense of community and there's a sense of okay i'm not crazy this happened to me too so by using this 262 powerful people were caught in the entertainment industry in the business this is of as of 2019 so and then there have been so many other people who've been caught that weren't prominent and this led to a more equitable society in hollywood in business and politics so as a reminder intersectionality is when you're part of more than one

010group that creates a sense of discrimination intersectional feminism is femi feminism that stands for the empowerment of all women not just white women not just straight women so the fourth wave of feminism and the third wave of feminism have been focused on fighting for all this is mainly including women of color and women in the lgbtq plus community because these were women that had been discriminated against by the women that were previously fighting for feminism this has also led to the breaking of stereotypes so i'm going to discuss stereotypes in these five sections so women in the workforce this is just an example of female ceos in the fortune 500. you can see in 1998 there were only two women see woman ceos in the fortune whereas now in 2020 there's about 37 which is

011still not even close to equal but we're getting there and now we have a foot in the door we have a say next up is parenting so in the past parenting has really been seen as a woman's job and a father should be out working and when he takes care of his kids it's seen as babysitting however this is starting to change now that fathers are starting to stay home and be the stay-at-home parent while women are out working and being ceos and being even just working at a smaller job they're still working and fathers are staying home so in 1880 or 1989 10 of stay-at-home parents were men but now in well almost now in 2016 uh 17 percent of stay-at-home parents were men this means that this is breaking down the stereotype that

012women have to be the people to stay at home next up is education so women in education and women who are being educated has increased drastically in the past 100 years or so ever since women really got the right by society to be educated there's always been a higher percentage of women in colleges so you can see here in college and enrollment there's 43 percent men and 57 women so this means that women are becoming more educated which is leading to more of a say in everything and is leading to more equality next up is politics women have become increasingly more popular in politics recently because we can see with the female vice president we're becoming we're beginning to have more of a say and this isn't the only area where we're getting more of

013a say we're also being represented more in congress and in the senate in the house of representatives which is congress so you can see clearly in the 65th congress there was almost no women in it you can see it's just fairly above the gray line and now you can see how it's going up recently this only goes up to the 115th congress we're in 117th congress right now and it's just still just skyrocketing up which means we have a say and we have a place to let people know what women want and we have representatives who actually represent us finally in athletics women have always been seen as they should be paid less and you can see clearly in this chart this is for the u.s soccer teams the men's soccer team and the women's

014soccer team the women obviously they've been winning more games than the men have and they've been to the world championship and they've they've just they've been doing better honestly but you can see that they're still making less money far less money and since they're doing better they should be making more money so this brings me to my solutions the biggest thing you can do is speak out when you see something happening that you don't think is fair or equitable you need to speak out about it and this can be something as simple as raising your hand in class and answering a question because then it shows that we are we are equal we can do the same things we know this we just need to make it more prevalent next up is calling out inequalities

015when we see something happen that we don't agree with that we don't like we have to speak out and we have to say something next up is you can support non-profit feminist organizations so this means that you can either support monetarily or just vocally but by supporting organizations for women run by women this creates a this gives them more of a chance to be equal in politics vote for women if you believe what they're saying is correct then you need to vote for women and finally protest and march for equality this is a demonstration that shows that we're all together and this is how we can move forward one step at a time [Music] thank you elizabeth our next presenter is caitlyn silva caitlyn is a junior here at dartmouth high school and this is

016her first tedx dhs presentation caitlyn is a member of the soccer team's winter track and lacrosse additionally she's a member of the debate team political science club caitlin chose her her to look at the topic of the linguistics because she has enjoyed her studies in english and writing kaitlyn finds it fascinating by changing one word in a sentence there can be a significant change to the overall meaning of what is being said additionally caitlyn hopes that she will be able to teach people about the importance of word choice in both writing and speaking please welcome caitlin silva as she presents the importance of linguistics [Music] the first step to understanding why linguistics is so important is understanding what exactly linguistics means well linguistics by definition is the study of languages in words studying the words

017of different languages and what they mean but it is more than just that linguistics was first introduced in the 19th century as a way to study how languages adapted and changed especially in relation to one another many european languages have similar words have similar grammar styles because they're so influenced by one another take spanish and portuguese for example if you ever learn either or both of those languages you know that they're pretty similar and that's likely because they have they're pretty close to each other on the map they have that extreme contact that's able to allow those two languages to adapt and change together they're influenced by one another and they change together however in modern day linguistics isn't just studying how language is adapted and changed it's also studying the word choice and grammar

018that goes into languages and that brings me to the main focus of this talk which is what i consider to be the most important part of linguistics and that is word choice word choice can reveal a lot about you that you might not realize it can reveal where you live in the country your economic status your education level and even your age so how does it do this well let's start with where you live first of all there's accents everyone's heard an accent before that you're like wow that's really strange maybe it's the southern accent or a british accent everyone out there has an accent even if they don't realize it around here we might have a boston a boston or new bedford accent which may drop the r or the t in some words

019but we don't even notice it because we've grown up speaking like that and to us it's normal but to people in other places of the country that accents weird it's unusual because they don't speak like that so that's the first way you can tell if someone's maybe not from the region you're in you can also tell with regional dialects in different parts of the country they use different words to describe the same thing take a bubbler for example around here if you go to get a drink in class you're going to the bubbler but if you were somewhere else in the country you might go to a water fountain or a drinking fountain because that's what they call it in that part of the country for another example there's soda around here a carbonated drink

020is soda but in western parts of the country they might call it pop which sounds strange to us because we've grown up used to hearing the word soda that's our regional dialect the same can be seen with the word sneakers around here they're sneakers but like the other words in different parts of the country they mean something else they might be called tennis shoes because that's the person's regional dialect if you hear someone saying the word tennis shoes it's a good sign that oh maybe they're not from around here they're from somewhere else you can also tell someone's age based on the words they say specifically the slang they say slang is constantly changing in language it changes day to day even a good example of this would be the phrase the bee's knees i

021don't know if any of you have heard that phrase before but it's an older one in prior generations they might have referred to something that was cool as the bee's knees if something was the bee's knees it was really cool and exciting but nowadays we don't use that word we don't use that expression it's pretty foreign to us so if you hear someone saying the expression the bee's knees that might be a sign that they're older or they have a lot of influence from people who are older the same can be seen with more modern slang the word lit that word was used a few years ago to describe something that was cool but nowadays you don't really hear the word unless someone's saying it ironically if someone's saying it seriously it might be a

022sign that they're also on the older end maybe trying to fit in with modern slang but not doing a very good job at it word choice can also reveal your economic status and your education level these two go hand in hand because typically if you have more money you are able to get a better education this of course isn't always true as there are people who are in lower economic statuses who get good educations but typically that is a standard you can notice an example of this would be the word common that's a pretty normal word it describes something that happens a lot of times but if someone says something is prevalent that might be a sign that they have a higher education level and in turn a higher economic level this isn't definitive once

023again because you can usually tell if someone's educated but you can't tell how much money they have by the what words they say you can only get a better indication so why is any of this important why do we need to understand the words we say well when you know what the words what the words you're saying mean and what you can say better you can make your word choice more impactful make it so your sentences have more meaning behind them one way you can do this is by watching your tone everyone's heard their parents say hey don't use that tone with me and that's because there's very different tones you should be using with your parents to with your friends there's formal and informal tones formal tones means you're probably talking to someone you

024respect someone you're not familiar with and you're going to be a lot more formal you're not going to use words like slang when you're talking to your boss or to your grandmother but if you're talking to your friends you're going to have an informal tone you're going to use more casual word choices you have a deeper bond with these people and you want your word choice to reflect that good example of this would be why don't we hang out soon and we need to arrange a meeting soon you wouldn't say the top one to a teacher that would sound creepy because it's not the correct tone you should be using with a teacher you should show some respect you should show some formality and so you should be using the phrase we need to arrange

025a meeting soon but vice versa you wouldn't say we need to arrange a meeting soon to your friend that would sound a bit odd because you guys aren't having a meeting you've met before you've talked you have an informal relationship and so you want to say why don't we hang out soon another thing that impacts your word choice is filler words if i came up here and said um so um like anyway um you could tell that i was nervous that maybe i didn't know what i was saying filler words are clunky and can reduce the impact of your sentences making people think you're nervous and that you don't understand what you're talking about and so by reducing these filler words or cutting back on the ones you use you can make your words have

026more impact to them a good example of this is i think i saw our teacher might be absent today versus our teacher is absent this first one is clunky it doesn't really make as much impact as the second one because you're using filler words you're using words that are reducing the impact of what you mean because you're unsure you don't know for sure if this is happening and you want the words to have less impact but for the second one your words are more impactful because you've reduced those pillar words and they have more meaning behind them if someone said our teacher is absent they know they're very confident about it and they have not used the filler words another thing that impacts your the impactfulness of your sentences is connotations words have a definitive

027meaning that you find in the dictionary there's straight definition and they have an implied meaning because words can have a more positive neutral or negative lighting based on their connotation take for example the word skinny that's pretty neutral if someone's skinny they don't have much weight on them they have less weight than normal but if you say the word scrawny that's a negative lighting to the word skinny if someone is scrawny they're maybe too skinny or you don't like how skinny they are versus the word slender slender is a more positive light it makes the word skinny sound better maybe you like that they're standing maybe they're standing in a good way and so you're going to use the word slender to show that you have a positive feeling about them the same can be

028said with the word said every english teacher hates the word said because it's pretty neutral it doesn't give you any more meaning than just they were speaking but if you use the word assured that's a more positive way it has more positive meaning to the word said and it makes you feel comforted someone is assuring you of something they're trying to make you feel better and if someone is huffing something out if they huffed that's a more negative leading to the word said it means that you're frustrated that you're trying to show someone you're frustrated by huffing the words out and by using those words that have different connotations you're able to you're able to better tell people how you feel based on the words it better explains what you're thinking here's a good example

029saying the sunset was pretty that's pretty neutral you know that it's pretty you know that it's good but you don't really know much beyond that versus the sentence the sunset was a medley of red and orange that's much more descriptive the word choice in that is much more positive you know okay they really liked the sunset it was very pretty you can tell based on their word choice what the sunset really looked like it had red and oranges in it and you have a better image in your mind of what they were trying to say by using words with more positive connotation they were able to better communicate with you how they really felt about the sunset so modern linguistics is constantly changing as i said before slang changes on almost a day-to-day basis but

030there's also new forms of linguistics specifically in emojis and emojis whether you realize it or not are basically a whole new language you are communicating with symbols on what you mean how many people have added an emoji to the end of the text to be like hey that was a joke or i'm not really serious about this to make sure that they know you're being sarcastic because over text it's hard to tell if people are being literal or sarcastic but by using emojis a new form of language you can better communicate that many emojis like these have facial expressions to better communicate what you're feeling because words may not always describe perfectly what you're feeling but facial expressions and emotions can better highlight what you mean by your words and what you mean to portray

031to the other person and it's ironic actually because three thousand years ago when their egyptians were using similar forms of linguistics by using hieroglyphics hieroglyphics are a pictographic type of language that used symbols to show what they mean and we're almost coming full circle again by using emojis to now reflect our words when we used to use pictures in egypt as a human kind and now we're going back to that so as i said before linguistics is constantly changing i don't know where linguistics will be in the future because it's changing the slang we use is changing and how we communicate is changing in the modern world we're going toward more digital forms of communication breaking down barriers that might have stopped us from talking to people of different languages and those far away from

032us now there's translators and there's pictures that are able to best communicate with people who may have previously had language barriers so in conclusion linguistics is always changing but it's important that you understand how to best communicate with people and best portray what you're feeling to those around you if you understand the importance of your words and the importance of what you're saying you can make a better impact on the world around you and communicate with those you may have previously not and that is how we move forward one step at a time [Music] thank you caitlyn an important presentation especially as a language teacher our next presenter is julianna souza juliana is a junior here at dartmouth high school juliana is a member of the high school winter track spring track and cross country

033team additionally she's a member of the debate team and the political science club she's also a writer for the dhs practum newspaper juliana shows her topic so that she can right bring light to the issues that are often overlooked by society please join me in welcoming julianna souza as she presents the truth behind your meal [Music] the last time you ate chicken did you think of how old that chicken was or when you had a burger did you think of where that cow came from when considering one's meal most of us never connect our food to the animal only viewing our meal as well a meal and not as an animal we believe that since we are humans we have a right to do we want to the planet into other animals but it doesn't

034have to be this way so we haven't always eaten meat so when did we begin doing this our ancestors began to eat meat around 2.6 million years ago before this we consisted of a mostly plant-based diet with some scavenged meat due to this our digestion was a lot slower and so a lot of our energy and effort was used to digest these foraged foods once we added meat to our diet this energy was transferred to be spent in the brain so our brain grew but any calorie food at this time would have had the same effect on our brains it's just that meat was available to us so in today's society most of us no longer need to consume meat so why do we well we do so because it tastes good but is sensory

035pleasure from our taste buds justifiable for taking away an animal's life so as with meat we consume cow's milk but why do we consume cow's milk we begin to consume cow's milk around 6 000 years ago in europe but the dairy market didn't begin until the 1940s where the wpa works progress administration carried out advertisements under fdr's new deal they promoted the sale and the consumption of milk after this multiple acts were passed promoting the sale of milk in requiring milk and school lunches milk became subsidized by the government meaning it was partially paid for by the government in 1990 u.s congress passed the milk promotion act where it allowed the promotion of milk with this in 1993 the california milk processing board launched advertisements known as the got milk campaign which we all know

036very well the got milk campaign featured celebrities promoting the sale of milk it increased consumption of milk dramatically but however in 1997 harvard did a study on milk and bone health due to the rising consumption of milk in the advertisements of milk they investigated whether high intakes of milk two or more glasses a day as suggested reduced the risk for osteoporosis and bone fracture as it was claimed but the study found none of these were true so how did the milk campaigns respond they increased their ads so what do cows have to go through to give us their milk in the dairy industry cows are forcibly impregnated by humans in order to give us milk cows don't produce milk for humans they produce milk as part of their natural reproductive cycle we are stealing this

037milk from these cows they do not make this milk for us they make it for their calf so in the dairy industry male cows if the calf is born male they are taken away from the mother less than 24 hours when they are born and they are killed and sold for reveal or they are sent to a farmhouse where they are raised to be one to two years old and they are killed and sold for me one to two years old if they are born female they carry out the same lives of their mothers they endure a life of abuse just for us to have cheese or us to consume milk in the wild and on farms cows can naturally live up to 20 years old but in the dairy industry female cows only live

038up to five years old due to how tired their bodies are from constantly becoming impregnated and lactating this milk but it doesn't have to be this way this theft this murder in this abuse can easily be solved by switching to a plant-based milk we don't need to consume cow's milk human aren't meant to consume cow's milk if anything it is more natural for us to consume plant milk so why do we treat dogs and cats so differently than we treat farm animals speciesism speciesism is the different treatment of animals based off of their species for instance we treat a dog and a cat with compassion but we treat farm animals with well not we believe that since we are humans we have the right to dictate what happens to animals we believe that we can

039say oh well you deserve to be treated with love and well you deserve to be treated with abuse because i like the way you taste but there is no difference between a dog and a pig and if there is it's very little these animals are not meant to be farm animals cows pigs and chickens are not meant to be farm animals they were chosen chosen because they are gentle they are compassionate and they are loving you would not see a farm full of bears or tigers even though you can eat them and i'm sure that they taste good we take advantage of these animals so why love one but eat the other we don't need to treat animals so differently we can work towards a different future where all animals are treated equally no matter

040their species so often we talk about the abuse and the inhumane killing of animals we resort to saying we should kill them in a humane way but can you kill an animal humanely the definition of humane is having a showing compassion or benevolence you can't however show compassion to someone by taking away their life the solution is not killing these animals in a less painful way it is not killing them at all when we don't need to consume this meat you cannot humanely kill someone who doesn't want to die so moving away from cows what about pigs pigs are the fourth most intelligent animal on the planet following chimpanzees dolphins and elephants but pigs are treated very very differently than these animals if we were to eat an elephant that would be seen as inhumane

041but if we eat a pig well that's normal pigs are more intelligent than dogs and their cognitive abilities can be compared to that of a three-year-old child but again we don't treat them this way pigs in the meat industry are killed at six months old six months and for females they are killed at less than two years old after becoming forcibly impregnated by humans pigs are not objects they are individuals they are animals pigs are intelligent they are creative and social animals but we deprived them of all of these things for three pieces of bacon on our burger but it doesn't have to be this way so what about chickens as seen in this graph chickens have been bred to be a much larger size than they are naturally intended to be this is to

042increase the amount of meat per chicken which is understandable but have we ever considered the health effect that this has on the chicken as well as with meat chickens produce eggs for us in the wild chickens would naturally produce 10 to 12 eggs a year now they're forced to produce up to 300 eggs a year this has extreme health effects on chickens where near the end of their life they can barely hold up their body weight due to how fragile and weak their bones are this is known as osteoporosis so in the egg industry male chicks are killed at one to two days old because they are not profitable in the egg industry female chicks are are face the same lives as their mothers where they are locked inside of these farmhouses deprived of any

043humane living standards they live up to less than two years old after enduring a life of misery we do all of this for just some chicken nuggets or some scrambled eggs to have with our breakfast in the morning so fish fish are one of the most forgotten animals when it comes to meat we believe that fish are unintelligent and that they can't feel pain but they are intelligent and they can feel pain our society has shifted into an aquaculture society where our our fish industry has shifted into fish farming rather than captured from the ocean and as seen in the grass it is expected to keep growing to be this way fish farming is often thought to be sustainable which it is in some stances but we never consider the actual fish fish as i

044said before can feel pain but millions of them can be locked into one single farm where they barely have enough room to swim around freely just because the anatomy of a fish's body is different doesn't make them any less deserving of freedom and equality than other marine animals so when often talk about agriculture climate change is brought up and as we can see in the graph beef is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases compared to almost all of the other foods following beef is other animal products below these animal products are plant-based protein options such as tofu vegetables beans etc as we can see these these all have extremely less emitters of greenhouse gas so why do greenhouse gases even matter greenhouse gases keep our planet warm by trapping in the earth's heat but too

045much greenhouse gas makes our global temperature rise and become too warm with the increase in consumption of meat these greenhouse gases emitted from these animal products are growing but some may argue animal agriculture compared to other emitters of greenhouse gases have a very little effect but we never take into account the transportation effects it can take from moving these animals to and across the country the deforestation of cutting chopping multiple trees acres of trees down to make room for these land animals and the water usage it can take that all contribute to climate change as well climate change is not just greenhouse gases so in order to get our meat someone has to do the killing of these animals oftentimes these workers are migrant immigrant workers that have nowhere else to work these conditions in

046these factories for these workers to face are extreme and often times workers can face ptsd from the brutal killing of these animals of killing hundreds to thousands of animals in a single day workers often resort to substance abuse and can suffer from anxiety depression or dissociation from reality due to how difficult their job is we often believe that it is a personal choice to consume meat or animal products but it's not a personal choice or a matter of opinion when not only do personal choices have a victim such as an animal but a worker a human being that has to suffer for our choices as well so what is the solution what can i do now you don't have to give up your favorite foods all of your favorite foods are available in a plant-based

047option there is everything available in our modern day world and even foods you don't even realize are already naturally plant-based we can shift our market and our society into a predominantly animal based agriculture society into a plant-based society to create a kinder world for animals people and the environment humans need calcium they don't need cow's milk humans need protein we don't need meat every nutrient found in these animal products can be found in other plant-based foods there is no reason to treat these animals this way when we almost everyone has these products available to them and for those who don't if those who aren't the privilege do take action we can make it more accessible for those people so instead of consuming cow's milk we can opt for plant-based milk such as oat milk almond

048milk soy milk coconut milk and so many other more there are plant-based cheeses plant-based chicken nuggets plant-based burgers and these aren't as extremely weird as they sound because they happen to taste almost exactly like animal products it is something as simple as reaching for that product instead so we have to consider that our choices are not just personal choices they have a victim these are living beings they are animals animals that want to be free animals that don't want to die they're they are living beings so next time you're in the grocery store or you're eating out or you're going to eat for dinner think do i really need to consume this meat or can i opt for a plant-based version do i really need to get cow's milk or can i get almond milk

049instead little choices like that can make such a difference and can push yourself into taking a step forward the choice is up to you this is how we move forward one step at a time thank you juliana for presenting a very interesting topic these days this concludes our presentations for pierithy period one so thank you very much and we'll see you later on today [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] mmm [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] hello dhs and welcome back to our period 2 presentations for tedx dhs 2021 mr susan and i would like to welcome you for this next period and for third

050period the tedx club is thrilled to present to you this exciting event here at dartmouth high school this is an independently organized event this year it will be broadcast and obviously you know that uh via live stream here at d by dhs tv media productions this year our format has changed from having a live audience because of course we need to meet covid protocol guidelines we are also having participants wear masks to meet those guidelines our theme this year is sociology moving forward one step at a time students from cohorts a and cohorts b are presenting topics that vary in terms of their own personal passions these students have volunteered their time to this group and diligently prepared presentations to enlighten you on these various topics you may be new to ted and maybe wondering

051who's this ted guy well i'm here to tell you there isn't a ted guy ted is actually an acronym for technology entertainment and design the ted organization has covered many ideas that are worth spreading and does this in various fields of study you will see the same diversity today in the presentations that are about to be presented to you so let's get started our first presenter is juliana souza juliana is a junior here at dartmouth high school juliana is a member of our high school winter track spring track and cross-country teams she is also a member of the debate team and the political science club and is a writer for the dhs spectrum newspaper juliana chose her topic so that she can bring light to the issues that are often overlooked in society please join

052me in welcoming giuliana souza as she presents the truth behind your meal the last time you ate chicken did you think of how old that chicken was or when you had a burger did you think of where that cow came from when considering one's meal most of us never connect our food to the animal only viewing our food as well food and not that the animal that that food once was we believe that since we are human we have the right to do we want to the planet and to other animals but it doesn't have to be this way we haven't always eaten meat so when did we begin doing this our ancestors began to eat meat around 6000 years ago prior to this no 2.6 million years ago prior to this we consisted of

053a mainly plant-based diet with some scavenged meat because of this our digestion was a lot slower so a lot of our bodies energy was used to digest these foods but once we added meat to our diet less of this energy was used on digestion and was transferred to be spent on our growing brains because of this well our brains grew and our digestion became faster but any calorie dense food at this time could have had the same effect on our brains it's just that meat was available to us today most of us no longer need to consume meat we choose to because it tastes good but is sensory pleasure from our taste buds justifiable for taking away an animal's life as with meat we consume dairy we began to consid consume dairy in europe around

0546 000 years ago but dairy didn't become a market until the 1940s where the works progress administration carried out advertisements to promote milk under fdr's new deal with this milk became subsidized by the government essentially milk was partially paid for throughout the next years there were many instances of milk being advertised and it was introduced into schools free or low of charge milk became a huge part of american culture but in 19 in 1990 u.s congress passed the milk promotion act where it allowed the promotion of milk with this in 1993 the california milk processing board carried out the very famous campaign got milk which we all know very well it featured many celebrities promoting the sale of milk however in 1997 harvard did a study on milk and bone health to see these claims

055that the milk companies were representing they investigated with their high intakes milk two or more cups a day reduced the risk for osteoporosis and related bone fracture the study found that it did not so how did the milk campaigns respond they increased their advertisements so what do cows have to go through to give us their milk humans are not meant to consume cow's milk cows don't milk make milk for us we are stealing that milk from cows cows produce this milk for their babies so in the dairy industry if the calf is born male they are killed and sold for veal or they are sent to a farm where they are killed at one to two years old and sold for meat if they are born female they carry the same exhausting lives as their

056mothers where they are forcibly impregnated and are made to be lactating this milk that is not for us in the wild cows live an average of 20 years but cows only live up to about five years due to their bodies becoming extremely tired from this constant impregnation and last hitting of this milk we are forced to view cows as only objects objects that supply us with something but cows are individuals they deserve a life of freedom and autonomy just as with a dog or a cat would so speaking of dogs and cats why do we give so much compassion and love to dogs and cats but not to other animals speciesism speciesism is the belief that certain species are superior to others while others aren't so in our standpoint dogs and cats are superior to

057cows and pigs but there is very little that separates these two animals they're only slight characteristics that separate pigs and dogs but their treatment is very very different so why love one but eat the other it doesn't have to be this way we can work towards a different future where dogs and pigs or cows and cats are treated equally and it doesn't matter their species so often we talk about the inhumane killing and the mistreatment of farm animals we resort to saying that we should kill them in a humane way but can you kill an animal humanely the definition of humane is having or showing compassion or benevolence you can't have or show compassion to someone by taking away their life the solution isn't necessarily giving these animals a good life and them killing them

058in a less painful way it is not taking their life away at all you cannot humanely kill someone who doesn't want to die in the first place so besides cows what about pigs pigs are the fourth most intelligent animal on the planet following chimpanzees dolphins elephants but they are treated very very differently than these other animals if someone were to eat an elephant that would be seen as inhumane and awful but when we eat a pig that's normal so in the pig industry if a pig is born a male they are killed at six months old for me but if they are born a female they carry out the same lives of their mothers and they are killed at two years old but it doesn't have to be this way pigs are individuals they're not

059objects that supply us with meat they deserve a life of freedom pigs are a creative intelligent and loving animals but they are deprived of all of these things for three pieces of bacon on our burger so as well with pigs what about chickens chickens have been bred dramatically throughout the past decades larger than what is intended for their bodies as we can see in this image we consider that this gives us more meat but we never consider how this affects the chickens themselves chickens are not able to hold up their body weight due to how much weight they are carrying as with meat chickens produce eggs in the wild chickens produce 10 to 12 eggs a year but now they are forced to produce up to 300 eggs a year this has extreme health effects

060on chickens and causes osteoporosis where near the end of their life they're barely able to keep themselves up due to how fragile and weak their bones are in the egg industry male chicks are killed at one to two days old because they are not profitable in this industry female chicks endure the same lives of their mothers where they are trapped inside these farms with no living no adequate living standards and they are killed at two years old just as with all the other animals i've talked about these chickens are individuals and they don't deserve to be locked up in these farms for something as simple as scrambled eggs or chicken so when talking about meat we often forget to mention fish we believe that fish are unintelligent and that they can't feel pain but they

061are intelligent and they can feel this pain our society has shifted into an aquaculture market and as we can see in this graph it is growing into that we have resorted to fish farming instead of regular capture fissuring we often have dismissed we often mistake fishermen for being sustainable which it isn't certain factors but we never consider the fish themselves in fish farming fish are kept inside of these farms where millions of them can be held in one single farm fish are barely even able to swim around freely fish do not deserve this as i said before fish are intelligent animals and they don't deserve to be treated any differently than other marine animals so climate change climate change is often brought up when discussing animal agriculture and as we can see on the graph

062beef is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases by a dramatic amount compared to other products and below beef is other animal products but below these animal products are plant-based options such as tofu nuts or vegetables which all have much less emitters of greenhouse gases but why do greenhouse gases matter greenhouse gases keep our planet warm by trapping in the earth's heat but too much greenhouse gases makes our global temperature too warm and due to increased amount of greenhouse gases being admitted this is happening so a common argument is that animal agriculture doesn't have as much greenhouse gas emissions as other emitters of greenhouse gases such as transportation or electricity but we never consider the huge climate effect it has on transporting these animals to and across the country deforestation that takes place to make room

063for these animals and the water usage it takes to develop these animal products climate change is not just greenhouse gas emissions it is so much more than that so we often forget that people living beings have to do the killing of these animals oftentimes the slaughterhouse workers are migrant or immigrant workers that have no other options but to work in these facilities slaughterhouse workers can suffer from ptsd due to the emotional turmoil of killing hundreds to thousands of animals a day slaughterhouse workers can resort to substance abuse and oftentimes can suffer from anxiety issues depression and dissociation from reality due to how vigorous their jobs are it is not a personal choice to eat meat it is not a matter of one's own opinion when they not only have an animal that is a victim

064but a human being that has to go through this for our personal choices so what is the solution what is the alternative you don't have to give up your favorite foods all of your favorite foods are available in plant-based options or there are some foods you may not even realize are already plant-based to begin with so there is so much information available there are so many recipes videos and advice available online with the click of one button humans don't need to consume cow's milk we need calcium humans don't need to eat meat we need protein all of these nutrients found in these animal products can be found in any plant-based food there is no reason for this abuse in this killing of these animals when we can get all of our nutrients in other foods

065that don't have this much of an impact on animals humans and the environment so instead of consuming cow's milk we can opt for a plant-based milk such as almond milk soy milk oat milk or coconut milk we don't need to consume cow's milk cow's milk is not meant for us to consume as well with meat we don't have to eat the meat from other animals we can have plant-based meat options and it is not as extreme as it seems to be in fact it makes more sense for humans to consume meat i mean plant-based options in our modern day world than meat so we need to realize that our food choices are not just personal choices they have a victim these are animals they are living beings that suffer and have to be killed for

066us to consume these products but doesn't have to be this way we can work towards a different future where these animals are treated equally to other animals and they don't suffer a life of abuse so the next time you're in the grocery store think do i really need to grab this cow's milk or can i grab a plant-based milk instead it is something as simple as reaching for that dairy-free yogurt or that meat alternative the choice is up to you this is how we can move forward one step at a time [Applause] [Music] thank you juliana great topic to provide your peers with alternatives all right our next presenter is cole perry cole perry is a senior here at dartmouth high school he is very involved in the theater program and is a member of

067our dhs football team cole is also a member of winter track and spring track and is involved in our acapella group harmonix and i've heard him sing it is wonderful cole chose his topic because he plans to join the military after graduation and believes that this is a great option for many students who want to both serve their country and obviously learn a variety of new skills please join me in welcoming cole perry as he presents military versus college [Applause] as a fellow student and a fellow senior we have lots of choices to make this year many are from college to military in family related matters especially since scovit happened this year as a student that does many activities after school as mrs true said it's important that we don't let others base our opinions

068and what we want to do in our future based off of theirs let's make our own decisions to advance our life it's your choice whether you want to go to the military or if you want to join college high school students have several options to consider when you are going into the military if you join the military unlike college there's different enlistment periods there's three years six years or 12 years this is different from if you want to go into the medical field when you're in college it might take eight or plus years as if you join active duty this means that you are based outside of the country or inside the country for extended amount of time as reserves are like the national guard during the capital attacks this year they were called in

069for more than three weeks now and once it's over they'll go back home to their families and after you do active duty and reserves you can go to the civilian life civilians are people who are after after they join the military in case of war they will be called in enlistment possibilities three years six years or 12 years three years is your basic level of entry when you join the military six years is the middle ground in 12 years is the highest amount you can serve for a consecutive amount of period 12 years and six years you all you have more benefits that you can choose from like a sign-on bonus or more more to your housing stipend and your food stiphon the gi bill stands for the soldier bill and the general enlistment bill

070the soldiers were called gis that's where this comes from and the bill helps veterans and active duty soldiers get their higher level education the department of veterans affairs and education benefit is the one who deals with the gi bill and you can find more on the website about their benefits as an active duty soldier or as a veteran this helps especially the medical field where tuition can go up to thousands of thousands of dollars where you can join the military and get it basically for nothing for serving your country for three years or six years or 12 years jobs for the next two slides i will be discussing the difference between military jobs and college jobs if you get out these are the same jobs and there's multiple jobs after this that we won't see

071today for one medics medics in the military are very important as they serve for many different branches of the military such as the coast guard army national guard air force and navy medics will receive one month out of of advanced training and learning through the coast guard this does not include the basic training which is an average of a two-month span period for all branches of the military doctors medical school which is paid for by the u.s government this is important because medical school as you know costs a lot of money to the average student pilots you need to have a bachelor's degree and become an officer and go to flight school this is also paid for by the u.s government captains get an off get officer training and you need to have a c-lift

072support officer which includes joining the military going to basic training and going through additional steps to become an officer engineers we are in desperate need of engineers in this country today you need a college degree and and you need to become an engineering officer compared to when you go to college college is really expensive now up to twenty thousand dollars in student debt as in college you need for a medic not just as an emt or a paramedic they're two separate things you need three months of ent school as just to become a basic emt and a bachelor's degree to become a paramedic this becomes expensive because as soon as you get your bachelor's degree it's two thousand three thousand dollars more compared to doctors where it's pre-medicine studies medical school and you need to

073take your board exams this could be from eight years plus compared to where you join the military it would take a year two years pilots college degrees in flight transportation and commercial flight training this means you would have to take commercial flight training with a major flight company like delta jet blue american airlines and that could take up to two years as flight as flight school fills up really fast in the united states compared to if you join with the military you get air force level training which is a higher level of training and when you get out of the military you can serve with a major flight transportation company like american airlines engineers and captains captains is anywhere from an oil vessel to a major cruise ship captains no matter where you go in

074the united states you have to join through the u.s coast guard to get your captain's license this means you have to get trainings on all sorts of ships engineers you need to take the fe which is the fundamentals of engineering you need to go into engineer training and have a four years apprenticeship compared to when you join the military you get a two-year education and by the time you get out three years six years or 12 years you're ready to go you're ready to join the engineering course debt student debt this is where all really comes into play according to forbes the average student debt across the world is thirty two thousand nine hundred dollars that's a lot of money that's almost like a mortgage to some people that's a house payment the u.s total

075student debt is an astonishing 1.56 trillion dollars for that that's more than people make in a lifetime that's a lot of money to spend on college compared to the military debt which is zero you get a higher level education for less money it's a great option to choose to get your foot in the door in the workforce rotc programs this is a major step for high school students looking to get their foot in the door if they want to see if they want to join the military if kids are not if kids are not really sure whether to join this will get them to really see what what what it's like this stands for the reserves officer training corp the rot students are for students that are thinking about joining the military and new bedford

076high school is the only high school in the south coast that is given the option and that runs the jrotc this is the junior version and this allows him to get advanced training and even join the military at an advanced rank like an officer what can schools do schools across america have changed their opinions about military over the years all high schools except if you want to go into the military but a lot of them are not really sure how to handle it it's mostly college and that's where a lot of students lean to well the first step is rotc programs this advances your choices in the military you can choose up to all five branches of the military and with the rotc program you can even join at an advanced rank two is the

077asvab test the azweb test is a military testing program that allows you to be able to pick if you get a high enough rank to join all five branches of the military in all factors of the military the azweb test is crucial because it's base if you do it in the high school it's a pre-test you can take the asvab test multiple times if you please and the higher score you get is the more branches that you can get into this allows students to see where they stand and if they want to advance into the military career or go into the college route and the third is invite military recruiters to the schools this is important because without military recruiters you won't get to know your benefits and where you stand most military recruiters they're

078only at lunch shifts and they don't really say much they hand out lanyards if this was available more people would get to find out what their benefits are like stipend for food stiphon for houses there's multiple benefits and sign-on bonuses you can even become a cook for the coast guard or the military and make up to five thousand dollars more a year this is how you advance advance your steps in the military thank you for listening to my ted talk [Applause] thank you cole that was a great way to enlighten your peers in terms of what options they have upon graduation okay and here we go with caitlyn our third presenter for period two is caitlyn silva caitlyn is a junior here at dartmouth high school and this is her first tedx dhs presentation and

079we are so happy to have her with us caitlyn is a member of the winter track teams along with being on the soccer and lacrosse teams as well she is also on the debate team and is a member of the political science club caitlin chose her topic of linguistics because she enjoys her studies in english and writing caitlyn finds it fascinating that by changing one word in a sentence there can be a significant change to the overall meaning of the entire sentence and what is being said additionally caitlyn hopes that she will be able to teach people about the importance of word choice in both writing and speaking please welcome caitlin silva as she presents the importance of linguistics [Applause] [Music] the first step to understanding why linguistics is so important in our life is

080understanding what exactly linguistics is by definition linguistics is the study of languages and words studying why you say what you say and what exactly it means it is also the study of how languages have evolved and adapted over time many languages influence one another especially if they're in class close proximity with another this can be seen in the case of spanish and portuguese if you've studied one or either of those languages you know that those languages are very similar they have similar grammar and word choice this is likely because portugal and spain are very close to one another so those languages were able to adapt and change together to have similarities but in modern day linguistics is not just the study of how languages changed and adapted it's also the study of word choice which

081is what i find to be the most important part of linguistics once you know what you're going to say you can reveal a lot about you stuff that you might not realize such as where you live in the country your economic status your education level and even your age so how exactly does it do this well first off it can reveal where you live through regional dialects starting with accents everyone has an accent whether they realize it or not you don't notice your accent because you've grown up hearing people speak like you around here we have a bossnet sent we might drop the r's or t's in certain sentences and not even realize it but if you go down south you're going to hear southern accents which are going to sound strange to us because

082we've only grown up hearing the accents of the people around us you might remember hearing an accent on a tv show that seems really strange to you and that's just because you are not used to it and someone from another part of the country might hear us speak and say wow they have a really strange accent because they're not used to our accent either but through word choice you can also tell where people are from based on those regional dialects because different parts of the country have different words for the same thing such as bubbler around here if you're going to get a drink in between classes you're going to the bubbler but if you were maybe down south or in the western part of the country you go to a drinking or a water

083fountain the same can be seen with the word soda a carbonated drink around here is just a soda but in other parts of the country they refer to it as pop which may seem strange strange to us because we don't say that we say soda the same is true with sneakers around here you just put sneakers on to go for a run but if you're in the west you might refer to them as tennis shoes word choice can also reveal a lot about your age specifically in the slang you use slang is always changing from a day-to-day basis to over the course of generations a good example of this is the expression the bee's knees for those of you who don't know what that means it was a word used in prior generations to mean

084cool or exciting if you hear someone saying wow that's the bee's knees it means it was good it was cool but nowadays we don't use that we use words like cool but if you hear someone saying the expression the bee's knees it's like likely an indicator that they're older or that they're influenced a lot by people who are older than them the same can be seen even with more modern terms the expression lit was popular a few years ago to mean the same thing cool or exciting but nowadays if you say the word lit it's most likely ironically or it's an indicator that someone is on the older side and they don't they're not able to keep up with the modern day slang that people are using you can also tell a lot about someone's

085education and economic levels based on the words they say this is not a true indicator as it's not always a tie but more often than not if you're a higher economic status you have higher education levels this is of course not always true as someone with low economic status can have a high education level but more often than not it is true a good example of this would be the word common common's a pretty normal word it just means many or often but if you were to use the word prevalent that might indicate that you have a higher level vegetation and you're more likely to have a higher level of economic success so why is any of this important why do we need to understand what we're saying and what it means well once you

086understand what you're saying and what it means you can make your words much more impactful you're able to better control how you say things how things come off and better tell the person near you what you are feeling and what you are trying to communicate with them one way you can do this is through tone tone reveals how you feel about the words how you're feeling when you say them and you shouldn't use the same tone for everyone how many people have heard their parents say don't use that tone with me or don't speak like that with me because maybe you're using too informal of a tone formal tones are usually used when you're talking to someone you respect to someone you might not know well or have a deep bond with so you wouldn't

087want to say something super casual with them well on the opposite side you have informal tones which you might use with your friends or someone you're really close with because you know them and you're able to use different words with them for example why don't we hang out soon verse we need to arrange a meeting soon the first one is much more informal it's something you say to a friend or someone you're close with you wouldn't want to say that to a teacher that would be creepy because you don't have a informal relationship with them you have a formal relationship with them so you should be saying we need to arrange a meeting soon that is much more formal much more respectful especially to people that you don't have a close relationship with but you

088also wouldn't want to say that to a friend because you're trying to give off an informal tone that you're familiar with them you're friendly so you would say why don't we hang out soon there's also a lot of difference in how you say words that can greatly impact the tone if i say that sounds great versus that sounds great the second one is much more negative it's not as enthusiastic it's likely sarcastic but the first one it was very happy it was in a positive light based on how you say the words you can communicate how you're feeling what you want your words to say saying something sarcastically implies that you don't really mean it but saying it enthusiastically means you do mean it you really mean it and you're trying to portray that to

089them another thing you need to be careful of is filler words if i came up here and said um so um like anyway um you would think i was nervous you would think i don't know what i'm talking about by using filler words you're reducing the impact of what you're saying and you're making it more clunky harder for people to understand what you mean they're just getting off all these filler words thinking oh she's nervous oh she doesn't really know what she's talking about for example i think i saw that our teacher might be absent today versus our teacher is absent the first one has a lot of filler words it's reducing the impact of what you're trying to say and by doing that you're making yourself sound uneasy unsure and you don't want to

090do that when you're speaking especially when you know what you're talking about so by saying our teacher is absent that is much more definitive it means you know what you're talking about you know that teacher is absent it is much more impactful you also have to be careful about word connotations words have a literal meaning their definition in the dictionary and they also have an implied meaning words can be neutral positive or negative based on what they're trying to say for example the word skinny that's a pretty neutral word it means that you don't have much weight on you you're skinny but if you're going to say the word scrawny that's a much more negative light to the word skinny it means maybe you're too skinny the person telling you that you're scrawny or describing

091someone as scrawny is trying to make them seem negatively skinny it's not a good way of describing someone versus saying slender while this also means skinny it's skinny in a more positive light it's saying that okay they're skinny but this is good this can also be seen with the word said every english teacher hates the word said because it's neutral it doesn't give you much more beyond the fact that they're speaking versus saying the word assured that's positive if you're assuring someone to something you're trying to make them feel better you're trying to keep them happy whereas saying huffed if you huff out a word it's not a good thing you're frustrated you're agitated and you're just huffing things out by saying huffed or assured over said you're giving someone a better understanding of whether

092or not this was a positive or a negative situation oh for example the sunset was pretty that's pretty neutral it's telling you basically that the sunset was good that they liked it but not much else beyond that versus saying the sunset was a medley of red and orange that is much more descriptive that has given you more imagery and so you can understand better what they are trying to communicate with you you can now know that it's oh it's red and orange it's a medley it's a very positive thing it was very beautiful so modern linguistics is always changing first i already said that the slang is moving and constantly changing from day to day but there's also new languages coming to show for example emojis emojis are a more modern formal language that uses

093pictures to show what people really mean how often have you put an emoji at the end of a text message to say hey that was just a joke or i was being sarcastic about that emojis such as the on the screen that show facial expressions are used to show emotion and show what the person really means something that words can't best communicate when you're just over a text by using emojis to show your emotions you're able to say hey even though the words might sound a little bit sarcastic i was just kidding this is just a joke because i was using maybe the crying laughing face emoji whereas if you just use the words it might have a different meaning by showing your facial expressions and emotions you're better able to communicate with people it's

094ironic actually because languages originally had similar forms to this thousands of years ago in egypt they used hieroglyphics which were pictographic forms like emojis to communicate with people and to write down what they saw it is almost a cycle that we have come from using hieroglyphics using pictographic languages to now even though we have advanced form of word-based languages we're still using emojis still using art to better demonstrate our emotions and what we are trying to communicate the future of linguistics is constantly changing i don't know what words will sound like in a few hundred or thousand years but i know that it is very important that we understand what is happening especially in modern day when languages are becoming more digital and new forms of communication are taking shape in the digital age it's

095easier than ever to communicate with people that you may have not been able to because of language barriers the internet has translators and emojis that are universal signs of art so that you can communicate with people who you may not have been able to in the future in the past sorry in conclusion linguistics is always changing i've said it multiple times and i'm going to say it again linguistics is always changing and you need to be aware of that because understanding how it changes how it impacts your words is the key step to being able to communicate with the world around you and that is how we move forward one step at a time thank you caitlin this concludes our period two portion of the tedx dhs conference for 2021. uh we will have three

096presenters presenting during period three and we hope that you teachers take a few moments to debrief with your students and talk about the many wonderful topics that have been addressed in our conference thank you [Music] well [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] welcome to our sixth tedx dhs event mr and i are thrilled to present to you this exciting event here at dartmouth high school this is an independent organized event this year it will be broadcast via live stream by dhs tv media productions this is a change from our previous format having a live audience our live stream event along with participants wearing masks have been an update

097to meet covet 19 guidelines our theme this year is sociology moving forward one step at a time students from cohort a in cohort b will be presenting various topics that are engaging and stem from their personal passions these students have volunteered their time to this group and digitally prepare presentations to enlighten you on various topics you may be new to ted and you might be wondering who is this ted guy i'm here to tell you that it isn't a person instead ted is an acronym for technology entertainment design the ted organization has covered many ideas worth spreading in various fields of study you will see this the same diversity in these topics being here presented here today for this period we will have topics on stem foreign language and modern feminism our first presenter is

098colin zoo colin is a junior here at dartmouth high school he is a member of the speech and debate team additionally he has been a member of dartmouth deca team since his freshman year and co-founded the stock market club colin chose his topic because of his personal interest in stem and he noticed that in his ap research class he is the only person in the class who uses he him pronouns please join me and welcome colin zoo as he presents challenge ourselves and stem [Music] [Applause] currently students in modern america have the ability to choose from a plethora of different courses that weren't available to them many years ago these courses vary and range from many different topics and fields and we have many different departments at our school to handle these today i'd like

099to talk about the stem field and all the different departments that encompass it in stem four major topics are covered the sciences technology engineering and mathematics often times when we talk about stem it isn't very clear what the end game or point of it is in stem the major points of benefit could be that high school level students could be introduced to topics in fields that they weren't previously interested in and could find new passions and careers for it this could lead them to choosing majors for their upper level education in college that they weren't previously interested in if they didn't know what it was about jobs in stem can be more financially stable for students in the future and this is and i'll talk about that later on in the slides this year i

100took ap research i had the chance to survey some of my peers and what they thought about advanced and challenging classes at dartmouth high a general attitude that students at dartmouth high had were that 57 percent of friends had a friend 50 57 of students had a friend in advanced placement class or more challenging level class 63 percent of respondents said that they took an ap for a pursued career in the future and 60 of respondents to my survey said that they were not deterred by testing fees a common sentiment in interviews among students were that advanced placement computer science classes at dartmouth lacked gender diversity when compared to other classes so i sent out a survey to many of my peers in the ap english program and other students around the school nearly three

101in four students said that the majority of their friend group was of the same gender when i asked them about an association with a certain demographic with stem the sciences technology engineering and math departments at our school over 74 percent of students said that they had no association with any demographic this can show that dartmouth fosters a positive and equitable environment for the most part of the people that said they had a demographic association with them the vast majority of them said that there was a male association this is commonly seen in society and media i'm going to be talking about the origins of computer science and how they are mostly female this contradicts from the societal association with stem with the male gender from ap computer science enrollment nationally the vast majority of students

102are male around 69 percent some of the most influential women in stem history have been of a earlier time the first noble woman i'd like to talk about is ada lovelace widely considered the first computer engineer she created notes and thoughts and ideas on how an analytical engine could use repeated instructions to create processes this would become the major and founding idea of the process known as loops in computer programming margaret hamilton was a nasa engineer and she helped influentially impact the process that we sent men to the moon in the apollo missions she was very successful and influential in her field despite societal boundaries preventing women at the time from really excelling in the engineering field another woman that i'd like to talk about was marie curie she was notable in her fields in

103radiation and chemistry with the major discoveries of radioactive isotopes of certain elements she conduct she conducted her research despite significant danger to herself and her co-workers when it comes to stem i got to the chance to interview students as to why they chose not to take more challenging courses and why they took the courses they did i'd like to talk about the importance of suspending our disbelief in ourselves and how that can enable us to have a more productive future one of the most common sentiments that i heard as to why students avoid these challenging classes is that they avoid them because they perceive themselves as weak in these subjects they also thought that in these subjects their weekend these minimum requirements for graduation should now become personal goals this this prevents ourselves from being

104successful in the future by seeing these minimum requirements and not pursuing any classes or careers beyond it when we enable ourselves to look at stem beyond what's the minimum requirement for graduation we're allowing ourselves to take classes in things we're truly interested in and to excel in an academic environment by taking challenging courses in areas we feel where we can we can strengthen ourselves and create a more well-rounded student as we move on to a higher level of education next i'd like to talk about the importance of diversity in our education at a pre-collegiate level and how that impacts the stem field in the future when we place students in environments that have diverse viewpoints and people that vary from ourselves it forces us to challenge our conventional ways of thinking and allows us to

105think from a different perspective in the science in the scientific community and the engineering community many of the world's problems are solved by people who aren't experiencing the problem they're able to look at it from an outside perspective but still relate to how it affects people in their day-to-day lives the importance of being able to look beyond your own perspective is seen in almost every stem job in the modern world next i'd like to talk about some leading nations in gender diversity in the stem fields in china their era of industrialization and online business has recently come to a major peak we've seen major businesses such as alibaba thrive on an international scale in china over 50 percent of online business entrepreneurs are women in india we look at a study in 2011 which showed

106that over 42 percent of women composed computer science and computer engineering degrees as opposed to america with 18 percent of women composing computer science and computer engineering degree holders in saudi arabia women make almost women make up almost 60 percent of computer science holders computer science degree holders the connection between our courses that we take in high school and the careers we pursue in the future are significant there are many ties between what we learn at a high school level and what we choose to pursue later on in life when it comes to stem jobs and how we might advance into them after we graduate the future looks good stem jobs are expected to grow in the next decade around 13 percent as compared to the average national job growth of nine percent when looking

107at stem job income on average stem-based jobs earn eighty-eight thousand dollars this is significantly more than the us average national income of around forty six thousand dollars as technology engineering and mathematics become more prevalent in society the ideas of autonomous manufacturing and artificial intelligence become more and more prevalent along with it we'll begin to see that many manufacturing jobs and lower education required will crew requirement jobs become out of fashion and leave the economy by 2025 automation is expected to cost over 85 million jobs according to the world economic forum the majority of these jobs will be in the manufacturing sector along with lower educational requirement jobs and manual labor however stem jobs are looking uh some jobs are looking to have a promising future they're in ever increasing demand and are extremely uh extremely

108useful in the future some opportunities for us stem education uh can be costly for students these costs can oftentimes be overwhelming and many corporations and companies understand that and consider it when offering scholarship programs here i've listed some of the most major of the society of women engineers scholarship you can earn up to 15 000 and for these science ambassadors scholarship funded by cards against humanity they offer up to full tuition i have a few other scholarships listed on these slides at dartmouth high we offer many extracurricular activities which can engage students in stem outside of the classroom one of these activities is the robotics club which competes regularly at a district level to join the robotics club you can talk to mr brodsky or mr lauer as a member of massachusetts deca i've been

109with the club for around three years now and we have many events covering various topics some of which like accounting really incorporate mathematics to join deca you can talk to ms kane in a32 we also have the math team at dartmouth high the math team is run by mr york and also regularly competes all three of these activities engage students and allow them to be competitive with their peers and challenge themselves at a personal level i'd also like to talk about the course offerings we have at dartmouth high in the sciences we have the standard courses of biology physics and other things that students move through but we also have electives in the varying physical sciences like organic chemistry horticulture and author courses along with advanced placement courses in the technology field we have many

110different electives which cover different topics of computer science especially project lead the way run by the computer science department which incorporates advanced placement computer science principles computer science a and cyber security we also have various engineering courses which include drafting and robotics and our mathematics courses typically end with seniors in pre-calculus but by taking accelerated courses and other electives students can choose to learn about statistics and other advanced placement options we have many of the wonderful teachers in the art department and the business department would be gravely disappointed in me if i didn't mention interrelated courses these interrelated courses integrate stem into fields that people wouldn't traditionally think are related to stem for example our graphic design course uses computers to design art along with the digital photography course we have entrepreneurship and innovation classes

111which heavily use computers in the business department overall my main recommendations would be for students to incr would be for students to take classes beyond the basic graduation requirements and to explore electives in stem that they genuinely are interested in another major facet that i would think about is searching out scholarships as you approach your graduation year scholarships will make it more financially stable to move into a higher education and eventually into a stem job participating in stem-based activities at dartmouth high will allow students to really understand what they're interested in and what they might want to pursue outside of high school parents should also encourage their students to move up from higher level courses if they are using the minimum requirements as a baseline for students tasting taking ccr classes moving up to an

112honors level class could allow themselves to be challenged more and grow as a student by emphasizing stem in our students at a young age and promoting diversity we're able to create a more equitable and fair community this is how we move forward one step at a time thank you thank you collin for presenting such an important topic for our future here our next presenter is jennifer scott jenny is a senior here at dartmouth high school jenna is on the winter track spring track and cross-country teams and i've had the pleasure of coaching her those of you who know jenny know how that she is a quiet person but she's doing his doing this ted talk to get out of her comfort zone originally jenny was supposed to present with her friend lavender burke but they

113were unable to work together since they are in different cohorts jenny chose her topic on foreign language instruction at the elementary levels because she believes that everyone should speak more than one language and would like to see students get more than three years of high school instruction please join me in welcoming jennifer scott as she presents the importance of learning foreign languages earlier [Music] as i'm sure many of you here have taken a foreign language class and like me you're most likely not fluent in that language teaching kids in middle school is pushing it but by the time you get to high school it's already too late so you may be wondering what's the point then of taking a foreign language class if you don't become fluent granted there are other advantages to these classes

114than just fluency it's still important that students fully understand the language but there's a greater question here that should be asked why aren't students taught this at um taught a foreign language in elementary school this is what i'll be discussing today so let's backtrack a little and start somewhere simple to answer this complex question so what is a lingua franca well if you didn't have the opportunity to have ms true as a history teacher or you didn't take ap human geo which i recommend it's a great class i'll explain it here so the merriam-webster textbook definition of a lingua franca is any of various languages used as common or commercial tongues among people of diverse speech so in less words it's essentially a language that's spoken between two different countries that wouldn't otherwise communicate and

115a common example of this is english so about 1.27 billion out of the 7.8 billion people on earth speak english which is a fairly large amount english is the most commonly used lingua franca and that's why it's so widespread throughout the world and oftentimes people take it for granted because it's so widespread and people expect you to know english or to speak english english also takes a long time to learn i mean you've probably been learning english your whole entire life and you might not even fully understand everything throughout the language so why would you expect anyone else to accommodate them in the language they speak so the top three spoken languages in the world today are english spanish and chinese english has spread throughout the world due to britain and their colonialism um so

116you can see it spoken here in north america obviously in britain australia even parts of india and africa also speak english as well spanish mostly spread through spanish conquistadors back in the late late 1400s and such and that's why spanish is so widespread china mandarin chinese on the other hand um is so prevalent because of so many people that live in china today okay so foreign language in the us think about it most of us have learned english most of our lives though some still don't necessarily english properly they've been immersed in the language for years now so how could anyone believe that starting spanish in middle school would help us you can't put down on a job application that you took spanish twice in high school 78 of people speak english in the us

117so it's majority speak english and so if you think about it when you look at road signs or billboards or even posters most of them are in english you won't necessarily find a lot in other languages which is strange because the us doesn't actually have an official language and yet everybody expects you to speak english and because of this there's little immersion of other languages which can make learning a foreign language seriously difficult as nobody else really speaks it and you might necessarily not hear it otherwise but what puts the nail in the coffin is that learning in a new language and middle school high school is prominent throughout the us which is too late to be learning a language and this contrasts europe significantly as they start in elementary school and i've talked with

118mrs souza who is a foreign language teacher here at dartmouth high school about this and she has spent most of her childhood in portugal so she knows a thing or two about it she said that foreign languages often began in fifth grade back when she was there but now they can start as soon as kindergarten leaving the us falling far behind also in europe they're surrounded by many different countries that speak all sorts of different languages which can also help as you're more immersed in the language they also speak a lot more different languages throughout europe and such even just in single countries you can find a lot of people who speak multiple different languages and because there's people who speak these languages people can listen to it and they're able to better memorize it

119and speak it but if you don't have that if you just hear one language you're not you're going to have a very difficult time learning anything else so ever wonder why you can't pronounce certain words or phrases in another language no matter how hard you try you can get close but it just doesn't sound right some of you watching this probably can't roll your arse and no matter how many times a spanish teacher says no like this you still can't do it and this is because after the age of 12 um your tongue and your mouth shape become very inflexible and so if you aren't introduced to these sounds at a younger age you won't physically be able to make them and this is a serious problem because by the time you're taught these foreign

120languages in middle school at the age of like 12 or your tongue has already become too stiff and inflexible for you to say these words and at that point what was the point of learning the language which is why you should start at a younger age so you're able to actually say the words properly so and since you're not able to say the words properly because you were taught at such an older age it often gives people accents and accents are essentially when you just can't say the word right so you substitute the sound for whatever other sound that's common in your language and after just the age of one you learn to ignore most distinctions in sound so it's completely understandable that by 12 you're just too old to say it did i change

121it yeah okay okay so it's easier to learn a second language at a younger age i mean just think of babies and younger children they have little time to pick up a language and so they pick it up easier and they're more adept at hearing all the sounds and then being able to replicate them but the older you get the more you lose this ability so it would make sense if we started teaching at younger age ages foreign languages therefore you could speak it better also speaking as second languages have been linked with a sharper memory and better listening skills but again this only happens if you're fluent in both languages which most often does not happen because we're not taught at those younger ages we're not taught long enough so the benefits the benefits

122of learning a second language is it can improve cognitive functions and flexibility and this is important in school especially studies have shown that people who can speak two languages fluently score higher on standardized tests also once you know another language it can be extremely helpful to learn others more easily especially if they're in the same language family for example if you know portuguese it would be much easier for you to learn another romance language such as italian or spanish but more than that culture is super important to language and you can't really learn a language without learning the culture and this is because of slang and words that can have different meanings and words that are linked to certain cultural events and so it's important to understand the background of where that language came from

123as whereas where the people who speak that language come from it can also help you with your ancestry if you're learning a language that your family speaks then you'll be able to speak with them too so why is it important to learn a second language learning a second language can bring people together it's also been linked with better focus and concentration so it can help you in academic situations so learning a second language provides many benefits from mental to having a deeper understanding of other people it's important as the more we learn about one another the closer we get as a planet as a whole but these issues don't necessarily stem from the teachers themselves it goes far deeper than that change is needed on a national scale and so i'm here today talking about

124this to bring awareness to the subject that often goes ignored in hopes that people stand up and push for this thought to become a reality to bring people from all different backgrounds together one step at a time [Applause] [Music] thank you jennifer for a very interesting topic and of course one of my areas and definitely would agree with her a move to start earlier our last presenter for the day would be elizabeth mckinley elizabeth here is a junior at dartmouth high school elizabeth is a member of the debate club political science club and the student voice club she also loves international news and politics and enjoys traveling elizabeth chose her topic because she's very interested in feminism in the fight for equity among the genders although we have made many improvements in women's rights in

125the last century elizabeth would like to see more equitable change become a reality please welcome again elizabeth mckinley as she presents modern feminism [Music] so before we discuss modern feminism we have to think about the definitions that surround this topic we can't get a real understanding of the topic without knowing what we're talking about after i tell you about some definitions we're going to go into the history of feminism so we're going to talk about what has brought us to where we are today afterwards we'll go into modern women's issues which is the bulk of my presentation which discusses various aspects of modern women's issues finally we'll talk about solutions how we can help especially people who are already privileged and already have these rights so first off is definitions so what is feminism feminism

126has a different definition for each person but the one that i relate to the most and the one that i think is the most accurate is here feminism is the belief in equality for women of all aspects of in all aspects of life socially economically and politically up next is intersectionality intersectionality is a newer concept that people have really started applying to feminism and it means to be a part of multiple minority groups such as gender race or sexuality and this creates a different set of potential discriminating factors next is equity versus equality so equity is often not what people ask for when it's what they need equality is usually what people look for but really what we need is equity so equity is giving everybody what they need to succeed so that means that

127some people will often get different things however with equality it's giving everybody the same thing so even if somebody doesn't need what they're given they still get it where as if somebody were to need something more they wouldn't necessarily get that so this is a clear example of equity versus equality on the first side we see equality this is these three people were all given the same thing but they aren't all in the same position anymore the first man is too tall while the last man is not tall enough in the second picture we see equity everybody can see but they were all given different things because the first the tallest man didn't need that box so this can bring us to history so before we talk about modern issues we need to look at

128the history of what's brought us here so first up is the major events in modern feminism so in 1848 was the seneca halls convention and this launched the women's suffrage movement suffrage if you don't know is the right to vote so women began petitioning for the right to vote in 1920 the 19th amendment was passed which gave all women in the united states over the age of 21 the right to vote and then in the mid 1900s women entered the workforce because of world war ii you may be asking why is this important this is important because it gave women a job in the workplace and it showed people that they could do this job since men were off fighting world war ii and they were out in other countries they weren't home to help

129with jobs and factories and stuff like that so women stepped up and they began to work these jobs and this created a newer sense of oh look women can do this and this started a new era of women beginning to actually work in the workforce and then in the late 1900s there were attempts to pass the era the equal rights amendment this would have given women or all genders really equality in the constitution and this is this didn't get passed which was a major hit for some women and this is honestly or sorry this is a one of the ends to the third wave of feminism which i'll get into next and then in the 2021 elect or the 2020 election kamala harris was elected as the first female vice president of the united states

130and this is really important because it shows that we finally have the power and the acceptance to elect a woman into into the vice president's office so the waves of feminism i mentioned the third wave earlier the waves of feminism are the difference eras of feminism that all had a different goal so the first wave of feminism was focused on women's suffrage which is the right to vote that was their main focus and once the 19th amendment was passed they kind of moved on to the second wave of feminism which was focused on the personal is political this was a phrase that basically meant women's personal lives were coming politicized and for some that was a good thing for some that meant that they were getting to speak out about everything that was happening but

131for some they didn't want that so then we kind of moved on to the third wave which is focused on intersectionality and some believe that this wave is still going on um some believe that this wave hasn't ended yet but others believe that the fourth wave has overtaken the fourth wave is focused on the metoo movement and the the aspects of feminism on social media and on the online so this brings us to modern issues so i believe the three most important issues that we're looking at right now are the metoo movement intersectionality and stereotypes so first up is the metoo movement hashtag metoo is a concept that was created by tarana burke she began it to raise awareness about sexual harassment and show women solidarity the use of the phrase me too shows that

132women it shows women that they aren't alone so if a woman were to say this happened to me and then other women responded with me too that makes other women feel more more invited to speak out and it's not it's not as polarizing as it was when it was just this happened to me and no one responded with yes me too so over 262 powerful men in the hollywood industry and entertainment and politics were caught as of 2019 as sexual harassers and this this is important because it means that these men aren't loved by all anymore they're known for how they truly are and this is just the prominent men and this is just from 2019 we know that more has happened in 2020. so next we can talk about intersectional feminism we defined intersectionality

133earlier intersectionality is the the how different factors cause more discrimination potentially so intersectional feminism is the feminism that is fighting for all women for the empowerment of all women so during the third and fourth waves of feminism this has become a very important topic because in the past a lot of people have really just been fighting for white women and straight women but now we're really looking into women of color and women in the lgbtq community which adds more of a true sense of equality and equity because now we're really going for everybody to reach equality so this also is breaking down stereotypes intersectionality is an aspect of breaking down stereotypes so the first one is women in the workforce women's jobs have changed drastically in the past 100 years or so so in there

134were only two women ceos in the fortune 500 but now in 2020 there's 37 women ceos in the fortune 500. now you can clearly see this is nowhere near equal it's nowhere near half and half as would represent the population but you can see that it's getting better and that more women are getting to represent companies that are really influential in our society so up next is parenting there's always been the stereotype that women are the ones who should stay at home and take care of the kids and do the housework however that's a stereotype that a lot of women in the modern 21st century are trying to break so in 1989 10 of state home parents were men that is a tiny percentage compared to how many families there are and then in 2016

135so more recently there were 17 percent of state-home parents as men and while this is nowhere near equal we're getting there we're getting closer so up next is education so ever since women got the societal right to be educated they began to really start to try to be educated there's a higher percentage of women in college and in graduate school than there are men you can see clearly on this graph college enrollment women are of the people enrolled in college while men are only 43 and this is important because women in college means that there's going to be more educated women which means that we can increase the number of women's ceos in the fortune 500 further and then we can also increase the number of women in politics which you can see clearly here

136in the 65th congress there were there were very few women representatives we're in the 117th congress now this one goes up to the 115th um so in the 115th congress at the end of the graph you can see that the number of women in congress has just spiked because women are voting for women and men are starting to vote for women too which is really important and this the fact that we have this many women in congress means that we're getting a say like we're getting a true say from women for women and this is really important because we need to have a say in order for the country to be equal and equitable up next is athletics and now women have always been seen as lesser in most forms of athletics especially in soccer

137however the u.s women's soccer team is far better than the men's soccer team we can clearly see from the fact that they've made it to the world cup more often and but you can see that they're getting paid almost nothing compared to the men if a man loses a soccer game he still gets five thousand dollars if a woman loses one she gets nothing and this is really important because we can see the social aspect of life with parenting we can see the political with the politics and this is more of an entertainment aspect in sports which is watched mainly by men but also by women and this is important for men to see that women should be seeing should be seen as equal but the way that this is that this chart shows it's

138just not and that's really unfortunate so what can we do what are solutions that we can do to help so the biggest one the most important one is speaking out whether it's just talk whether it's giving a ted talk or speaking to your family or just raising your hand in class if you raise your hand in class and give your opinion then the teachers will know and everybody will know that you're not just sitting there that you're a woman who can think and can do you can do anything a man can the next one is to call out inequalities if you see something happen that you don't think is equal you gotta say something it's really important because if you just let it go and let people keep treating women as unequal then we're never

139gonna see a change so the third one is supporting non-profit feminist organizations whether this is monetarily or vocally it's really important because women organizations run by women for women need more need to become more prevalent next is politics you can you saw in the previous graph that women are becoming more and more more prevalent in politics but we're still not at the halfway point that's what we need to be because that's the most representative of our of our population so we need to vote for women and finally is protesting and marching for equality even if this doesn't bring any legal change in like changing laws in the u.s constitution this shows solidarity and this shows that we're all believing the same thing so this is how we can move forward one step at a time

140[Applause] [Music] thank you elizabeth once again a wonderful job this concludes our presentations i would like to take a moment to thank everybody that made this day cohort be possible so we would like to thank first our presenters for cohort b elizabeth mckinley caitlyn silva juliana souza cole perry colin zoo jennifer scott our crew lea wilkins our sound tech genius mr peter chase our dhs tv productions crew mr rob ferrari along with his students landon rossi colby sylvia and nathaniel rosario additionally we would like to thank our administrators principal ross tebow ms xavier mr martin and mr gill for their continued support our library staff for allowing us to use the lmc for this event ms goodman miss pamela king our supporting staff ms donna floor miss angela english and our amazing cafeteria staff lastly

141we would like to thank you our viewers for your continued support of our students ms true and i hope to see you next year we want you to encourage you to join our tedx club here at dhs so that you can do your own tedx talk in the future see you next year and thank you [Music] you