VA Tech Support by Random Acts of Kindness Dedications

The UF Peacejam group at Eastside decided they wanted to support those impacted by the VA Tech shootings. Led by Ashley Nelson, Junior in the Eastside IB program, the group asked teachers to give their students time to dedicate a Random Act of Kindness to the survivors, families, and friends at Tech. We had a terrific response and are in the process of creating a scrapbook. Students from Eastside wrote their own expressions of support and a promise to reach out to others in their Gainesville community through an act of kindness. We were so pleased with the dedications that we are extending the project through the Fall so that other schools can participate. If you would like to dedicate an act of kindness to be included in our book, send us an e-mail at swebster@ufl.edu with the act you will do and any other words that you would like to convey to the families. You can sign your name or leave it anonymous.

June 3rd Meeting

The Peacejam group has decided to do a campaign in a local middle school to increase awareness about the effect of T.V. on choices of middle school students. In an effort to encourage students to 'write their own story rather than have others write it for them', Eastside peacejam students will do a 3-part service project around this campaign:
1) Increase awareness of the impact of t.v. on students through posters in the schools
2) Engage middle school students in a conversation about choices and role models as impacted by the media in an after-school dialogue
3) Produce and distribute a newsletter about how to 'write your own story' by including reactions from the after-school dialogue, introducing info on choosing good leaders, groups, and role models, and identifying the activism of nobel peace laureates as examples of active citizenship vs. passive viewership

March 25th meeting

Over the past 2 months, the Eastside IB students have been doing some data gathering. They found that research tells us that today's youth are spending more time in front of the t.v. than in the classroom.

They also did some interviews on their own. While high school students and middle school students say they watch t.v. to relax and they don't think it impacts their lives in terms of violence, they unanimously felt that T.V. impacted their satisfaction with their own lives. The interviewees said that they felt they wanted more materialistic things when they watched t.v. and that they felt worse about their own bodies or personalities after watching actors/actresses on shows. The impact was most significant for women. There were several positive effects mentioned by the interviewees. Several students felt that t.v. improved their sense of humor, allowed them to relax, and taught them about social skills.

Shows such as 'the discovery channel', 'oprah', 'beauty and the geek', and 'ugly betty' were given positive accolades. Other popular shows that today's youth are watching, but that they said taught them more negative values included: mtv, the OC, Made, Cribs, and vh1.

The peacejam students decided to broaden their topic a little. They decided that their end goals were to get people to help others more than just 'stop watching t.v.'. To this end, they decided that they wanted to find out how much adults in our community think that today's youth think of global issues, want to volunteer, or spend their free time helping others. The theme that will guide further investigation will examine: 'The climate of youth today'. Peacejam students want to explore what messages surround youth today in terms of helping others vs. materialism.

The next month will be spent finishing out the investigation of Gainesville climate. This summer, peacejammers will plan their community service project to be carried out over the Fall. Then they will travel to present their program to a Nobel laureate early Spring '08.

January 28th meeting

At this meeting, we selected option #2 and decided to look at the impact of t.v. on today's youth. In particular, we wanted to see how t.v. conveys values that do or do not help build a cooperative community. We decided that our next step was investigating the issue in our own community.