I watched another good movie a few weeks ago. It was a documentary about a program that brought together teens of all different backgrounds to learn about each other and their religons and backgrounds. There were people from Israel, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and The United States.

The part of this movie that touched me the most was when Jason, a boy from a bad neighborhood in Brooklyn, got a phone call. He found out that his father was in the hospital. Jason told the other campers and they all prayed for his father in their respective religons. There were Jews, Muslims, Protestants and Catholics all praying for a common cause. Three days later, Jason got another phone call. His dad was home again.

This taught me a very important lesson that I’m sure I will take with me until i die. We are all very strong by ourselves, but when we unite, we are even stronger.

The other day, I watched a video called “Promises.” It is about a few Israeli and Palestinian  children living near each other in Jerusalem who hated each other even though they didn’t know the other. The movie is a documentary that spans over a few years and goes from the kids hating each other to getting to know each other to becoming good friends. I thought it was really sad how the kids could have been friends all along, but instead they hated each other just because they were of different faiths. Here is the link to the “Promises” website of you want to watch a preview or find out more about this movie. www.promisesproject.org/ 

This documentary was just like the program, “Seeds of Peace” that i am studying, so I thought that it would be helpful. It was very useful and I am glad that I watched it. Now I think my next step is going to be scheduling an interview with someone from “Seeds of Peace.”

By the way, I found a good blog from some Seeds of Peace campers and facilitators. This is the link. http://www.sopblog.com/ 

I have made a huge change. I changed my topic. I will now be studying how the conflicts going on in Israel affect the relationship between Israeli and Palestinian teens. I was researching some programs and found a summer camp called Seeds of Peace. Seeds of Peace is a two week camp in Maine where teens from different conflict regions of the world come together to communicate positively with each other and become friends. One of these regions is Israel. I plan on getting involved in Seeds of Peace for my final project. I have a lot of resources for this topic, and I am very excited to continue my research in the next few weeks. Here is the link to the Seeds of Peace website if you want more information. www.seedsofpeace.org

I have started some research and I have narrowed down my topic in the process. First, I have decided on the three sports I will study: basketball, figure skating, and skiing. Second, I have decided to only study female athletes in each sport, as opposed to both male and female. I also decided that I will do a documentary as my final product. There will be another Academies of Inquiry day this Thursday, and I look forward to continuing this great work.

Hi, and welcome to my blog! It will be about my Academies of Inquiry project. I will be studying the Olympics and hope to find out what the best age is to start training for different events. I will figure this out by studying the athletes in different events and then comparing the age that they started with how successful they have been in the Olympics. I also will interview some athletes who started training at a young age and ask them if it was helpful to start training so young. I am not yet sure what my final project will look like, but I have time to figure that out so I am not worried. I am very excited and I think that this will be a fun project!