Martin+Luther+King+Juniors

=The American Dream= toc

Challenge:
To find out that people in our community are struggling to succeed in this economic state. If so, what are some ways they are coping with it?

Guiding Questions:
1. Has the current economic recession affected your perception of the American Dream? 2. What are some ways people are "cutting back", due to money problems? 3. Are people now focused on just surviving, rather than becoming successful? 4. Does the American dream differ depending on your nationality?

Guiding Activities:
1. We will conduct a class survey to see whether or not the recession has affected the students of PV. 2. Find and research internet sources to find statistics about the recession and how it has affected people. 3. We will specifically ask people of different races/ethnicities to see how their answers differ.

Survey
Have you noticed changes in your family since the recession started?

A. Strongly Agree- 8 students B. Agree- 5 students C. Disagree- 7 students D. Strongly Disagree- 5 students

Is your family more stressed?

A. Strongly Agree-4 students B. Agree-8 students C. Disagree-8 students D. Strongly Disagree-4 students

Have you noticed spending patterns have changed?

A. Strongly Agree-10 students B. Agree- 13 students C. Disagree- 3 students D. Strongly Disagree- 3 students

Do you take advantage of sales more frequently?

A. Strongly Agree-5 students B. Agree-9 students C. Disagree-7 students D. Strongly Disagree- 3 students

Do you buy less name brand merchandise?

A. Strongly Agree-0 students B. Agree-6 students C. Disagree-10 students D. Strongly Disagree-6 students

Has the increase in prices in the cafeteria affected your school lunch budget?

A. Strongly Agree-6 B. Agree-8 C. Disagree-4 D. Strongly Disagree-3

Guiding Resources
This is a chart that supports our essential question. This website also has many facts to help us with background research. Its basically a more extreme version of our survey, diving deep into more "touchy" subjects such as bill payments, and financial assistance. We did not feel comfortable asking these types of questions in an open survey with our peers. We will be using this information for our solution/action. Source: []

[] This article is about unemployment in the recession, but based on ethnicity. It shows some shocking information that black people are about 40% more likely to lose their job in the recession than whites. However, all races were affected. White's unemployment rate have gone up by 2.1%, but hispanics and blacks rose at a faster rate. Blacks rose 2.9% and hispanics grew by 3.1%. Although River Vale/ Hillsdale is 92.37% white, the recession has affected everyone, and everyone has different ways to cope.

Notes:
9/16/10 Today was our first day of the "American Dream" project. Our group decided to research whether or not the "American Dream" is realistic in today's economic recession. After picking our essential question, we had to decide on a group name. We chose **The Martin Luther King Juniors** because of his "I Have a //Dream"// speech. We thought this was very relevant to our group's topic. Next, we did some brainstorming about our guiding questions, but did not make it very far, as the period ended.

9/17/10 We had all period to work on our Guiding Questions, and we used that time wisely. Our group came up with four sub-topics of our original question. We wanted to find out if people in our own affluent community were struggling, as well as the nation as a whole. Also, we wanted to gain a better understanding of people's concept of the "American Dream" based on race. That question was later reconstructed into finding out how job losses affected each race differently.

9/20/10 Today we worked on various things for our project. We first decided on our Guiding Activities. As a group we will do a class survey on the recession and if it affected any of the PV students. Also, we searched the internet and found some websites to see statistics on the people affected by the recession. We will also see if it varies based on race/ethnicity. Later on in the period, we worked on our Survey questions. We came up with 6 questions, but we had to make sure the questions wouldn't offend anyone and were very general.

9/21/10 Today we took surveys outside of the classroom. We saw some patterns in the answers to the questions that we asked. For example, we asked the students if their spending patterns have changed. For each class, a decent amount of students and teachers answered yes to that. We obtained some great data that helps us prove our point in this project. After taking the surveys we got back to the classroom and organized our data on wikispace. We might ask a few more teachers because they are much older than us and live/support themselves with their own family

9/22/10 Today we worked on our guiding resources, as they were due by tomorrow. Also, we transcribed the results of the survey onto the group's wiki. The results were generally saying that the recession has affected students in many different ways. Lastly, we started working on the Solution/Action, but we did not come to a conclusion on what we can possibly do to help our community fight the problems that come with a recession.

9/24/10 Today we are working on our final edits for our Solution. Our solution is basically saying how we should lower the prices on our lunchroom because a lot of people are unable to afford the pay. We decided lowering the prices of the food and drinks because after a period of time it would definitely help the ones who need it. We are also finding charts and graphs to prove that the recession has effected many people on the last couple of months.