GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
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OUR DIVERSITY
Our team is made of 6 students from 3
different schools and 2 different countries (and continents). In
addition, our team members have variety of ethnic backgrounds and
experiences. We have a student from Croatia who helped us better
understand the small farms, avian flu that actually appeared in
Croatia, as well as how important chicken is worldwide. The
rest of our students have different ethnic origins, including two
students who are children of the first generation immigrants and an
African -American student. We started our research in response to
the news of the Avian Flu, and did nor think about what a great
role a small animal like chicken plays in cultures around the world
- including our cultures.
The research we did for this site opened
our eyes to how the issues that are important to us are also
important to people from around the world. Through discussions with
our parents and experts we realized that the problem of
infectious diseases is more far reaching than just our city or our
country. Also, the issue of poverty is important to all of us.
Several of our students grew up in a city and had no knowledge of
what it takes to raise chicken and how the success of chicken farms
affects how we live. We had fun with dishes from different
origins and realized that although we come from different
backgrounds we all enjoy food . We were amazed how many different
tastes can chicken have and the spices that people from different
cultures used.
We also realized that all cultures have
their own traditions, but they are often related. and somewhere in
history maybe had same origin. For example a tradition of painting
Easter eggs was a little different in each or the cultures, but
each culture had a neat way to carry the tradition on. We had
fun communicating with each other and realizing how our differences
make us more interesting, just like our food or colored eggs.
GLOBAL RELEVANCE OF OUR
SITE
Chicken industry is a major employer and
source of cheap, healthy nutrition all around the world. Changes in
this industry affect how people live in all corners of the world.
The good example of the effect of chicken industry on our world is
the current issue of avian flu. This disease is spreading from
continent to continent very fast. It is important to be familiar
with this disease since all of us can spread it. For example, if
you visit a farm in Croatia that has avian flu cases and then fly
to the United States an visit another farm, you may start the
spread of disease in North America. This is not as impossible as it
seems. Just think about how many people travel from Europe or Asia
to America every single day! An outbreak of the avian flu means
that chicken have to be destroyed. This means less chicken are
available to lay eggs or be slaughtered for meals. Less chicken
means more demand and more demand means higher prices of chicken
and egg. If the prices are higher, less people can afford it. Since
this is an important source of protein, this means that many people
will lose a good source of nutrition. As you can see, issues that
concern chicken are important everywhere in the world, for the
people of all socio economic levels, races and
nationalities.
Why is it important for kids our age to
know about this?
First of all, we should be informed.
Knowing the facts can make it easier to make a choices in everyday
life. For example, with the outbreak of avian flu it is good to
know that it is safe to eat chicken and eggs that are properly
cooked. In addition in today's world people move around a lot! We
need to be aware of the issues in other countries to make us safer.
For example, it is important to know the ways to prevent getting
Avian Flu if traveling to country that is affected. It is also
important to become aware of different jobs and opportunities so
that we can prepare and plan for our future. It's amazing to
realize that our world is actually very small and that although we
may speak different language or look a bit different we are all
affected by the same issues and our futures are very much linked by
global economy!
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