Peer Group and Teens

What is a peer group?

A peer group is conceived as a small group of similarly aged, fairly close friends, sharing the same activities. Adolescents spend much of their time in these groups. According to Bradford Brown (1990), high school students spend twice as much of their time with peers as with parents or other adults.

What is the importance of peer groups during adolescence?

The role played by peers in adolescence is very critical. Relationships with peers during the adolescent years come closer to serving as prototypes for adult relationships in social relationships, in work and in interactions with members of the opposite sex. Teenagers who do not learn how to get along with others by the time they reach adulthood are likely to face obstacles in years ahead. The role of the peer group in helping an individual to define his or her own identity becomes very important during adolescence. At no other stage of development is one's sense of identity so unstable.

What do peer groups provide for adolescents?

-the opportunity to learn how to interact with others
-support in defining identity, interests, abilities and personality
-autonomy without the control of adults and parents
-opportunities for witnessing the strategies others use to cope with similar problems, and for observing how effective they are
-instrumental and emotional support
-building and maintaining friendships

What are the factors that contribute to the formation of peer groups?
One of the most important aspects of adolescents' lives are their close ties with their peers. Although peer groups are important at all ages, it is not until mid or late adolescence that friendship takes the role of intimate relationships. These peer groups are characterized by trust, self disclosure and loyalty. One major factor at work during adolescent development is that they are showing autonomy, or a sense of being a separate person. Another factor is the cognitive changes that enables adolescents to see situations from another person's point of view. As a result of these developments, individuals experience a greater need for intimacy and an increased capacity to enter close relationships or peer groups

Dina Castrogiovanni

What’s happening to the planet?

So many problems
so many destruction
the lack of water
and deforestation.

Species are disappearing
The climate is getting warmer
nobody wants to see
what’s happening to the planet.

How will the future be
in a life of destruction?
How will we live
in a world of pollution?

Protect biodiversity,
and also your planet!
So, we will have
a good environment

Give a hand
for a better world.


Maria João 11. 01
Maria Manuel 11. 01

Garfield :)

Daniel 901

Education UK

Girls already have a well-established educational lead over boys by the time they start school, a study claims.
The study of 15,000 UK children suggests girls are two months ahead of boys in tests of verbal, non-verbal and visual skills by the age of five.
Girls outperform boys at all levels of education in the UK - from the age of seven to higher education.
The study from the Institute of Education in London suggests that trend begins before they even reach school.
The researchers also found that girls were doing better than boys by the age of three.
It also found girls had fewer behaviour problems than boys, and those children with better behavioural development tended to have a greater ability to learn.
They were assessed in their own homes by specially trained interviewers.
The researchers took three assessments involving vocabulary, picture similarities and pattern construction, measuring children's visual, spatial and verbal skills.
Family life
The researchers found children living in different family circumstances also tended to show different levels of development.
Children with two working parents tended to do better than others. They were four months ahead on vocabulary and two months ahead on visual tests.
And children of those with no qualifications were considerably behind average on each of the three measures.
On average, they were four months behind in picture tests, five months behind on pattern construction and more than a year behind in vocabulary.
Those in step-families were five months behind the average in picture similarity tests, while those with lone parents were two months behind.
This report on child cognition and behaviour was published as part of a much wider study by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, called the Millennium Cohort Study, which is tracking the development of youngsters born in the first two years of this century.

BBC News / UK

Cats are great!

Daniel 901

Hunger and World Poverty

About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every three and a half seconds, as you can see on this display. Unfortunately, it is children who die most often.
Yet there is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish themselves. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families.
There are effective programs to break this spiral. For adults, there are “food for work” programs where the adults are paid with food to build schools, dig wells, make roads, and so on. This both nourishes them and builds infrastructure to end the poverty. For children, there are “food for education” programs where the children are provided with food when they attend school. Their education will help them to escape from hunger and global poverty.

Hunger and World Poverty Sources: United Nations World Food Program (WFP), Oxfam, UNICEF.

World Food Day

World Food Day is celebrated on October 16, and every year a theme related to global food problems is chosen, and strategies to solve these problems are developed. In 2008, the theme was "World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy".

By celebrating the World Food Day, FAO provides an occasion to once again highlight the plight of 923 million undernourished people in the world. Most of them live in rural areas where their main source of income is the agricultural sector. Global warming and the biofuel boom are now threatening to push the number of hungry even higher in the decades to come.

Run For Food

Climate change and bioenergy are the focus of this year’s World Food Day activities, involving over 150 countries. They include a third edition of the popular Run for Food to take place in Rome on 19 October involving over 4 000 people, with a similar event to be held simultaneously in Milan.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon will participate together with Jacques Diouf and the Heads of other UN Agencies in a World Food Day ceremony at the United Nations in New York on 23 October.

Social Justice

Pope Benedict XVI, in a message read at the ceremony by Monsignor Renato Volante, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to FAO, said that a lasting solution to hunger in the world lay in the promotion of an international order based on social justice.The world produced enough food to feed a growing population, he noted. If people went hungry, it was partly because of a “race for consumption” which “imposes forced reductions on the nutritional capacity of the world’s poorest regions”. Other reasons included lack of political will by nations but also “runaway speculation”, together with “corruption in public life or again growing investments in weapons and sophisticated military technologies to the detriment of people’s primary needs...” “An essential condition for increasing production, safeguarding the identity of indigenous populations as well as peace and security in the world is to guarantee access to land, thus helping agricultural labourers and promoting their rights,” the Pope added.

Stand Up Against Poverty!

Last year, over 43 million people Stood Up to demand that world leaders keep their promises to end poverty and inequality. This year, help us break that record and send an even louder message to our governments.
Join the global movement of people who refuse to stay seated or silent in the face of poverty and broken promises to end it!
STAND UP and TAKE ACTION against Poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals.
Why Stand Up?
In 2000, leaders of 189 countries signed the Millennium Declaration agreeing to do everything in their power to end poverty. They pledged to do this by achieving the Millennium Development Goals, a roadmap to end extreme poverty by 2015.
Still, every day, 50,000 people die as a result of extreme poverty and the gap between rich and poor people is increasing. Nearly half the world’s population live in poverty, 70% are women. We have the power to change this.
Campaigners worldwide will STAND UP and TAKE ACTION to push their governments for more and better aid, debt cancellation, education for all boys and girls, healthcare, trade justice, gender equality and public accountability.
What’s new?
If you Stood Up last year you’ll notice a few changes.
This year, to make sure more people can take part, we will Stand Up between October 17 – 19, as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty unfolds across the world.
We are also asking you to Take Action as part of your Stand Up event. This could mean sending letters to your government, organising teach-ins, distributing books or other educational materials, donating blood, planting trees or any number of other ways to contribute towards ending poverty and inequality.

Whatever you do, just don't sit down!

Good behaviour

I think that respect is very important and I try to respect everyone.
In classroom, it is important to have a good behaviour because we need to be quiet so that the teacher can teach us. If we aren’t quiet, the teacher tells us to leave the classroom. In the breaks we need to preserve the space, so we shouldn’t throw papers to the ground and we shouldn’t also damage our space.
Outside school we should do the same: we should respect other people and put the garbage in the proper containers, because the environment belongs to everyone.

Manuel Rebelo, 901

The Council of Europe marks the 2nd European Day against the Death Penalty

Statement by Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

Strasbourg, 10.10.2008 - “A year ago, the Council of Europe established the European Day against the Death Penalty as the occasion for an annual public debate on why executing people is wrong. We are delighted that the European Union has decided to join this initiative.
Forty-six of our forty-seven member states have abolished the death penalty in law. Russia promised to join the rest within three years of joining the Council of Europe in 1996. This has not yet happened, but they took the first and very important steps of a moratorium so that the death penalty has been abolished in practice..
Two of our observer states – Canada and Mexico – have also abolished the death penalty. The other two – Japan and the USA – continue to execute people. The European Day against the Death Penalty is an opportunity to remind them that they are out of step with rest of the democratic and civilised world.
Finally, the European Day against the Death Penalty is an opportunity to support the movement for a worldwide moratorium on executions. In December last year, 104 countries, from all continents, voted in favour of the UN General Assembly Resolution to this effect. I am confident that this inhuman and degrading form of punishment will soon be abolished across the world.”

Source: https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1352197&Site=DC&BackColorInternet=F5CA75&BackColorIntranet=F5CA75&BackColorLogged=A9BACE

Better late than never!

One year has already gone by

And we didn't even realise

So... Better late than never

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TICTACS!!

Take a peek!

Disneyland Resort Paris is a holiday and recreation resort in Marne-la-Vallée, a new town in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. The complex is located 32 kilometers from the centre of Paris and lies for the most part on the territory of the commune of Chessy.
Disneyland Resort Paris features two theme parks, an entertainment district and seven Disney-owned hotels. Operating since April 12, 1992, it was the second Disney resort to open outside the United States and the first to be owned and operated by Disney. With 14.5 million visitors in the fiscal year of 2007, it is one of Europe's leading tourist destinations.

Paul Newman - A Tribute

Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an Academy Award winning and seven-time Academy Award nominated American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for his performance in the 1986 Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money, three Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy award, and many honorary awards. He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing.
Newman was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of May 2007, these donations had exceeded US$220 million.
On September 26, 2008, Newman died at his longtime home in Westport, Connecticut of complications arising from lung cancer.

The day went by...

Coming Soon - "Eagle Eye"

Theatrical Release: 09th October 2008

Director: D. J. Caruso
Story: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Billy Bob Thornton, Ethan Embry, William Sadler, Michael Chiklis, Eric Christian Olsen
Genre: Drama/ Thriller

Synopsis: "Eagle Eye" is a race-against-time thriller starring Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Anthony Mackie and Billy Bob Thornton. Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) and Rachel Holloman (Monaghan) are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situations--using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move. As the situation escalates, these two ordinary people become the country's most wanted fugitives, who must work together to discover what is really happening--and more importantly, why.