SYA China ILP 2014

Every year the final weeks of school consists of students working in groups on a topic of their choosing. They are required to interview people, in Chinese, do research for background understanding and then synthesize their learning in a thesis and then write a paper.  Although there isn't much math involved, I did get involved this year by teaching students the basics of good surveying and sampling. In addition, I introduced the concept of confidence intervals but only a few students did actually try and work with me individually to try and interpret them. However, being as any statistics wasn't graded, all groups decided to concentrate their time and efforts on the paper and final presentation. As with last year, I'll provide a summary of each groups thesis and my comments on each.

Meghan M, Mira A, Jessica T, Allie K. and Anika H.  The special education issues in China group.

I learned a lot from this group.  They did a great deal of research about the history of special education and the laws.  They concluded that the laws, although weakly enforced and implemented, are in place.  Here's why.

Eleanor-Day K, Rachel R., Jessica P, and Wesley L.  The gender communication group.

This thesis turns out didn't really summarize the data that they presented. I thought this was going to be a "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" report. Instead, they did come up with a thesis that with the uneven number of women and men (because of gender selection) are more in demand and therefore can be more selective, which has given them the power. This has changed the way men and women communicate in terms of establishing relationships.

Erik M, Reid B, Aislinn M, Max A. and Alex W.  The small enterprises group.

Not much information mined here.  More of a report than anything else.

This fact is something I did learn and it does explain why and how small business open and close in the blink of an eye!

Lydia P, Isabel N., John P. and Ryder G.  The architecture group.

From this group I learned the most!!  I like how they were able to incorporate how politics affected architecture.  The following pictures explain it all!

Turns out I live in this type of building, although my apartment does have a living room!

Maya D-L., Audrey F., Tati D. Miller W-L. (missing Zach K.) The environmental issues group.

Of all the groups, it was this one that I think was furthest off the mark.  They were discussing water pollution when their real issue was water resource availability.  Pollution is one part of the supply issue.

Sophia G., Ding Laoshi, Maeve L, Lizzie N., Conrad Y. and Michael B.  The fashion group.

This, in my mind, would be the hardest topic.  I have a hard time talking about fashion, but I did learn a lot.

They were able to tell me that China is making an impact on the fashion world and that in time China will have (in their opinion) a world luxury name brand.

Michael C., Dana W., Clara M., Nikolai Y. and Andrew M.

Thesis I think is right on.  But alas, it's a hard metric to tease out.  It's a PHD topic they tried to tackle.