Wise Monkey News is here to provide young people an opportunity to discuss the issues that affect their lives. We hope that, through your participation, this website serves as a forum for the development, exchange, and expression of ideas that will prepare us to assume our positions as the leaders of tomorrow's world. Have something to say?
Be conscience of your future, the environment
by: Meghan Molenda - printed on 09-26-2001
Have you ever written a paper about a penny? Back in the days of Junior High school, my teacher gave us that assignment. One day in eighth grade Mr. Hoepner handed out old pennies to each person in the class and asked us to write about where that penny had been in its little penny life. All of this was to be done in three pages written in cursive and due in a week (how quickly those days go by!).
Chimpanzees and compassion
by: Christy Scheuer - printed on 09-26-2001
Jane Goodall, the famous Chimpanzee reseacher and founder of the “Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation,” was in New York when two planes flew into the World Trade Center.
So when Goodall stood up to lecture at the University of Portland on Saturday, September 22, she spoke not only of love and concern for her chimpanzees, but of her compassion for the human species as well.
Uniting Eco-efforts
by: Kristina Koenig - printed on 02-20-2002
No college campus is perfect from the idealistic perspective of an environmentalist. Everyday, cans and paper are thrown away instead of recycled; paper products are used in excess; people rarely use double-sided printing; annual food waste from campus food services may be enough to feed some small 3rd world countries; faucets and showerheads leak and sidewalks are watered in a way that makes water seem like a endless resource; faulty heating systems create unnecessary wintertime saunas; lights and computers are left on 24 hrs/day; harsh cleaning chemicals and fertilizers are used and fed to our rivers; heavy machinery is used for building and landscaping; students drive across the street to school; non-native species are planted for aesthetic purposes ? the list could go on forever.
Remembering time for Ramadan
by: Melody Sheybani - printed on 11-28-2001
Just a week ago, I was in one of my late afternoon classes when one of my class-mates made a comment about the accuracy and the completeness of my religion. This made me feel sad inside about the lack of knowledge we have here on our campus about other religions and the fact that we sometimes make comments and become judgmental toward things without knowing the actual reasons behind some rituals and practices.
What Will You Do When You Graduate?
by: Ryan Bemis - printed on 11-15-2000
Right now, down in sunny Florida, two retired men are probably kickin it back and lovin the sun. They have more to celebrate than just the warm weather, however. Retired El Salvadoran generals Jose Guillermo Garcia and Carlos Eugenio Vedes Cassanova both were acquitted by a US federal jury on November 3 for being responsible for the brutal rapes and murders of four US Churchwomen in El Salvador in 1980.
The need for change in America's high schools
by: Ryan O'Connor - printed on 01-23-2002
A bull's eye has been strapped to the back of the public education system. Republicans, Democrats, the Christian-Right, Libertarians, rich, poor, black, red, white, brown, everyone has discovered to root of societies ills-today's high schools.
Most public schools today are in fact a microcosm of society: numerous factions competing for limited resources, with those with the loudest, strongest, most visible, supporters commandeering the spoils.