The_Issue v 3.5 March 2023

VOL 3.5

MARCH 2023

THE_ISSUE The official newsletter of International School Ruhr

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The Continued Issue FEATURES

Belgium Trip

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Black History Month

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Tu Bi’Shvat - How Agriculture and Society can affect Religion even today

IS Ruhr Newsletter

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How has Tech made our lives better?

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Can We Use Virtual Assistants for Learning?

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Vol. 2 Issue Vol 3.4 Issue842021 2022

THE _ISSUE: The Official Newsletter of International School Ruhr

Editorial Team

Letter from Editors Dear readers, Since the new semester began, there

This newsletter is produced through the efforts of the IS Ruhr Journalism/Media Creative class.

have been changes in the editorial team of ‘The Issue’. Not only were the writers completely replaced, but this is also the

Editors-in-Chief

Special thanks to

last issue featuring one of our current editors in chief. Despite this, our goal remains the same: to entertain and

Jonas Gesing

Ms. Eszter

Mia Mbalisike

inform you.

Writers

In this Issue you can find out all about school celebrations and trips, the German parliament, black history, and cultural festivals like Tu B’shevat, or perhaps you’d rather learn about the world cup and upcoming technology.

Either way, happy reading!

Best regards, Jonas Gesing and Mia Mbalisike (editors in chief)

Aishani Choudhury

Linnea Wrede

Arjen Kräling

Marcos Gomez

Baran Bilican

Mats Henry Boden

Bassila Assmann

Medina Arsanova

Beta van Emmerich

Naveh Naar-Hershkovitz

Christino Bravly

Noyan Tuerkilmaz

CNH

Oliver Jones-Katz

Connor Bloeute

Omar Elmalky

Eashan Vineed

Philippa von

Jan Eschenbruch

Bandemeer

Jayce Wimalathas

Rieke Wilke

Kalila Kräling

Tamás Kiss-Kesjár

Kareem Elmalky

School

Everything happening inside IS-Ruhr.

Carnival in IS Ruhr Jonas Gesing Carnival, which is said to be the fifth season in Germany, is coming to an end on the 22nd of February. Therefore, our school had to celebrate!

In SY the Carnival celebration lasted the entire week before the ski break. Every day there was a different theme to dress up to.

On Monday students came in their most comfortable pajamas. On Tuesday students got to show their dream jobs by dressing up as them. Wednesday the school was filled with twins, as it was “Twin Day”.

Grade 11 student dressed up as Mr. Tim

Students either dressed up as a teacher or the same as one of their friends. Finally, on Thursday students got to dress up as their favorite character or simply wear a costume. Each day the students who dressed up, entered a randomized competition, in which they were able to win Amazon gift cards. All of this was organized by the Student Council.

Grade 11 students dressed up as teachers

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Grade 9 and 10 Omega Session Eashan Vineed, Connor Bloeute Our school makes sure that every learning partner takes part in creating an OMEGA presentation. An OMEGA presentation aims to educate students and teachers by letting students present about vital topics or problems around the globe. The students of Grades 9 and 10 were assigned to make a presentation about artificial intelligence (AI). Some examples of this would be Chat GPT, Deep Ai, and Synthesia.

Our technology keeps advancing, and we are inventing extraordinary services and applications. It is clear that our knowledge about artificial intelligence has also changed a lot after John Mccarthy coined the term “artificial intelligence”. We cannot fail to understand that AI saves time, resources, and money for small companies. Examples of AI include Text AI, Art AI, and Voice AI. All of these have their advantages and disadvantages. For instance, Voice AI helps content creators by using the voice of an AI instead of their voice. It supports people who feel uncomfortable to share their voices with the public.

While there are several benefits when using AI, it does not hide the dangerous cons of using it. One of the most prominent drawbacks is that AI could advance too quickly. If this resumes, AI might turn against us. Another disadvantage Grade 9 and 10 talked about was that people trust AI too much. For example, in cars, while it is a good thing to have self-driving cars, there is still a very high risk of crashes due to the possibility of the AI failing. Furthermore, using AI daily can get very expensive. Also, AI can make humans lazy. There can also be a lot of unemployment due to AI bots doing jobs for humans. In return, the number of poor people might increase.

In conclusion, there are several advantages and disadvantages when using artificial intelligence. Our technology keeps

Robot

advancing, which can help us, but there are downsides too. If humans ensure that they provide only the required knowledge to the AI, it would not be an enormous problem.

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Belgium Trip Omar Elmalky, Jayce Wimalathas All students of SY (Grades 6 to Grade 12) went on a field trip to the Euro Space Center in Belgium. Mr. Tim Anderson and Dr. Vaishali organized it with the supporting supervisors being Ms. Eve and Mr. Tim Peters. The trip lasted for 3 days from 5th of February to the 8th of February. We went there to do activities and to learn about outer space. The most popular activity among the students was the centrifuge rotor, which went fast enough to stick you to the wall. Most people enjoyed it because they liked spinning but some got really dizzy. The planetarium on the other hand had some criticism of being boring.

The activities we did were planned out and tightly packed. Everyday we woke up and got ready from 6:30 to 7:20 and went to eat our breakfast from 7:30 to 8:30. Our first three hours of activities started at 8:30 and then we would have lunch for 1 Ariane 5

hour. We had activities again from 12:30 to 15:30, then a 30 minute break, and from 16:00 to 17:00 our last activity of the day. From there on we had dinner and freetime, which would sometimes be spent watching movies or playing games together. Then we had to go to bed.

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During these days we participated in many different activities like the centrifuge rotor. The highlight of this was the full speed setting in which we would stand inside with our back against the wall. The speed would pick up enough for us to be stuck against the wall, which was demonstrated through the floor going down by 1 meter. Rotation was also present in the rotating chair, which spinned us for about 45 seconds. When it stopped we would have to find a smiley face on a whiteboard across the room, which was difficult because of how dizzy we were. Some even had the physical reaction of our eyes appearing to spin.

Multi-Axis Chair

Centrifuge Rotor

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The moonwalk was like a simulator of what it would feel like on the moon - it felt like we were jumping higher. The gravity wall was an activity that we did to simulate what astronauts experience in space. We had to repair a satellite while being without gravity. We used solar panels for the satellite to gain power and we had to connect cables to complete it.

In the rocket workshop we were shown how to craft rockets that would actually be able to launch a couple of meters off the ground. We worked in pairs and were allowed to decorate them to our hearts content. Some other activities included the multi-axis chair, the balloon cars, and the space shuttle.

On the last day we had a short Kahoot quiz to see what we remembered and received a certificate. Then we launched our rockets and left for school. The rockets were like fireworks and we launched each one individually and once they flew up a parachute came out to land safely. We were able to bring it back home if it landed on the ground, though some turned into “tree decoration”. We arrived around 17:30 at the SY building.

In conclusion most of the people that went on the trip enjoyed it and really enjoyed the activities and would want to go again or do trips like this again.

Moonwalk

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Takeoff Simulator

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Grade 4’s Assembely Presentation Philippa von Bandemer Recently the Grade 4 students created and presented a lovely assembly presentation to the PY. As always, the assembly room was filled with students singing happy birthday, to everyone celebrating in January. Unfortunately, they also had to say goodbye to two students leaving our school, wishing them good luck at their new school. News like Lunar New Year, book fair, and “Kinder helfen Kinder”, were presented along with pictures capturing these precious moments of joy.

The students then took the time to educate everyone on natural resources and energy. In the end, the entire audience knew about how and where energy is obtained. Grade 4 connected the information to spreading awareness of saving energy in school, so all students can contribute to protecting the environment. In the end, there was time for students and teachers to ask questions. The students of Grade 4 had a successful presentation, enjoyed by the entire PY!

Slideshow of Grade 4

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Issue of the Issue Global Issues.

Black History Month Mia Mbalisike Many Black people celebrate Black History Month, but what does that even mean?

What is Black History Month and why do we need it?

Black History Month (BHM) is a month to elevate Black history. Society often ignores Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) in many aspects, one of them being history. Oftentimes BIPOC are not only overlooked, but it is actively avoided to give them attention, though when that attention is finally granted it just highlights negativity and suffering. History and/or heritage months are used to highlight these different groups of people in a positive way, and in February it’s Black people’s time to shine. Black people are a group that is greatly oppressed all over the world and anti-Blackness is a deep rooted hate that is taught from a young age on. This can happen through simple little remarks about certain stereotypes, like the perfectly normal emotions of a black girl being called aggressive, or outright stating that dark skin, coily hair, and other black features are ‘weird’, or ‘ugly’, or ‘bad’. Underlining the various great things that Black people have achieved over time, despite the many hurdles that are put in their way, is important to deconstruct that. Of course some suffering and issues are also addressed n order to spread information while the attention is on them for once, but their rich history and supporting them is the focus.

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Group of people protesting

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How can you support Black people?

There's many different ways to be an ally for a marginalized group of people.

You could educate yourself on the history of Black inventions, buy from Black owned businesses, or support Black people by giving them a platform.

All of these will likely be heavily appreciated, but most important is for you to confront your inner racist bias.

Most Black people will be delighted for anyone to confront and deconstruct the racism within themselves. Having a non-Black person that is self aware about their anti-Blackness and makes an effort to change their way of thinking is far more approachable than someone who is only a performative activist and gets defensive as soon as they are called out for their own harmful behaviors. Instead, listen to what Black people have to say. If they have complaints about your behavior being anti-black, then you might want to check yourself.

If you really don't want to be racist then don’t be afraid to listen to the voice you're allegedly trying to uplift, just hear them out and think about it.

Remember that BHM is not the only time you should support Black people. Yes, BHM is used especially for this, but every other month does not give you a free pass to undo it all.

Don’t be an performative activist who only cares about minorities while they are “relevant”, just use BHM to give extra love to the Black people around you.

Poster promoting Black History Month

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Protester

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Afro Germans that deserve your attention When thinking about black people one knows, only celebrities are ever brought up, so here are three examples of wonderful black people that deserve more acknowledgement.

Malonda Achan Malonda the Afro-German singer and ‘Elektrik Diva’, next to her music career she is an activist who advocates for inclusive feminism, anti-racism, and anti-sexism. She cares about women holding together in all art forms, including music, as well as wanting Women of Color to be able to be more represented in the world of art. If you enjoy dance or electronic music then feel free to listen to her songs such as “Deutschungshoheit”,“Erzähl mir nichts”, or her latest release “Hedy Lamarr”.

Malonda

Marylyn Addo The infectologist, internist, and researcher, Marylyn Addo, is a professor at the Universitätsklinikum HamburgEppendorf. Her field of expertise includes new and unknown infections, as well as the research behind vaccines for viruses, such as the Ebola-virus, SARS-virus, and MERS-virus. In 2020 she was given the German Medical Award for her research about SARS-CoV-2, making her the German medic of the year.

Marylyn Addo

Dr. Natasha A. Kelly Being a communication scientist, author, and politician is a lot of work that Dr. Natasha A. Kelly is known for. Being the former federal chairman of the HipHop party, Die Urbane, for a couple of months, she has made her entry into the world of politics. Next to that she has written various books, her newest release being “Schwarz. Deutsch. Weiblich.: Warum Feminismus mehr als Geschlechtergerechtigkeit fordern muss”. She talks about her experiences as a black woman and shares valuable insights.

Dr. Natasha A. Kelly

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Politics in Germany Rieke Wilke, Zisan Bilican, Vanessa Carreon In this article, we are going to talk about the parliament switches and mostly the politics of Germany in 2022 and 2023. This and last year in Germany there were a lot of parliament switches, now we are going to introduce you to these switches.

First of all, the economy of Germany: the Economist Intelligence Unit rated Germany a "full democracy" in 2022 due to the reunification of Germany in 1990, which basically means that Germany is one whole country again. The political system remained unchanged since before the wall that split Germany in half was built. The Green party and the Liberals remained mostly West German parties, while the former socialist state party flourished along with the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats.

German parliament

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Olaf Scholz

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Next, the newest short news of Germany: As of 31.01.2023 Germany is the last country with speed limits over 100 km/h on a highway.

This is something that climate activists and politicians fight about. Experts found that at a speed of 120 km/h, you can save 6.7 million tons of CO2. Furthermore, gasoline prices have been increasing because of the war in Ukraine. Germany wants to support Ukraine by sending multiple tanks. Poland is demanding 1.3€ trillion from Germany because of the damage of WW 2.

German tanks

Another important aspect is the German police: Germany is struggling to recruit new police officers. Serious accusations were leveled at the Belgium police academy, it includes violent and even criminal trainees. It is not the first report of irregularities among the Berlin police. Previous allegations include a recruit acting in a pornographic film, another dealing drugs and still another involved in a ring theft. Meanwhile, police forces around the country are struggling to find suitable recruits.

German police officer

Lastly, there have been changes to the COVID regulations. On February 2, the requirement to wear a mask in long-distance traffic was eliminated. Germany will no longer require masks on long-distance public transportation. Karl Lauterbach, the German Minister of Health, made this announcement. „Simply put, we need to rely more on individual accountability and initiative“, the Minister stated. Finally, on March the first patients and doctors are not required to wear masks as well.

Girl wearing a mask

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How do Cars Cause Global Warming?

How Can Cars Stop Global Warming?

Jan Eschenbruch, Mats Boden How do cars cause global warming?

Did you know that cars are increasing global warming? While driving most vehicles emit greenhouse gasses through their exhaust pipes. Greenhouse gases are also produced in the manufacture and distribution of the fuel that powers vehicles. Car pollutants that contain greenhouse gases are harmful to health and contribute to climate change. Combustion of gasoline and diesel fuel produces harmful by-products such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, benzene, and formaldehyde. Vehicles also emit carbon dioxide, the most common man-made greenhouse gas.

Most of the environmental impacts associated with automobiles occur during use due to pollution in exhaust gasses and pollution associated with the fuel supply. In the United States, almost all modern cars use gasoline and only some use diesel fuel.

Traffic on American highway

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How can we reduce global warming?

There are many ways to stop global warming, one is for big car companies such as BMW, Audi and Mercedes to produce cars that use greener fuels such as electricity and hydrogen. There are already many electric vehicles, but they are not necessarily environmentally friendly as the batteries are mostly made of lithium, which decomposes under very harmful conditions. On the other hand,

Protecting the environment

hydrogen cars are more environmentally friendly, but hydrogen is highly flammable and therefore dangerous. Furthermore, CO2 is released during the manufacturing process, so producing hydrogen is not entirely environmentally friendly.

Despite the production of harmful lithium, 73% of the population buys electric cars and only 23% buys hydrogen cars.

Drive together in one car!

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Is Vegan protesting going too far?

Naveh Naar-Hershkovitz, Noyan Tuerkilmaz In the last 1-2 years vegan protesting has increased and some might say it has gone too far. It has increased to an extent that any reader of this article has probably seen a viral video or article on social media regarding a vegan lifestyle. In this article, we want to share our opinion on vegan protesting going too far.

An example of protesting, a woman calling herself “Militante Veganerin”, her real name is Raffaela Raab, she has recently gone viral on German social media, especially on TikTok. She makes videos educating people about reasons to be vegan. She also does this pretty smartly since she shows videos of animals being slaughtered and then asks the people why they aren’t vegan. The kids usually respond with: "I like meat, it's delicious, and nobody can influence me not to eat meat or animal products anymore”. She continues to have a discussion with them and also says: “You are an animal murderer”, or things that make the other person look bad. The components of her content are pretty sad to see. She also became a huge meme, many people make fun of her, and she has become a target of disrespectful comments, such as: "I just ate a big mac".

She has found a good way to make people listen and have conversations about being vegan, but do you think it is alright to show children uncensored videos of animals getting slaughtered? This can lead to trauma for many children. Only talking to children increases the risk of them making jokes out of this and saying things like: “I just ate a whole steak for you, since you can't eat it”. In conclusion, if you're vegetarian, vegan or someone who doesn't eat meat or animal products, this is completely fine. However, we think that sometimes people have to think before they act.

Militante Veganerin talking to children

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Culture

Gloabl tradition and celebrations.

Valentines Day Bassila Asmann and Kalila Kräling Every 14th of February is Valentine's Day, the day to show selflessness and love to your partner with gifts and small greeting cards. In Germany and many other countries around the world, people give flowers and chocolates, express love and even get married on this day. Malicious gossip claims that Valentine's Day was invented by florists and chocolatiers, but the tradition goes back hundreds of years.

Valentine's Day was originally the anniversary of Valentine, Bishop of Terni. Many legends surround this saint. For example, he allowed soldiers to marry, although it was forbidden. Another story says that he gave flowers from his garden to his lovers.

The tradition of celebrating romantic love on this day goes back to the 14th century.

In Germany, Valentine's Day only became popular after the Second World War. Schools and public areas host anonymous love cards, roses, or other small items for sale as gifts. You can then send them to different people and show your love. This year, IS Ruhr sold small red cards that were either send anonymously or with name to the person desired. The entire money made was donated to the victims of the Earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

Today, many businesses also earn a lot with their products sold for such a holiday.

Because in our society it is joyful to receive a gift from loved ones many exaggerate this need, which is good business for the shop.

In conclusion, Valentine's day is a day of love, which became a custom of love hundreds of years ago. It became popular in Germany after the Second World War and many people send cards and small gifts to people on that day.

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Shiny Pokemon Marcos Gomez

Drapion

Bellibolt

I love pokemon and one of the best things that can happen to you is to get shiny pokemon. These are pokemon that have different colors and are really difficult to obtain.

Shiny pokemon are rarer than normal pokemon - in recent games, the chance of them appearing was 1 in 4000. What is special about them is that they can have a really different color or almost be identical. The first time I got a shiny I was really surprised and happy and I saw it as a lucky sign. After that, I got more shinies and I loved all of them, some examples of my shiny pokemon are Drapion, Bellibolt, Ampharos, Drifblim, and Altaria.

There are different things you can do in order to get shinies: in one game you can make sandwiches, in others you need a remote that calls pokemon and in others you can just defeat pokemon. However, in all of them, you can get an object called a shiny charm which you get by completing the Pokedex and it raises the chances of getting shinies.

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History of February Beta van Emmerich, Linnea Wrede Did you know that the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released in February 1935 or that the game Monopoly first came on the market in February 1932?

More events happened in February but we chose these because we thought they were the most interesting. If you want to know more about important events in February we recommend researching on your own!

The first event was the release of the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on February 4th, 1938, which was produced by

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Walt Disney productions. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a popular fairy tale written by the brothers Grimm, who wrote most of today's fairy tales. There are many films and series of Snow White but the first one was very popular and remained the highest-grossing film for three years after its release. In only the US and Canada it made 3.5 million dollars. With inflation, this would be $418 million today. Disney also made more films using the stories of the brothers Grimm.

Monopoly

On February 6th, 1935 the first game of monopoly went on sale. Elizabeth Maggie invented a monopoly with the name “The Landlord's Game”. In this popular game, people invest and sell their streets and houses. There are a few different versions of how to play the game but most of them take over an hour depending on the number of players playing. To play you need at least 2 players. The game was bought by the Parker brothers and until today it is one of their most popular games. When they bought the game its price was $2; now it costs $25.

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Tu Bi’Shvat - How Agriculture and Society can affect Religion even today C N-H Tu Bi‘Shvat (or ‫ ט״ו בשבת‬in Hebrew) isn’t just like any other holiday. Unlike usual religious holidays that revolve around a story about important people and events that happened to them; Tu B‘Shevat is an agricultural holiday. It is also known as “the new year of the trees” or “the holiday of the trees”, as the weather conditions around this time of year in the Mediterranean are optimal for farming. It takes place on the 15th of Shevat in the Hebrew calendar and on the 6th of February this year.

Dried Fruits on sale in Jerusalem

As you may know already, religion is often based on ancient stories involving a god or multiple gods and their interactions with people. While it isn’t only to motivate social norms and to differentiate between right and wrong, several religions hold an important place for agriculture and nature as well.

During the early stages of society, agriculture was important for survival since people learned how to grow their own food without only hunting for it (the Agricultural Revolution).

As humanity became dependent on agriculture, it also created the need for better prediction of the changing seasons. The climate in the Middle East is characterized by two main seasons: a damp and rainy winter (October to March), followed by a long period of hot and dry summer (June till September). In between lays spring, when the soil is humid and temperatures are mild. These are perfect conditions for planting new crops that will provide the next harvests of the year. In addition, some trees start blooming at this time and therefore are celebrated as the new year of the trees.

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But why that name? There is actually a meaning behind it. In Hebrew numerology, letters have specific values of numbers. You would add the digits of the letters together to get the needed value; math, basically. The first 2 letters in the name- ‘tet-vav‘ (‫ )ט״ו‬which you pronounce as tu-bi-shvat, stand for the date of this holiday. ‘Tet‘ is equivalent to 9 and ‘vav‘ to 6, which together makes 15.

You already thought a step further, you could work out that Shevat is the name of the month. You may wonder why 9 and 6 are used instead of 10 and 5. It‘s because the letters for 10 and 5 are ‘yud‘ and ‘hei‘ which also stand for a version of the god‘s name, which isn't allowed to be said or written.

Tu B‘Shevat is traditionally celebrated by eating typical fruit from Israel such as dates, figs and grapes. For Jewish communities globally to be able to preserve this tradition of eating these specific fruits like in Europe as well, they shipped them from the Middle East as dried fruit. Since the late 19th Century, planting new trees during this holiday became another tradition, especially popular amongst children and in schools, which is also helpful nowadays to help fight the effects of climate change.

Even after around 2000 years, you can still see how past society got passed on through religion and traditions, seeing similar patterns after so many years.

Person planting tree

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Sport

Sport events, competitions and news.

World Cup of Sports Arjen Kräling, Ayush Chaudhary When the FIFA World Cup was held in the winter of 2022, almost everyone talked about it. However, there have been many other world cups recently, that did not have as much attention. We are going to introduce you to the latest cricket and hockey world cup.

The latest cricket world cup was held in Australia in 2022. It was meant to take place in 2020; however, due to the pandemic, it was postponed to 2022. It was the 8th time the ICC (International Cricket Council) world cup. 17 teams were competing against each other in the ICC world cup. In the first semi-final, Pakistan beat New Zealand by 7 wickets and in the second semi-final England beat India by 10 wickets; consequently, England and Pakistan played against each other in the final. In the final England beat Pakistan by 5 wickets and thereby won.

The Ice Hockey World Championships were held as early as 1920. Canada has won the world championship 27 times. The last competition was held in 2022, with 16 teams competing in two groups, organized according to their place in the world rankings. Finland was able to win and Canada came second.

International Cricket Council

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Ice Hockey Player

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Technology

New technology and inventions.

Pros and Cons of Video Games Baran Bilican & Kareem Elmalky What do people actually understand about video games?

Some people would say it's for entertainment, others would say it's to escape reality. For us, it's just fun and entertaining to play. We play quite a few games: Roblox, Minecraft, Trackmania, and Asphalt 9. Of course, there are millions, if not billions of games created by humans. There are games with different genres, such as Indie, Racing, Sandbox, Strategy, Multiplayer, Puzzle, Adventure, Horror and PVP. Games also contain different graphics and visual effects such as realistic, cartoony, and animated.

Child playing PlayStation

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Of course, like most parents or adults say: Too much gaming can be bad for your eyes and health. That is true for a lot of games, but there are also a ton of games where it's the exact opposite. To fix the eye problem, turning down the brightness or just not spending too much time on a screen is enough. For health, some people might get used to fighting and action games which can manipulate your mind into thinking about it more than usual. There also is a huge existing problem with social games. A lot of platforms have an insane amount of players which can lead to people being mean and sometimes even aggressive by making inappropriate comments.

However, there are also many advantages to gaming. Depending on the game you play, gaming can improve your hand-eye coordination. Playing multiplayer strategy games can make your communication with strangers better while learning how to express your ideas to fix a problem. One example of these games is League of Legends - which a lot of you might know. It's a game where you get connected with random people from the whole world and have to conquer other people's kingdoms.

You do this by building up a strategy and attacking from different angles and other players try to defend their base. Although this might sound hard to believe, games like League of Legends can improve teamwork in real life. Some people just play these games for fun without realizing that they are improving their communication with other people.

League of Legends

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Now let’s move on to the question: How do video games help in real life? There are surprisingly many ways where video games bring advantages in real life. One of these being hand-eye coordination and reflexes.

Some games improve strategic strength which helps to process things faster and more accurately.

Gaming effects the brain

In conclusion, playing video games has advantages and disadvantages. There are many opinions on video games. I like playing, but there are things that I suggest not doing, like playing some games, such as fighting games that are quite brutal. Some of them are so violent in fact, they got banned in certain countries. I don't recommend these game at all and especially not for people who have sensitive senses Gaming effects the mind

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How has Tech made our lives better?

Aishani Coudhury, Kavin Karthick, Oliver Gabriel Jones-Katz Technology has improved our way of living in many areas. Technology has enhanced healthcare in the past decade. There are so many inventions in the medical area, such as fitness trackers and blood pressure monitors. Virtual Reality is being used not only for entertainment but also for health.

VR is being used to treat a lot of psychological illnesses and helps training for medical students. Laser eye surgery is something that is out of this world; we can now correct a person’s vision using laser eye treatment. Transplants are also now

Robot doing task

possible; now we can do heart, lung, liver, pancreas, cornea, trachea, kidney and skin transplants. Nanobots can be sent into the bloodstream to diagnose and prevent whatever disease the person is suffering.

Transportation has also completely changed because of how advanced tech is. From walking to going on horses to open carriages, we are now in an age where we drive in a vehicle that is completely closed. We have self-driving cars which can drive you anywhere you want to go.

The safety of cars is also a lot better and can save your life with mere scratches if you are ever in an accident. In the past cars produced

Technology improving healthcare

a lot of emissions and caused pollution. Nowadays the cars being produced are run in an emission test and then released to the public as some countries have a set number of emissions that should not be crossed. Augmented reality dashboards help drivers to see the surroundings of the car they are driving, and some cars even have rear cameras that can be seen on the dashboard. The dashboard can also show information like the car’s speed, the status of its engine, and directions to the nearest gas station.

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Money management has never been safer before. After the invention of the credit card, people have started using less cash. It’s easier to manage your money because they are all in a digital bank account. As technology advances, robbers also advance with the technology. Cybercrime has become very advanced and could make you lose money. But there are safety measures you could take to avoid getting scammed to lose your money. Some safety measures are that you should not share your passwords or any codes with anyone as you could get hacked. Another thing is that you should check that the links you get from banks are real as some could be fake and could make you lose money.

Another thing that has made our lives easier because of technology is that you can access your work from anywhere. If you come home from work, you could access the work you were doing in your office at home. We do not have to go to a specific location to access information. This saves us a lot of time and effort.

The greatest thing that technology has brought to our lives is communication. You can communicate from anywhere. You can commune with anyone regardless of how far they are away from you. The only thing that you need is a phone and proper connectivity like a cell tower. This has brought us closer to our loved ones even if they are far away. Communication has evolved greatly as in the beginning people used to send birds with a piece of parchment with it to deliver it across the world. In some cases, humans would go and deliver the messages themselves. After that, people started using a telegraph which had to be used in morse code. Later, people used a bulky telephone to contact people far away, but it wasn’t always clear what the other person was saying. Nowadays we use a smartphone to call people. We can video call and voice call. This is one of the greatest improvements in technology.

Some other benefits of technology are that you would not have to spend time looking for misplaced items like a smartwatch. Smartwatches just need to be connected to your phone, the app that it is connected with can help you find it by making a sound.

This makes life easier and saves time.

Improved communication due to

Artificial intelligence

Google search engine

advanced technology

THE_ISSUE - March December 2023 2022

Page Page27 14

Can We Use Virtual Assistants for Learning?

Medina Arsanova I am a great fan of virtual assistants.

As an Apple user for my whole life, I used to talk and learn about Siri a lot, such as what questions I can ask, or what Siri can do. Siri is my favorite virtual assistant; however, I am also interested in other ones such as Google Assistant, Alexa, and Cortana.

One day, there was one thing that came into my mind: “Is it possible to use virtual assistants for learning?” - I thought it would be very cool if we would. However, I’m also wondering which virtual assistant is the best for learning. So I put a lot of effort and research into it and made sure that it was as accurate as possible.

iPhone

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Page 28

Can we use virtual assistants for learning?

Disadvantages:

Advantages:

Students will use virtual assistants for

People can use virtual assistants to help

fun, such as activating them all the

them manage and organize their time,

time and asking them questions that

such as setting a reminder for

might not be related to school.

homework or setting alarms to manage

It would be loud in the classroom

their time. This way, they can finish

(depending on the volume of the voice

their homework faster and prevent

of a virtual assistant). The virtual

struggling with deadlines.

assistants would be speaking at the

Students who are struggling with

same time as the teacher or students.

languages can use virtual assistants for them to have quick answers and translations of the words they don’t know.

I think that it is best if using virtual assistants would be optional for students. However, they would benefit in completing tasks faster and we don’t have to groan about having too much homework.

Apple: Siri

THE_ISSUE - March 2023

Amazon's Alexa

Page #29

Brain Food

Our monthly question for your brain.

When did time begin?

Eashan: I think time started when the universe formed approximately 14 billion years ago from a singularity.

Anonymous: It started with everything else, we just gave it a name and a way to sort it into groups when we realized it existed 🤔: Well, I believe the space time continuum Jonas: It started the moment we began recording it

Clock

THE_ISSUE - March 2023

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