Program Final Thoughts: Interns

Skyler - At the end of the program, it feels good to leave with the skills that I have acquired for the past 6 weeks. Having these skills I know will help me to progress toward more job opportunities and also my future goal and career.

Amir - At the end of the program, I had a good time at this job. I would love to come back here next year. I learned a lot from this job. My mentors were a good help. They helped with my mock trial and the way I speak. I hope I can take these skill into my life.

Elba - At the end of the program, I leave here with a heart full of memories and skills that I know for a fact I'll use in the future. This is by far one of the best experiences that I've had. To be honest, at first I didn't think that the group was going to follow through with our task, but at the end we were successful and did a really good job.

Kendall - At the end of the program, I am ready to finish the rest of my summer. I'm looking forward to using my working skills in the real world. It is sad to leave but I know I'm leaving with valuable information. The mock trial was a good view of the legal system. I hope to major in business when I get to college. I wish I could have the same mentors the next time this starts. Speaking of mentors, Brenden and Jay were a good help to the group and gave really good information on working. We had some good laughs and we will miss our group.

Bianca - At the end of the program, I will leave here with a sense of becoming a lawyer. People have been saying I should be a lawyer, because I acted great as a lawyer in the mock trial. I now know what people have to go though to prepare for a trial, and what they have to do to make the jury believe how you feel. I would love to do this again and I would love to have the same people and mentors, who's names are Jay and Brendan, to help us.

Kevin - At the end of the program, I am ready to finish the rest of my summer. Ever since I got in this program it had been helping my work skills, such as being a witness the mock trial. When we were doing the real trial, I felt very confident about myself. The only thing I have left to say is that it has been a pleasure to be in this program. I will miss seeing my mentors Brendan and Jay and my group.

Trent - At the end of the program, I am ready to go on and be the best person I can be. I learned a lot from this program, and I will never forget the lessons I was taught. I really enjoyed the mock trial and doing the whole play. I met a lot of new friends that i will not forget!!!! I LOVED IT!!!!!!

Darien - I really enjoyed this program. At first I was a little shy, and I didn't want to meet new people, but after a while I started to get used to our group and to like them. From this program I learned a lot, such as speaking, manners, and proper language. Also I got some tips on how and what to do when I apply for a job. Jay and Brenden were amazing mentors and Zak was a great portfolio mentor.

Catherine - At the end of this program, I can really say I had a great time. I will never forget the people that I have met here. I am walking away with the confidence I need to succeed in the years to come. I will truly miss everyone!!!

Janea - Now that we are at the end of this program, I am sad to say that it's over. I had the best time ever. I learned so much and experienced so much, and I am glad to say that I will walk away from this program with much knowledge. I will miss all of my collueges. They were the best. At first I had my perceptions of what they would be like, but once we got to know each other, I had so much fun with them. And again they will definitely be missed!!!

Hi everyone, this is Darien here. Here is a picture of me and on the witness stand being questioned by Amir, a lawyer on the defense side. I was Jerry Smith, a witness for the Defenese. Jerry was the Health and Safety Manager for the company in the trial.

Hi! This is Catherine. I was a witness on the plantiff side named Robin Roberts. She was an enviornmential clean-up specialist of waste. This experience was fantastic for me because I'm very shy and I didn't really talk very much, but when I got on the witness stand, I spoke loud and clear, and I wasn't nervous anymore.

This is Kendall and here is a picture of me giving my opening statement for the defense.

Hi, this is Amir again. I was a lawyer for the defense, and this is me in the mock trial questioning my witness Jerry Smith played by Darien Walker

"Mock" Mock Trial

This is Bianca from the mock trail. Last week we did a mock of the mock trail. lol. We went to the new business building, which is called Alter Hall, to see what it would be like to do a mock trail. For me it was challenging because I do not have any experience in talking in front of people or being serious in any situation, but i had to face my fears and practice. It was fun!! I got alot of feedback from my mentors and thier supervisors. They told me it was good that I moved around instead of staying in one place. Once they said that I started to become more comfortable in speaking in front of people. I had to get up and make up a closing statement because I am one of the lawyers questioning the witnesses. I was so nervoue and I flat out did not want to do it because I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what a closing statement was supposed to contain, but when my mentors, their supervisors, and my friends cheered me on to go up and say anything about the defense, I gained confidence and went up and said anything that was on my mind. At the end they gave me more positive feedback and I felt great that I did it after my heart stopped pounding. We tried to be serious but we were all was messing up. It was a good thing because now we know what we have to do to improve and make it come together before SHOW TIME!!!!

Podcasting = Fun Stuff!!

Hey it's Janea here, wow I just have a lot to tell you about the program so far. We have experienced so much in the past week. Last week we researched infromation for the script for the podcast part of our program which deals with liver cancer, and one of the members of our group actually got to go into a studio and record the script!! Fun!! We chose to podcast about liver cancer because it has a great deal to do with the trial and our informing of the pollution from factories. We also decided to do liver cancer because we wanted to inform those about the seriousness of it and just to let people who are instrested know more about it. Along with writing the script we were brainstorming music to go along with it and maybe even a slide show!! So be looking forward to that!! The fun aspect of it was we got to play with all the cool Apps. on the apple computers one included Garage Band which was so much fun we really felt like producers in the studio!! I am so happy and greatful that I got a chance to work with such cool people and that I am getting to experience so many different things during the program!! :~)

Presentation Practice

Hello bloggers! This is Amir Sheffield from the mock trial here to give you a report on what we did this week. On Tuesday July 21, 2009, we split up and one group researched O.J. Simpson's life, and the other group researched the Dust Bowl. I was in the second group, reserching the Dust Bowl. I had a lot of fun learning about the Dust Bowl. I found out a lot of interesting facts about it, like that it killed a lot of people, and a lot of crops were destroyed. After gathering information, we did power point presentations in the USB building. Our mentors tought us what to do and what not to do in a presentions, and gave us the feedback on how our presentations went. We all learned new information about each topic, in fact, nobody from the entire group had even heard of the Dust Bowl before this. A couple of thing we learned about O.J is that he was a really good football player, but made some bad chocies in his life.



Here are some links to sources that we used to learn about our topics and used in our presentation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTRIALS/Simpson/simpson.htm

http://www.usd.edu/anth/epa/dust.html

Mock Trial: Shaping Up

Hi everyone, this is Kendall from the mock trial group. Yesterday, our group had a practice mock trial. The defense didn't have many questions for the witnesses, and some of the witnesses didn't have answers, but it was practice and we only just received our packets of information yesterdat morning. The defense is preparing new and better questions for the plantiff witnesses. I think that when we start the mock trial, we will be more prepared. I will be playing the role of Jamie Billard, a lawyer for the defendant and I think this will be a challenging case. I've never been in a mock trial before, so this will be a new expireance for me. The plantiff side is working just as hard as we are, so I know that our showcase will be great. The defendant group is excited to start the trial.



On another note, we learned a little about autism this morning, because one of the characters in the trial is a little girl who is autistic. We learned that even with autism, you can still be a functioning member of the cummuinity. Just because you're autistic, doesn't always mean that your handicapped. Here is a link with more interesting information that we found: http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_home.



Next week we plan on having a few guest speakers come in to talk to us. One will show us how to present ourselves non-verbally, like our posture and eye contact. Another is going to talk to us about the basics of law and the legal system. In our portfolio training, Zack is going to teach us how to present ourselves when in an interview. Even though some of the workers do know how this is done, it will be good to have a chance to practice this.

4 weeks and counting

My name is Quisha and today I will be writing about what happened during the week from Monday July13th to Friday July 17th. On Wednesday, we had portfolio training with Zack, discussing jobs and professional and unprofessional attire to wear to work. We learned that how we will greet our co-workers is different from how we would greet our friends, and also brought in awards and something that we received from school or our work so that we have a better portfolio to show a future employer. Then, on Thursday, we had a site visit from our program director Kelly George. She was one of the judges when we were having a debate and was also very polite. Today, Friday the 17th, we watched a movie on global warming called An Inconvenient. There will be pictures to come soon so keep visiting!!

Our First Week: Finished!

Today we, Anthony and Darien, are going to post to our blog about a fun thing we did last week. Last Friday we watched a movie called Erin Brockovich, which is based on a true story. For many of us, it was our first time seeing this movie. We watched it because it is about a legal case that is similar to what we will be doing in our mock trial. In our case there is a company named Badger Aeromechanical Corp. that is dumping chemicals irresponsibly, similar to PG&E in the movie. In our case, these chemicals are affecting the ground water near the factory. It is belived that those chemicals are causing health issues in the immediate community near the plant. Our case presents an ethical obligation because Badger Aeromechanical Corp. makes windmill turbines that will be used in third-world countries. Although they are helping other countries, they are not disposing of chemicals properly here in the U.S. Our entire team is split into two sides, Plaintiff and Defendant. It will be our jobs to play the roles of certain characters in our fictional case.

The entire team learned interesting new things from watching this movie. I, Darien, didn't know that these cases could involve so many people, both plaintiff and defendant. I will be on the defendant side, playing the role of a witness, and I look forward to being a part of this project.

I, Anthony, didn't know that things like this even happened. I never knew that companies could be so irresponsible when it comes to their own back yard. I also will be playing the role of a witness, but for the plaintiff side. I'm glad I am on this side, because I am angry that a company would do this to the people that live there.

This movie really made us and the team aware of our sitution in Philadelphia. What would the consequences be if a local manufacuter were to do this here, in OUR community? Our population is much larger than the community in the movie, and the effects would devastating. It makes you wonder what is in our water, right here at home.

We look forward to posting more in the next few weeks.

Anthony and Darien

Our First Blog

It was Fun Meeting Everyone in our group( but we still don't know everyone's name yet).
We are still getting new students in our group everyday.
We are planing a Mock trial, its going to be fun and exciting. we are going to meet a couple of people like some lawyers(etc)

Everyone in our Group is Very Happy To put This Trial Together.