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Welcome to my Global Studies Capstone

For my senior year Watkinson is requiring the senior class to create a project, with a final exhibition that will be the product of a year's worth of work. ” I used investigative research to study the effects of American corporations (like Nike), and how they exploit foreign-eastern countries to manufacture and import clothing. I have compiled all of my research into my final essay which goes in-depth on my essential question. My paper highlights points like how major companies are seeking to broaden their markets, ignoring carelessly the consequences of the sweatshops they are essentially recruiting, along with how the workforce, who don't have much to provide for themselves, are forced to continue living off the very little they receive from the shop-operating subcontractors. Thus proving that sweatshop workers can truly rely on their work because of socioeconomic situations, in which they have no better option.

One goal I have in addition to writing the article is to become a more advanced writer and journalist. Also below there is a button which will direct you to my full essay. Also below is my product which goes along with my essay.

My Capstone Product

My senior Capstone product goes hand in hand with my essay on sweatshops. My product I chose to create is a google form, a quiz that is meant to test the knowledge of a small portion o the Watkinson community. I made the test actually rather difficult I did not expect many people to to get more than half correct. However, this was intentional, I believe that the concepts of sweatshops is unpopular to smaller communities like schools. The goal of my test was to see how well informed the participants were. The majority of the questions handle with large numbers that are averages, which vary over time. I wanted to see how close an educated guess from students given the provided examples in some of the questions. Of course also wanted to see how many questions the participants would get correct. The test consists of ten questions: seven multiple choice and three open ended questions. The multiple choice questions were a way for me to help gage how a sweatshop might affect someone on a daily basis. This was also a way for me to see the awareness about sweatshop labor besides testing them with in-depth averages or policy. But most importantly besides of testing the community knowledge I wanted to spread awareness about sweatshop labor and wanted to make people take a second and really think about actually how much sweatshops might have on our lives. For my product I took a different approach as apposed to my research paper which is strictly analytical. For my product I wanted to open it up the Watkinson community as apposed to doing something like a case study. I wanted to get more community engagement and thought it would be more interesting. 

In the photos below are the data averages from my test along with my final conclusion from my test.

Results and Conclusion

My hypothesis I had going into the creation of my test was that I was not expecting the sample of people to average above 50%. That initial hypothesis was correct given the sample size. As shown in the insights image in the slide gallery above the average score on my test out of 14 total point was just under 5.5. Which is below the 50% margin. Through this test though I have found that the sample of just under 30 from Watkinson are well informed, the questions that where presented in the test are based off of the data that has been gathered by the International Labor Office and various other institutions. The 28 that completed the test collectively are well informed to the point that they can make educational guesses based off examples and prior knowledge they were exposed to get around half of the questions correct. I believe that through the data the majority of the questions answered incorrectly where actually relatively close to the actual answer. For example in the 9th slide above which asks around how much greenhouse gases are emitted a year from sweatshops, 32% of the sample size chose the correct answer in 700 million tons. Surprisingly, 39% of the sample size chose 650 million tons which is significantly closer than the other two options. I understand that this data shows that a small sample of the Watkinson community answered my questions correctly. It is inevitable for an educated guess to be incorrect. This is clearly show in the rest of the data. I do not put any shame on the incorrect answers because quite frankly the questions were supposed to be difficult and purposely used for this test. In conclusion I believe I achieved my goal in trying to extend some of my knowledge that I have gained while working on my year long Capstone project to the Watkinson community. I am also satisfied with that data that I received from my test and I was correct in my hyopthesis.

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