In order to understand the effectiveness of offering free supplemental education on college campuses, students were asked how frequently they went to the supplemental education and their final grades. On average, the more time the students spent at attending supplemental education, the worse their grades were.

1. If X is supplemental education and Y is final grade, explain what X causes Y would look like. First, fill in the correct variable names in the statement “X causes Y”. Then come up with a plausible explanation for how this could be happening.

2. If X is supplemental education and Y is final grade, explain what Y causes X would look like. First, fill in the correct variable names in the statement “Y causes X”. Then come up with a plausible explanation for how this could be happening.

3. If X is supplemental education and Y is final grade, explain what a third variable causes both X and Y would look like. First, fill in the correct variable names in the statement “a third variable causes both X and Y”. Then come up with a plausible explanation for how this could be happening.

Answer the following questions regarding wealth, poverty, and inequality.

Regarding Personal Economic Factors:

Where do you stand personally in terms of your overall wealth?

What factors in your own background contributed to your current financial status and your potential future financial status?

To what extent do you place importance on your own current and future financial status? Explain.

What are the reasons for the widening gap in wealth in the United States?

To what extent do such gaps in wealth contribute to oppression, on the one hand, and privilege and power on the other? Why and how does this occur?

Can or should something be done about huge economic gaps between the wealthy and the impoverished? If so, what should be done and why?

What are the reasons for such extreme global poverty?

What can or should be done to help?

Regarding Gaps in Wealth in the United States:

What are the reasons for the widening gap in wealth in the United States?

To what extent do such gaps in wealth contribute to oppression, on the one hand, and privilege and power on the other? Why and how does this occur?

Can or should something be done about huge economic gaps between the wealthy and the impoverished? If so, what should be done and why?

Regarding Global Poverty:

What are the reasons for such extreme global poverty?

What can or should be done to help?

Whether liberating or alienating, we are still interdependent, and in a world of strangers it is they on whom we must rely. I trust the skill of people around the world when I buy my clothes, drive my car, and eat my food. I trust engineers, contractors, and inspectors when I cross a bridge, ride an elevator, or fly in an airplane. I trust I will receive fair treatment by such strangers as librarians, ambulance drivers, nurses or doctors, policemen or firemen.

They are there to serve strangers. Our territorial segmentation makes us strangers and our global integration makes us depend on and trust strangers often more than family and friends. We know we are linked globally because we have constructed communication and transportation links to tie us all together.

These networks empower us-our actions go far beyond the local to transform nature and culture virtually anywhere. The networks are so complex and shifting that we are rarely able to trace the extent and consequences of our actions.

What is Robert Sack saying?

Even though you live in Spain, how are you personally connected to the mining of minerals on the continent of Africa?

Are guns a public health crisis? Explain. What groups are most at risk of injury or death from firearms. Discuss why these groups are at risk. Discuss ways that we could mitigate firearm deaths in the US. When we consider the individual right versus the societal benefit, where do you think gun ownership belongs? In other words, do the supposed benefits of gun ownership outweigh the societal risk that guns bring? In the three articles by Dowd-Arrow and his co-authors, were there any individual benefits? What were they? What is the role of research in understanding and solving this particular public health issue? How does the Dickey Amendment impact this research? Should the Dickey Amendment be repealed?