A while back, I received the following email from Zak Kolar, a high school senior, asking me to post his website on my blog. Although it took some time, I am living up to my promise — check it out; he is doing some great things for a person so young. Here is his message:
Dear Ms. Whitley,
My name is Zak Kolar and I am a senior in high school. Over the past few months, I have been working on a website called “How many is that?”: http://www.howmanyisthat.org. The purpose of the site is to take large numbers associated with social justice issues and compare them with local information to put them into perspective. For example, there are 66 million girls in the world who do not have access to education. Athens, GA has a population of 116,084. 66 million people would be about 569 Athenses. The goal of How many is that? is to make it easier to see how these human rights violations have affected people as individuals, and not just faceless statistics, ultimately inspiring action to prevent them from happening in the future. I think that How many is that? is a good educational resource because it can be used to get people’s attention about human rights issues when they realize the magnitude of these tragedies. I was hoping that you would consider posting a link to “How many is that?” on your “For students” or “For teachers” pages. Also, I have many social and historical issues presented on my site (e.g. bullying, domestic violence, genocide), so if there are any issues that you would like me to publish on my website, please let me know and I would be happy to add them.
Thank you!
Zak
Wow. I am definitely inspired.
Teaching Social Justice 