Project Work 2010, 7th July

TEENAGE SEX

Teacher Mentor’s name: Mr Dave Sim Chong Bian

Project Work members: Ze Bin (leader)

Louis Ng

Wei Jian

Lee Hwee

Bryan Teo

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 Content

1) Brief information on topic

2) Areas of focus and information (Teenage Pregnancies)

3) Work allocation to the team members

4) How our survey was conducted

5) Survey questions

6) Graph for survey results

7) Impact of result findings

8) Suggestions for creating awareness among the community

9) Advice for teenagers against having teenage sex

10) Problems faced

We believe that teenage sex is a major problem in our society nowadays and that

is why we have decided to choose teenage sex as our topic for project work.

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 1) Brief information on topic

Although our main focus of this project work is unwanted pregnancy, its root

cause is still teenage sex.

The dictionary meaning of teenage sex is, a teenager whose age ranges from 13-

19 having sexual intercourse. However, as we continued to look into this topic,

we found out that the magnitude of this act is much worse than what a mere

dictionary can explain.

There are many reasons why teenagers engage in sexual activities, such as

curiosity. A study conducted in 2006 also found that adolescents who were more

exposed to sexuality in the media were also more likely to engage in sexual

activity themselves. Other reasons may include influence by friends, peer

pressure and a bad family background.

A report by Save the Children found that, annually, 13 million children are born to

women under age 20 worldwide. More than 90% of these births occur to women

living in developing countries. However, in Singapore, marriage before age 20

has all but disappeared, and, although the occurrence of sexual intercourse

before marriage has risen, rates of adolescent childbearing are low at 4 to 8 per

1000. Although this is good news, we still aim to quell this rising trend.

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 2) Area of focus and information (Teenage pregnancies)

The reason why we chose teenage pregnancies out of all the other possible sub-

topics is because we believe it holds the most important decision that a pregnant

teenager can make. The decision would not only affect the female and the male,

but also the unborn baby’s life. We felt that not even giving the child a chance to

live in a stable background was not fair for the child, even more so if the couple

decides to get an abortion.

Teenage pregnancy is defined as a teenaged or underage girl (usually within the

ages of 13–19) becoming pregnant. The term in everyday speech usually refers

to women who have not reached legal adulthood, which varies across the world,

who become pregnant.

In societies where adolescent marriage is uncommon, young age at first

intercourse and lack of contraceptive use may be factors in teen pregnancy. Most

teenage pregnancies in the developed world appear to be unplanned. The

teenage birthrate (per thousand women 15-19) is 6 for Singapore, which are

among the lowest in the world, however we must not take comfort in that but

instead try to lower it down as much as we can.

The lack of education on safe sex, whether it’s from parents, schools, or

otherwise, is a cause of teenage pregnancy. Many teenagers are not taught

about methods of birth control and how to deal with peers who pressure them into

having sex before they are ready. Many pregnant teenagers do not have any

cognition of the central facts of sexuality. Some teens have said to be pressured

into having sex with their boyfriend when the teen was young and yet no one had

taught these teens how to deal with this pressure or to say "no". That is why our

group aims to promote more education about this sensitive topic.

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 3) Work allocation to the team members

In our project work, we have five members, all of which were capable in their own

way. Therefore, we decided to split the work and allocate the jobs to the group

members according to their capability.

Lee Hwee and Ze Bin were allocated to do our two forms of presentation, “Prezi”

and “Glogster”.

Louis and Wei Jian were to gather background information and come out with

survey questions, as they were both creative and efficient.

Meanwhile, Bryan was allocated to handle the reports, organize dates to meet up

and compile the survey results.

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 4) How our survey was conducted

Our survey questions were mainly divided into four sections for four different

groups of people. We have the general questions, questions for adults, teenage

boys and teenage girls. Our group discussed among us and decided to print out

copies of survey questions to be given out, completed and then collected back.

For the survey questions for adults, we decided to survey the teachers in our

school. A total of 25 copies of survey questions were given out to the teachers by

us. Before every morning assembly in the school plaza, we would walk around

giving out the questions to teachers and at the end of the day, we would collect

them back from the various teachers.

For the survey questions for teenage boys, we had decided to survey our very

own schoolmates. We distributed 15 copies of the survey questions to each class

of our level. Unfortunately not all the copies were returned and at the end we only

received back about 50 copies.

For the survey questions for teenage girls, we station ourselves at Junction 8

shopping centre to survey passing by teenage girls. We also invited Louis’s

mother along so that the people we survey do not feel uncomfortable.

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 5) Survey questions and results

General questions:

1. What is your opinion on teenage sex?

2. What do you is the appropriate age to have sex?

- 12-14

- 14-16

- 16-18

- 18 and above

3. Do you agree that teenage sex is a growing problem? If so, what do you

is the reason for it?

Adults:

1. What would you do if you found out that your teenage son/daughter is sexually

active?

2. What suggestions do you have to prevent teenagers from having sex?

Boys:

1. Have you ever had the thought of having sex with girls despite being underage?

2. What would you do if you realized that the girl you had sex with was pregnant?

Girls:

1. Would you agree to your boy-friends suggestion of having sex with him?

2. What would you do if you realized you were pregnant?

6) Graph of survey results

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 25

20

15 Adults
Girls
10
Boys
strangers
5

0
12 to 14 14 to 16 16 to 18 18 and
above

7) Impact of result findings

These results were actually quite shocking because that the appropriate age to have sex
was 18 and above, and yet, there are quite a handful of people who have chosen between
the ranges of 12-18. This therefore, shows that we should create more awareness amongst
the public.

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 8) Suggestions for creating awareness among the community

As our group brainstormed for some suggestions to face this problem, we came out with
a few possible ways to deal with this rising trend

One of the ways to increase awareness among the community is to make use of sexuality
education during school assembly sessions, to educate the teenagers about these growing
problems. Also, apart from that, they should state the reason why it is a growing problem
and the effects of it.
Another way that our group came up with to face this problem was to make a short video
clip to show the teenagers. Also we will give suggestions on how to avoid getting
unwanted pregnancies during their teenage life.

9) Advice for teenagers for having sex

Firstly, it is illegal and therefore, they should not get into trouble, due to their curiosity,
etc. but instead, focus on other important aspects on life, likes studies so as to get a better
job and future.
Secondly, if the girl gets unwanted pregnancy due to their curiosity, the boy would have
to take up responsibility for them, and majority of the teenage boys would not be so
matured to take up the full responsibility in the case of such events. It would be hard both
physically and mentally for the couple. For examples, the couple would have to find the
financial support for themselves and the baby. Therefore there are a lot of factors to
consider before engaging in teenage sex, as in might cause teenage pregnancy. As they
are in their teens they should not be having a family yet instead they should be studying
and focus in their studies.

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 10) Problems faced

We faced quite a few problems as we attempted the project. Some of our members had
quite busy schedules and therefore we could not meet up as a group to do the project. We
tried to get around this problem by meeting up in smaller groups, as this would provide
lesser distractions and we would be able to focus more.

Another problem that we faced was that none of our group members took the initiative to
start work; instead we all waited for our leader to give out instructions unfortunately he
did not give out much instruction and therefore we lagged a little behind the schedule.
However, we as the team members were also to be blamed. We were not properly
motivated as we were focused more on our studies. We later realized that we were
running short of time and re-prioritized our schedule so that we would have enough time
to complete our project properly, instead of giving a slip-shot piece of assignment.

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