This is my first Action Project for the class called Drama. In this first unit called Queen, we talked about queens in our lives and queens in Shakespearean plays. We started by giving our own examples of queens. We saw some of our own as strong, kind hearted, and compassionate towards others or their fans. We read The Tragedie of Macbeth in class to further understand the meaning behind a queen. It gave me a completely new twist on the definition of a queen because it talked about being power hungry, greedy, and tratorious intentions. In Macbeth, men were easily manipulated and sometimes women stepped up to lead the couple. These traits were shown better when we eventually watched the movie based on the book. This was the version that came out this year that starred Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. Leading to our action project we were assigned to write a sonnet to a Macbeth character of our choice. I decided to write my poem to Macduff because he’s a character that’s very accurate to gender roles at the time. He mainly kept his women and children at home while he was out fighting in the war. This caused Macduff to lose a lot because of his want to be a man. I want to give him a reality check after the events of the play.
Here's my poem below:
Monday, April 18, 2022
Macduff's Nest in Ashes
Sunday, April 17, 2022
It’s Not All Handy Dandy - by RBL
It’s Not All Handy Dandy
This is my first action project for my Cure class. This class is a second part to our Disease class last term. In this unit, titled Emergency, we’ve been learning about what can go wrong in the body and how to fix it. We first looked at the Hippocratic oath that doctors take, so we could see the rules that they follow. We also went to the International Museum for Surgical Science to see how different surgeries are done and why. As well as learning how different cells can reproduce through meiosis and mitosis. Leading up to our action project being to look up a surgery of our own choice and create a pamphlet about it that patients might see before getting that surgery. I decided to research Carpal Tunnel syndrome for my action project. In the cells, carpal tunnel syndrome can cause a stop in fluid production in the cells because of repeated use of the same action. From there these cells might cause friction in the system leading to the hand slowing down. can cause and here's my pamphlet below.
Overall I did enjoy doing this action project because it was interesting to see how carpal tunnel syndrome can effect different people. I also enjoyed doing research on how the surgery itself is done and how people can recover from it. I did find it difficult to start because I wasn’t sure how I should’ve written all of the information in a good manner. If I were to do it again, I would pick a surgery that I had more personal experience with.
Friday, March 11, 2022
New wisdom - By RBL
New wisdom - By RBL
In this blog I'll be telling you about the Akoben Rites of Passage Society that I'm learning from. In the fall-civic term, it's been meeting every-other Sunday and we've talked about important topics like how to be responsible, learn how to create our own part-time shelters, and how to defend our communities. There are a lot of programs like this located in different parts of the world. Their goals are how to teach black young men how to take care of each other, and the world.
To be a Disease Detective - By RBL
To be a Disease Detective
This is my last action project for my disease class. For this unit, we looked into current diseases that impact people everyday. For this we got to play the board game Pandemic in class and see how doctors research and dissect different information to find causes for certain diseases. We also interviewed two health doctors who’ve done different jobs in the CDC. Leading to our action project, we were given a specific scenario for an epidemic of a certain disease. My scenario was an epidemic of Hepatitis A.
Disease overview:
An epidemic of Hepatitis A occurred in the state of Washington in July 2019. Symptoms can start when you eat some sort of contaminated food. From there, the disease spreads out to your liver to cause severe damage. There were over 450 cases, more than 250 of which resulted in hospitalization and at least 9 deaths. Most cases occurred in unhomed populations, recently incarcerated populations, and drug users.
Hepatitis A (HAV) is a very contagious disease caused by certain viruses in the liver. Even though hepatitis A is a very contagious disease even though there are less than 1,000 known cases in a year because most of our population has been vaccinated against it.
When inside your body, it can cause inflation's to the liver and can make it difficult for your liver to work properly. You can directly get it from things such as contaminated food or water, drug users, men who have sex with men (MSM), and homeless individuals who might have unstable housing. Those are some of the few ways hepatitis A can spread through communities. A few symptoms for hepatitis A are intense itching, fatigue, joint pain, nausea, and vomiting. It’s important to realize that even though most of these symptoms for hepatitis A can last about two months, if you end up with a virus it can then last up to six months. This can leave severe damage to your body system. The best ways to fight against this are to get vaccinated, wash hands frequently, and don’t do drugs.
Vaccines at Sanofi “Hepatitis A virus (HAV)” Taken August 7, 2013
Outbreak info:
A recent outbreak of hepatitis A was reported in Seattle,WA in 2019 because of food contamination. The populations that were infected the most by this outbreak were the unsheltered, drug users (injection or non-injection), and people that have been, are, or recently incarcerated. Compared to those with the highest risk of getting hepatitis A, 36.7% of Seattle’s population has limited access to healthy foods compared to the national average of 64.2%. The interesting thing is that the parts of Seattle with the highest healthy food access are in the northern and southern parts of Seattle.
According to the CDC, the incubation period for it is about 28 days. There were 465 cases total, 263 people hospitalized, and 9 people who died. There’s a 94% efficacy for the vaccine so there’s more chance that if you get vaccinated, you will recover quicker than if you don’t. The reproductive rate for hepatitis A is 2.4. This is important because it can spread relatively quickly so it’s important to take precautions to prevent the disease. In order for Seattle to keep their population safe from hepatitis A, 62% or more would need to get vaccinated.
Here’s a timeline on how hepatitis A can affect someone:
RBL “Hepatitis A outbreak timeline” created March 9th, 2022
Those are some of the things states have done in the past. Here are some things that you can do to protect yourself and others from hepatitis A.
Recommendations:
To prevent hepatitis A outbreaks like these we should wash our hands more often, or get a vaccine for hepatitis A. Another thing you can do yourself is to be mindful of the things you eat and how they are made, as well as wear gloves when entering populated areas. As a whole we can advocate for those who have drug addiction or drug problems, so they won’t have to fight against their own drug issues. Another thing we can do is provide more housing or create more homeless shelters for those who don’t have the greatest healthcare options, and do more health checkups on local restaurants to make sure they’re selling healthy food. With taking these precautions, we can all stay safe from hepatitis A.
Sources:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/.
Flynn, Dan. “National Hepatitis A Outbreak Mostly over in West, but Continues in East.” Food Safety News, 7 Apr. 2021, https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2021/04/national-hepatitis-a-outbreak-mostly-over-in-west-but-continues-in-east/.
“Hepatitis A Outbreak.” Washington State Department of Health, https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/illness-and-disease-z/hepatitis-information/hepatitis/hepatitis-outbreak.
Widespread Outbreaks of Hepatitis A Across the U.S.. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/outbreaks/2017March-HepatitisA.htm
Thursday, March 10, 2022
Should Kindred be banned from prisons? - By RBL
Should Kindred be banned from prisons?
This is my last action project for my Humanities class, Forbidden Books. During this unit, we looked at several books that were banned for certain reasons. We read books like Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Fahrenheit 451, and excerpts from The Color Purple. We also looked at different books and the reasons why they were banned from school systems. Leading up to our action project which was to read a book that was banned from a school system. In my case, I ended up reading Kindred by Octavia Butler. Surprisingly, Kindred isn't banned from a single school system, but it was banned in prisons. Because of this, I had to do a lot more digging for information because it wasn’t directly banned in schools. If there is one thing I learned from Kindred it’s that power will come when you least expect it. Maybe it's banned because are worried about how it sees power. This is the essay that I wrote about the book. I hope you enjoy it.
Friday, February 18, 2022
Memory for Masters - By RBL
Memory for Masters
Here is my second blog post for my disease class. For this unit we really focused a lot about different mental disorders. For this we looked at a lot of the DSM-V which is a very long and detailed medical document that gives a lot of information about certain medical disorders. We also looked at autism directly by watching and reading Naoki Higashida's “The reason I jump”. Because of that it helped me to understand how mental disorders can affect how different people’s brain’s work. For this action project we were to choose a mental disorder of our choice, research how it can affect the body, and create an activity on how it might affect someone. The mental disorder that I decided to choose for this was amnesia. Here’s my analysis and activity below.
Amnesia is a process of losing or getting to lose parts of your memory over time. Symptoms usually start after some type of traumatic event or some type of accident. A person with dissociative amnesia may struggle to remember key details about themselves and their life, including their name, date of birth, where they live or work, or significant events.
Beta waves are the waves that do most of our active interaction in our brains. For that the body is learning how to do specific things and how to use said things. These waves are most affected by amnesia because with it you start to lose some of your memory. Along with that since beta waves allow for us to have active interactions with others, amnesia can cause us to lose parts of those interactions. The worse a person’s amnesia is the harder it is for beta waves to work properly inside of the brain. Here are two facts about amnesia below:
About 1.8% of Americans are diagnosed with amnesia in a year
Similar to otosclerosis, women have a higher chance of getting amnesia than men
Mokokoma Mokhonoana, an author and personality theorist, has amnesia and states that, “Desperateness sometimes makes us do something that gives someone, or some people, the impression that we suffer from forgetfulness.” From this quote we can understand that amnesia can sometimes make others feel desperate for something in a way. With that it might make someone with amnesia some type of way because of the way they are. Because of that it’s important to help those people anyway that we can.
One misconception that a lot of people have about amnesia is that it can cause someone to forget who they are. This misconception is false because the majority of people with amnesia more often forget past events in their lives. More often than not, people with amnesia can forget people around them or how to do specific things than just forgetting themselves as well.
If you have amnesia or if someone close to you might have amnesia here are some things you can do to help with treating it:
Making new plans - Create more opportunities for the person with that disorder to make new memories to make up for the lost ones.
Seek out a therapist - Talking to someone about memories or about how to cope with possible trauma.
Ask for medications - Sometimes doctors can also provide forms of medication for amnesia that can help to reduce possible anxiety from it.
To understand how it might feel to have amnesia, I wanted to make an interesting twist to the memory game. The goal with it is to give people a chance of how it might feel to have amnesia or how it might feel losing track of your memory. Now here’s a video on how to play:
Once you’ve finished feel free to answer this short survey about your experience playing - https://forms.gle/yqiwnxwr87e5YGEWA
Sources:
“Dissociative Amnesia Facts and Statistics: The Recovery Village.” The Recovery Village Drug and Alcohol Rehab, The Recovery Village Drug and Alcohol Rehab, 30 Dec. 2020, https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/dissociative-amnesia/related/dissociative-amnesia-statistics/.
DSM-V document - published May 13th, 2013
Geralyn Dexter, LMHC. “What Causes Dissociative Amnesia?” Verywell Health, Verywell Health, 21 Dec. 2021, https://www.verywellhealth.com/dissociative-amnesia-symptoms-causes-treatment-5210967.
Sarah Jividen, RN. “All about the Different Types of Amnesia.” Verywell Health, Verywell Health, 18 Oct. 2021, https://www.verywellhealth.com/amnesia-types-5203061.
Monday, February 14, 2022
A Fantastic Floorplan - By RBL
A Fantastic Floorplan
Hello and welcome to this blog. In this blog I'll be sharing to you a floorplan I made in Spanish class and what each part of it means. To prep for this, we went over how to use different Spanish words with ar, er, and ir endings. We also looked at parts of a house and different appliances that you might find in a house as well. For me the hardest part of this ap was drawing out my floorplan on paper. I'm not an experienced drawer so this part I found a bit challenging. Overall, I'm really proud how it came out and I hope you enjoy looking at it as well.
RBL A Fantastic Floorplan rough draft, drawn February 7th, 2022
La sala:
Estoy descansando en el sillón.
Estoy echando agua a las flores en la vasesa.
Estoy abriendo cabinete.
Mi sobrina ordena los juguetes
Sacudo los libros.
Traigo el agua.
Abro la puerta.
El comedor:
Estoy bebiendo agua en la mesa
Nosotros comemos en la mesa
Nosotros hablamos en la mesa
Las sacudidas mezcla de senderos
La cocina:
Yo caliento la comida en el microondas
Caliento la comida.
Hablo con mi mamȧ
le hablo
Estoy bebiendo el jugo de manzana Jugo
Lo estoy bebiendo
Le llamo practicando a cocinar
Llamo a mi mamá/le llamó.
El baño:
Yo voy a tomar una ducha
Yo lavo la ropa en la lavadora
La lavo (La ropa)
Yo limpio mi baño
Yo traigo pijama el baño
El dormitorio:
Yo Duermo en mi cama
Como papas fritas en mi habitación
Leo libros en mi habitación
Saturday, January 22, 2022
Can You Hear me? - By RBL
This is my first blog post for my Disease class. This first unit was based on anatomy and learning about how different diseases can impact the human body. We began the class by looking at the main body systems. After that, we went on to talk about how different cancers could affect each system and how the systems could fend against them. We then split into smaller groups to look at the City Health Dashboard website. On the dashboard, we researched different diseases and different problems that are affecting the city and how corporations are fighting against some of the conflicts. This all led to our Action Project, which is to interview someone about a specific disease that they have or that they’ve had and talk about what parts of the body this disease affects. Hope you enjoy it!
Patient profile:
For this action project, the disease that I decided to study was otosclerosis. Before we get into otosclerosis we should talk about what sclerosis means. Sclerosis means that a bone is over growing. Otosclerosis is an ear disorder where a new bone forms around the insides of the ear which can cause hearing difficulties.
Medically the types of people who have the biggest risk of getting this disease are women of all ages. It can also be passed down through different genes from family or can develop while a person is pregnant. Another way this disease can develop is through overgrowing of bones inside the ear. When a bone isn’t growing the right way, it can also cause otosclerosis. This disease manifests as possible changes in bones and bone structure. It isn’t a communicable disease. Although people can’t see otosclerosis directly, they can notice if someone is having hearing issues. This disease directly affects the vestibular system which is a subset of the nervous system. The system itself receives soundwaves that allow us to hear. An example of how this disease can affect someone is if they are watching television and notice that they can’t hear clearly. Because of this they might have to resort to other means to improve their hearing. Some of the factors that can cause this disease are lack of water, measles, and sometimes the reason behind the disease can be unknown. This means that this disease is multifactorial.
Personally, I have a family member who has had otosclerosis for years. Currently she is an Assistant Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University. When I interviewed her, she told me her symptoms first started when she was in her mid 30’s. Based on the fact that she was a woman in her mid 30’s, it suggests that she was at a high risk of getting the disease. She noticed that when she was talking on the phone her hearing felt like it was starting to fade. When she first went to her doctor, she was told that her hearing was fading on each ear.
Here’s an example of what otosclerosis might look inside of my family member’s ear:
Here’s an example of the kinds of hearing aids she wears:
She told me that, “I was also really embarrassed to wear hearing aids at first. I first wore hearing aids for a practice period similar to having glasses.” My family member still wears hearing aids today and told me that she’s ok with wearing them because they improve her hearing significantly. With better technology the hearing aids will get better too.
Sources:
H.P personal interview
Noted January 16, 2022
The Royal Victorian eye and ear hospital. (n.d.). Ears - otosclerosis. Ears - otosclerosis - Better Health Channel. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/ears-otosclerosis
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
STOP PLAYING GAMES - By RBL
STOP PLAYING GAMES
Hello this is RBL and welcome to another blog post. This is my first blog for my Forbidden Books class. For this first unit our main topic was Politics. To start off we looked at Socrates, and how his thoughts and reasoning changed others. One of the biggest things that I learned from him is the Socratic method. The Socratic method is a process of asking a series of difficult questions in order to understand someone's reasoning. Now this process was so powerful that he even passed his methods onto children, who ended up questioning other people in their society. Socrates was sentenced to death for passing on his advanced thoughts to the youth. Parts of this method still affect our thoughts today. This led to my class action project this term, which was to create an original Socratic method video. For this video I worked with my partner KT. We both like playing different games which inspired us to create a video based on video game addiction. For this we had KT being the Socrates based character who will be asking different questions about games. I will be the person with the outrageous statement who will be answering the questions KT asks. Here's our video about how the Socratic method can be shown through video game addiction, I hope you enjoy.
Video script:
Zenyatta
“Hey what are you doing”
Brooks
“I'm just playing sonic 1 on my phone, it’s one of my favorite games to play on my phone.”
Zenyatta
“Since there are a bunch of sonic games, what makes Sonic 1 your favorite?”
Brooks
“Well, I’m not sure if it’s my favorite sonic game on mobile, but it’s what I find myself playing the most.”
Zenyatta
“How long do you play on a daily average?”
Brooks
“Not that much. I guess I play 7 hours a day. I do sometimes play different games on my switch or my playstation, but my phone is the thing that’s most accessible to me. That’s why I always find myself coming back to play it.”
Zenyatta
“That's a lot of time spent on a video game. I was reading off Dr.K’s website. He’s a Harvard trained psychiatrist who states that 8.4% of children and teenagers are addicted to gaming. Do you think it changes how much time you spend with friends and family?”
Brooks
“No. I spend plenty of time with my family.”
Zenyatta
“Ok. so, you spend 7 hours in school, 7 hours on sonic, and 7 hours sleeping, that’s 21 hours! How are you able to make time to spend with your family?”
Brooks
Woah, that’s a lot more hours than I thought. Maybe I do spend too much time running around in those levels.
Zenyatta
“Well, I think that it’s important you’ve recognized that. So, what are your next steps?”
Brooks
“I think my next steps are to maybe spend less time on my phone. Maybe like setting times for myself when I could play. Now that I think about it, I’m addicted to playing games on my phone.”
Zenyatta
“I believe you may be. Do you think you could play a bit less?”
Brooks
“Well, I think that’s something that I could try doing, maybe instead I should try and get out a bit more and do more active things. Maybe that way I could find new hobbies besides just playing on my phone.”
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
The Better Bag - By RBL
Hello my name is RBL and welcome to my blog for my school class biomimicry. If you don't know already biomimicry is looking at nature and seeing how we can learn, or adapt based off of it. In the start of this class we got to learn about plants and animals. Along with that we also got to look at some of the simple lessons that nature can teach us. Some of the lessons that I got from nature are being aware of water temperature, recycle carefully, and be careful of what you eat. For the class itself we also had field experiences where my class had the chance to get outside and see nature first hand. To learn about plants we went to the Lincoln Park Conservatory. Along with that the next day we got to go to the Lincoln Park Zoo to learn about how animals can adapt to nature as well. We even went to Plant Chicago where we got to learn how some people used different concepts of closed loop systems. This led up to our action project where we get to research organisms of our own choosing and see how we as humans can learn from them.
Here's my adaptation below:
The species that inspired me was hemp or Cannabis sativa. It can grow constantly and quickly. It's leaves and stems are short and leaf like. It also has been able to adapt to not produce as much THC compared to some of its other family members like marijuana. So over time hemp has grown to need less and less of the THC which is better for us because it won’t make us high. Hemps can be found in warm and humid climates like grasslands, mountains, and blustery deserts. Overall it can be grown in a lot of different places except winter climates. Now the main thing that makes hemp really unique is that it can be used in many different ways. The part that can give the most use is the fibres. To get these fibres the stalks have to dried, crushed, and shaked until the fibres are released from the stalks. These fibres are strong, and resistant to a lot of things which is where most of hemps fertility comes from. For example these fibres can be used to make t-shirts, cooking oils, or possible beauty products.
My closed loop cycle:
My solution for this is a closed loop cycle of making hemp based bags. I wanted to do this cycle because plastic bags are a thing we use everyday. Even so it's really bad for the environment because they take 10-20 years to decompose. With this idea it gives us a way to be more sustainable. Now the cycle starts with the hemp based plant and when when the hemp grows some of it will be sent to factories to be burned and made into cooking oils which will then be sent to grocery stores. The rest will be taken to a harvesting facility where the hemp fibers are harvested from the stems. Once these fibers are harvested they will then be turned into hemp based bags.
These bags will be stored in a relative temperature of 30-40 degrees Fahrenheit so they can degrade as slowly as possible. These bags will have an expiration date of 1-2 years and it will be placed on the insides of the bag. This is so customers and buyers can know when their bags will start degrading. Along with that on the expiration date I’d hope to put an address to a farm where the customer could send the degraded bag to. The bag will be 17 inches tall, 17 inches long, 9 inches wide, and a handle of 28 inches. When sending bags to stores they’ll be placed into a cardboard container. After the bags are sent it’s up to stores how they want the bags to be sold. My main goal for them is to serve as bags for everyday use. Customers can refrigerate their bags to make the bags last longer when not being used.
Once a bag finishes its degradation process customers can place their degraded bag back in the store container they got their bag from. Before a consumer might place the bag into the container I’d recommend that they either put the bag under cold water to wash it, or wash it in a washing machine. Once the container is full of the degraded bags it will be sent back to the bag facility so the bags can be disassembled. Once the bags have been disassembled the hemp fibres will be used as food at farms for animals like cows and horses. This is what makes my design a bit more unique compared to companies like Hempalaya because these bags post degradation could be used as a food source. When those animals then produce waste the waste will be used to then regrow new hemp plants so the process will continue. When new bags are made they’ll be sent back to stores so customers can receive new bags.
Now before I created this cycle I found out about Hempalaya hemp bag company. Their work was so similar to my own design that it made it hard for me to think about how I could make mine unique. That's when I decided to incorporate the bags into food for a farm so this process could become circular.
Here's how it looked at first:
 |
Concept Hemp bag closed looped process (Drawn December 14th, 2021) By RBL |
After doing some rewriting and finalizing my cycle here's a picture of it below:
Life's Principles:
When looking at this design I decided to learn from Life's Principles, which are a set of rules or guidelines that nature sets itself to. I found that my design hits two of the principles:
Be locally attuned and responsive - My design is using that by having customers fill out a survey that can allow them to share their opinions about the product and allow them to share how I could improve the design.
Be resource efficient - My design works with being resource efficient because of because of it’s closed looped concept. Closed looped means that every single part of my design can be a food or resource for another part of it. My design also doesn't have to rely on common things like fossil fuels because everything can be recycled.
An SDG connection:
The SDG's (sustainable development goals) are goals set by the United Nations to help improve the world around us. The goals that my design hits are:
SDG # 12 : Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Target # 12.5 : By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.
My main connection to this is that my hemp bags are trying to reduce the waste of things like plastic grocery bags.
Is it a part of of the circular economy?
My design is a part of a circular economy because all of the parts of my design can be put back into one another. For example, how when my bags are finished degrading they can be sent to a farm and can serve a new purpose. One possible idea I could use to power my facility freezers could be solar panels. The power from the sun could possibly be used to power the fridges that keep the bag containers cold in the facility.
Final conclusion:
Overall this unit was really enjoyable to me. This is because I managed to learn about animals and nature in ways I could never think of. For example like on our first day and observing trees around us and seeing the simple ways we can learn from them. This course also was able to get me to go outside, and thinking how simple things that I do everyday could affect entire ecosystems. I also enjoyed putting up this idea of a closed looped system and seeing how it could be shown in a good way. If I was to do this again I would probably try to do something a bit different with the hemp because it can be used in a lot of ways. Now I want this to serve as a wake up call to you. Originally I wanted to make this action project because of grocery bags getting caught in oceans and not serving a common purpose. Because of this I wanted to make these bags the way they are. Nature is a beautiful thing we all can learn something from it. So get out into nature, and see how you can learn from it yourself.
Sources:
Theodoredouc, Doucette. “Replacement of Plastic Bags with Reusable Hemp Bags.” Debating Science, 23 Apr. 2019, https://blogs.umass.edu/natsci397a-eross/replacement-of-plastic-bags-with-reusable-hemp-bags/.
“Hemp Livestock - Hemp Foods.” Hemp for Livestock, Hemp Foods Australia , https://www.hempfoods.com.au/assets/uploads/2014/04/Hemp-Livestock.pdf.
“Waste Not, Want Not: Recycling Hemp & Cannabis Bio-Waste.” Ministry of Hemp, 26 May 2020, https://ministryofhemp.com/blog/recycling-hemp/.
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
War on X final reflection - By RBL
War on X final reflection
Hello, this is RBL and welcome to my final thoughts about my class, War on X. In this blog post I'm going to go back and look at everything I've done in the course, and looking at the things I liked and disliked about it. Like most of my classes in school I had three different units. In each unit we did research and talked about different political topics that we see as important. Some of those topics were, incarceration, critical race theory, and doing group based research on different topics as well.
Tuesday, November 9, 2021
Black rhino's population change - By RBL
Hello this is RBL and welcome to my last action project blog for my population class. In this blog I made a video talking about the black rhino's population, how's changed overtime, and how humans have changed their population growth. Here's the video and I hope you enjoy it.
“Black Rhino.” WWF, World Wildlife Fund, https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/black-
What makes a hero? - by RBL
Hello, this is RBL and welcome to my third and final action project for my class called Stories. In this unit, we learned about the theories of the hero’s journey and how different characters change throughout different stories. If you don't already know, the hero's journey is a theory made by Joseph Campbell. It is a theory based on the idea that most known heroes in common literature go through. Connected to that, we also talked about the different ways the hero's journey can be different from one another. We also got to talk about different plots for a hero's journey as well. For example, one of our field experiences was watching the movie, "The Matrix" to get a better look at the hero's journey in a really popular movie. We also got to go to Armani's Howard's art studio to see how he encapsulates the hero's journey in his art. This all led up to our action. In this action project, I'm going to take a fictional hero and compare it to a hero I know in real life.
The fictional hero that I chose was Morpheus from The Matrix movie. I chose this hero because I really liked his journey throughout the first movie and seeing the ways he grew. His mentor relationship with Neo is very entertaining to watch and see how it changes throughout the story. Morpheus taught Neo a lot of important lessons throughout the movie which led to Neo using some of those things to save Morpheus in the end of it. Morpheus in the Matrix was always a very calm and relaxed person and is able to fix a lot of problems under pressure. Now along with my fictional hero, I had to choose a nonfictional hero that I know in real life. The hero I chose for that was JS; JS is a social worker and therapist. I wanted to choose him because I get along with him really well. JS also helps me overcome a lot of my own personal challenges like Morpheus does for Neo. Like Morpheus, JS helps a lot of people overcome different hardships in their lives so they can move on for the better. In their journeys, they are not only fighting for themselves, but are fighting for others against something that is bigger than just the two of them.
The main part of my action project was to create a visual representation of the journey that my heroes went through. Here’s a link to the Prezi I created based on the hero's journey. I hope you enjoy the journey!
Monday, November 8, 2021
Volunteer hours at the logan center
Volunteer hours at the Logan center
Hello this is RBL and in this blog I'll be sharing my experience volunteering at the reva and david logan center for the arts. I personally really enjoyed my experience working there for the time I did. During the day I helped to lay out story books so the families who came to the event had something fun to do. I also got the chance to work at the front desk to explain to families how the event work and provided them a good experience.
Thursday, November 4, 2021
A trip to Guatemala - By RBL
A trip to Guatemala
hello this is RBL and welcome to this blog post. This action project was for my spanish class where we were supposed to create a travel pamphlet. For the pamphlet we all got to choose a different country to learn about their foods, activites, and things you can do in the country. We also had to show different places you could stay or see in the country as well. I chose Guatemala as my country to research for the project. Here's my pamphlet below and in english as well as spanish:
English pamphlet:
Spanish pamphlet:
Sources:
“10 Top Tourist Attractions in Guatemala.” Touropia,
https://www.touropia.com/tourist-attractions-in-guatemala/.
LUNAS , DOS. “The Guatemalan Breakfast.” Dos Lunas Airport Bed & Breakfast/Hostel, 24
Jan. 2019, https://www.hoteldoslunas.com/the-guatemalan-breakfast/.
Marshall, Cassie. “Guatemalan Food: Our 25 Most Popular Guatemalan Dishes.” The Kitchen
Community, International Foods, 31 July 2021,
https://thekitchencommunity.org/popular-guatemalan-dishes/.
“Real Intercontinental Guatemala.” Expedia Travel: Vacation Homes, Hotels, Car Rentals,
Flights & More,
https://www.expedia.com/Guatemala-City-Hotels-Real-InterContinental-Guatemala.h558105
Thyberg, David. “Traditional Food of Guatemala.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information
Network, 15 Jan. 2019,
https://traveltips.usatoday.com/traditional-food-guatemala-12595.html.
Friday, October 29, 2021
A crested toad timeline - By RBL
The Puerto Rican crested toad
Hello and this is RBL, in this blog I will be looking at the interesting timeline and outline of the Puerto Rican crested toad. I chose this species because I’ve always liked how they look. I also think that they look very unique in lumps on their skin as well.
Puerto rican crested toad (male) - "Puerto Rican Crested Toad, male / Sapo Concho Puertorriqueño,macho" by USFWS/Southeast is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Taken on May 14, 2009
The Golden toad - "Golden Toad" by StanfordWoods is marked with CC PDM 1.0 Taken on May 14, 2009
Questions for the organism:
Before I got into scientific research I had to look at a few questions to help me look at the Puerto rican crested toad in a few different ways. Here are my responses to each question below:
1. What temperature do they live in?
One article that I looked up that stated this information was by Javorka, Julie titled “Peltophryne Lemur (Ridge-Headed Toad).” This article states that the remaining crested toads live in different parts of the southern forests of Puerto Rico. The climate ranges between from 81 to 85°F and 66% to 83% in humidity.
Depending on the gender the size of the Puerto Rican crested toad can be 4 inches for females and 3 inches for males. To give me more options I will convert to millimeters instead of inches, that makes the range 76 - 102 millimeters.
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
CRT in Public Schools - By RBL
CRT in Public schools
hello this is RBL here with another blog post. This blog will be based around a video that I've created. It's based around the topic of CRT (critical race theory) that we've been talking about in my class the war on X. I will also post my script under the video if needed. Without further to do, here's my video and I hope you enjoy it.
Critical Race in Theory (CRT) in public schooling
Over the past 2 weeks in my class War on X, we’ve been studying different aspects of CRT. In this video I’m going to be doing some more research on the topic of CRT.
Slide: What is CRT?
CRT is the study of different racist acts in the United states and seeing how racism was built into different institutions and has evolved from it.
Today it’s seen as the study of race and the different topics connected to the impact of race. With this in mind some schools now want to teach students about CRT and the impacts of racism in the United States.
Transition to next slide: Defined Research
Now that we’ve established what CRT is, I want to look at a specific question based around CRT, "Why did schools ban the teaching of CRT?"
Transition to next slide: Peoples thoughts
One reason why schools are banning CRT being taught in schools is because some parents are hesitant on having their children be taught about CRT for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is having students learn about race and who they are as an individual.
I believe that schools banned teachings of CRT because states thought that if students were learning about each other's races, it would possibly cause conflicts inside the classrooms. There are problems with banning CRT’s process in public schooling. At some point students might see something on the news or experience something that might open them up to race. One of the articles I looked up was, “Here’s what Black students have to say about 'critical race theory' bans”. In this article it states that the battles around the teachings of racism in the nation’s public schools have risen in the past few months. With this at least five states passed different bills to ban educators from teaching about racial equity. The problem with this is that if we don’t teach students about CRT,they might not be able to understand the different contexts and issues that have to do with race and how it impacts their own identities.
Next slide: A different perspective
I first looked at an article on why CRT was banned in Florida titled “Why Is Critical Race Theory Being Banned in Public Schools”? Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, wanted to ban CRT education in public schools because he states that he wants students to judge others based on their actions, or in his words "character education."
Next slide: Should CRT be banned?
I still stand that CRT shouldn’t be banned because it’s important that children get to see each other the way they are and to be accepted as young individuals. I also believe that it should be taught in schools because it’s a term that not a lot of students my age know about so it’s important that they should learn about it as well. If students aren’t taught CRT in schools, where else would they be able to learn about critical race theory? An article by James E. Causey also talks about why CRT should be taught in Wisconsin schools stating that, “You can’t teach a sanitized version of race and racism and expect anything to change.”
Closing:
Overall CRT has been a topic that has continued to cause controversy overtime. It can become harder and harder for students to not get exposed to it. It’s up to us to educate students about CRT so they can understand it for themselves. Thanks for watching.
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