Prevent Global Warming

For the last unit of our Global Peace we studied the last principal of Gandhi satyagraha, means insistence on the truth. Inspired by Gandhi's non-violent movement towards freeing India we choose an issue that we strongly feel about and did a non-violent action towards it. My issue was Global Warming, one way to prevent it is by changing the light bulbs to energy saver bulbs. The think that was challenging was changing the light bulbs because I haven't that done that before. One thing that I learned was how to switch the light bulbs and how global warming can be address in different ways. I am proud of my flayer and the work I did to prevent global warming.

Plan:
My plan was to switch the traditional light bulbs to the energy saver light bulbs because it saves energy and heat. Energy saver light bulbs cost more that the other ones but its worth it at the end because it saves you money on your next bill and helps the planet. Energy bulbs saves 75% heat and electricity, also they are more bright that the other bulbs.

Purpose:
My purpose of this plan was to prevent more global warming because global warming is destroying the atmosphere that lets us breath. Also lots of carbon dioxide and heat goes to the atmosphere which leads to us dyeing and not having a planet to live in because so far earth is the only planet that humans can live in.

Action:
The action that I decided to take was change the light bulbs of my house I was going to change the bulbs of my house and my school but my school already change the bulbs so I could only change the bulbs of my house. I decided to change the light bulbs because its another way that prevents global warming because someone already thought of the idea of recycling beens so lots of people are recycling now.

You Are Beautiful - Life Goes On

For the third unit if the course YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL we documented our art work from our stickers and also the shelter, we got the inspiration of documenting from the video Exit thought the gift shop.When a guy video tape everything that happened to him every day, one day he decided to video tape his cousins art work which them lead him to other street artist. He probably have meet lots of streets artist but he documented (video tape) how the artist come up with the idea and post them on the streets. I gave out nine stickers to nine people I know for they can keep it and took a picture of them. After that I put ten of my stickers on places that people can see them, I also took pictures for that. For the installation we made a shelter with the phrase all over it. Lots of work was done to that piece, screwing, painting, and adding extra objects. Then we took it to the Clyborn park to install it. When done documenting we did a video showing our work and installation. The challenge I had was decorating my letter because the font I choose was good but the things I put on it before didn't go with the antique style that I wanted so I had to play with the things I had. During this process I learned how to use the jigsaw and how to make my own stickers. I am proud of all my work I did and helped with.

Installations

One part of the project for You Are Beautiful is making our own message that can be turned into stickers or posters. The message that I choose was Life Goes On and I decided to make a sticker out of that message. One thing that I liked was how certain combinations with colors came out. I learned that making stickers are easy, I thought it would be hard but its not.

KS. Life Goes On. 2013

KS
Life Goes On
1 1/3in by 4in
Lino cut, ink, stickers, roller
November 2013

Written messages are important to public art because some can relate to what you or someone you know are going through in life.

Public Art Can engage people by asking them questions or start a conversation. For example, Candy Chang is an artist that engages people in most of her artwork. One of her art pieces was an installation that include the message, Before I Die. The purpose of the piece was to invite people to write what they would want to de before they die. She made it possible for people to reproduce the installation around the world by making directions on how to make it.

The purpose of my message Life Goes On is for people to remind themselves every time they look at the sticker that no matter what happens or doesn't happen life goes on, there is no stopping time so enjoy every last bit of it. I wanted to make people realize that.

The first thing I did was brainstorm ideas then draft them to see how they look. After I decided which message I wanted and how I wanted it I added a symbol to go with it (Heart beat).
Then, I went to a gallery of street art projects that inspired me to change my original font.
Later, I made my message into a block font so that people can read it better.
After, I traced my message on to a lino cut block and cut all the white space.
Finally, I started printing my message onto paper then onto the stickers with different colors.







The second part of the project was to choose a letter from the phrase You Are Beautiful and decorated as you wanted. We were given cabinet doors to do our letter. I choose the letter A, I choose like a cursive font but its not that cursive. What I decided to do was use the door as the letter instead of cutting out the letter and use that. I didn't use that many things to decorate my letter I only use three things, two neckleses, and a handle. I learned that cutting something out of wood isn't easy its scary and dangerous. One thing that I'm proud of is that I was the only one that use the door.

KS. Letter A. 2013

KS

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL

Cabinet door, jigsaw, handle, jewelry

December 2013

The ideas and the purpose of the YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL installation is to build a bus shelter (that perhaps the homeless can use) with the phrase written all over it.


The aesthetics enhance the message by making it unique. The way that was done was that everyone choose a letter that they wanted to work on made and decorated the letter they way they wanted. For that reason every letter looks different  and its unique.


When I first got my cabinet door I choose a font and started sketching the letter onto it.
Later I cut my letter out with the jigsaw.
After I decorated the letter.

To: Alderman Arena

In unit two we talked about Gandhi second principal Swadeshi that means self-place/location. What we did in this investigation was to think about a problem that we have in our community. After we decided what problem we have in our community we had to write a letter about it to our local alderman. I decided to talk about drunk people and my local alderman is John Arena. One thing that I learned during this unit is that my community doesn't socialize with each other and kids don't play with other kids for the reason of no safety. Something that I am proud of is my letter format and organization.

November 14, 2013

Dear Alderman John Arena:

Hi, I am KS a student from Global Citizenship Experience high school. In one of my classes, Global Peace I am learning about the principles of Gandhi. One principal that we are learning right now is swadeshi which means self-place/location. I live in the Jefferson park area and I am concerned about the problem that our community is having with drunk people. I see many problems with this in the alley ways on my streets.

I see lots of people drinking on the streets and they don’t know how to control themselves. By drinking too much they become homeless, jobless and lose contact with their family. Most of them are drunk all the time and by being drunk they don’t know what they are doing or saying. I am afraid that they will do something to harm my community.

A consequence that we face, because of the drunk people is that our community/neighborhood is not safe for kids to hang out with friends  or even walking home from school or a bus stop. Another is that since they buy a lot of liquor they don't throw the bottle  away and they leave it on the floor, that will cause the place to look dirty. When the neighborhood is dirty rats come to out allies and houses.

A solution to the problem that I can see is to construct another community center for them to become more mentally stable. Another solution is to send them to Regency Park Nursing and Rehab Center of Jefferson so they can get help from people that have experience for what they are going through. A simple solution could be closing some liquor business so they wont be able to buy that much alcohol.

After all the people that drank a lot have gone to places to help them, our community/neighborhood can be safe. Our community would be clean and kids can go outside to enjoy the weather and company.

Thank you for your time in reading this letter to make our community and neighborhood a better place.

 

Sincerly,

KS

We Are Beautiful

In this unit of my You Are Beautiful course, we talked about private vs. public art. We investigated a little of what it means and if its legal or illegal. After we saw the difference we decided to do a public art piece and place it outside of our garden. What we did for our piece was cut out letters to form the phrase You Are Beautiful and wheat-pasted two pictures of people who we think are beautiful onto them. This artwork was inspired by the artist JR and Matthew Hoffman. I am proud of my work because I had lots of difficulties with the wheat pasting not sticking so I had to do that process lots of times to make it stay. One thing that I learned was how creating an art piece in a group because I do my art work individually.

KIS. You Are Beautiful. (2013)

KS
We are Beautiful
15 inches by 320 inches
Plastic, Pictures, Wheat-pate, wire stick

My definition of Public Art is art that is meant for the people to see and that is allowed to be there (legal).

The purpose of this art piece is to create public art of our own, inspired by the artist JR and Matthew Hoffman.

One of JR’s big project was in New York, him and his team went out to the streets with a truck that takes pictures and prints them out. So what they did was ask random people in the public if they want to take pictures, once they did take the picture it printed and they post them on the floor of the streets or put them on buildings. Matthew Hoffman’s project was a sticker that he created that says “You Are Beautiful”, that started small and now is big with an big installation. So what we did was combine both artist work into one (which is ours).

The way we planned this artwork was get the phrase into big letters, put pictures of people on the letters and place them outside of our school garden as a form of public art.

We started the project be taking 3-5 pictures of people who we think are beautiful, then we had to choose 2 pictures out of the ones we had. After that we enlarged the pictures up using pixlr and we print them out. When we were done we choose a font that we liked (block font). Later on everyone choose a letter from the phrase. When we choose our letter we did the same process as the pictures(we enlarge the letter and printed them out) and we trace the letter onto a plastic. Later we cut it and wheat paste our pictures onto the plastic.

The way we installed them was putting a metal stick through the letter and stuck the letters onto the ground.

Emiliano Salinas Poem

I am Mexican

I am a Vice President

I am a husband, a father, and a son

I am Carlos Emiliano Salinas a civil rights activist

My goal is stop violence in Mexico……

To stop living in fear

To stand up for people

And end violence in a non-violent way

For people to stand up as a community and not let violence ruin their life

Coming together as a community is more powerful than being alone

Ending violence means no fear

No suffering

No worries

And no more crying

Just happiness and hakunamatata

http://www.ted.com/speakers/emiliano_salinas.html

http://www.ted.com/speakers/emiliano_salinas.html

Story of Segregation

During the investigation I had to interview someone that has experience segregation in there life. The person I choose is anonymous but agreed to share the answers. After I wrote a reflection on what I learned about sarvodaya/segregation from the interview.

Reflection

While my interview I learned that segregation is when a person feels that they are different from everybody else, when they are put aside from normality, when the person feels that he/she are not good enough (from my interviewee). My interviewee story isnt that tragic as others but the story is what some kids feel right now. My interview had a hard childhood you can say because he was segregated from the rest of his peers for the reason of his IEP. He was segregated in sports, in academic performance, etc. He was alone in those times but he decided to change himself from the inside. Also he asked for help to his parents and people around him. He didn't change into what people wanted him to change or to fit into but he change for himself to see what he can become. Now in his life he is not segregated and he doesn't segregate other, if he sees somebody being segregated he helps that person during the person's situation.

After this interview i feel that my understanding of sarvodaya has change because now I know that when there is no sarvodaya theres segregation and segregation is a hard thing to live with especially when people treat you different for something that you didn't choose to have or how you act.

Ferny Creek- Australia

For this unit we were observing the clouds and seeing how they are related to the weather. Theres four main different types of clouds nimbus, stratus, cumulus and cirrus. To relate clouds and weather, we had to do an investigation. For the investigation I choose Ferny Creek, Kings Lake in a town named Victoria, Australia. For the final product we had to create a power point about statistics about Ferny Creek and the climate. Through out this investigation I learned how to convert Fahrenheit into Celsius. One thing that i am proud of are my citations and my line plot.

Help The Christmas Heliconia

For this unit, I investigated an issue that applies to MDG 7 -  ensure environmental sustainability. The issue I chose was endangered species, specifically, a plant called Heliconia angusta, which we know as Christmas heliconia. After researching the plant, I wrote a poem and created a drawing to inspire others to take action on the issue. One thing that I learned throughout this project was to appreciate plants and the environment. I am proud of my poem because I didn't know how to make it at first but I learned in the end.

KIS. Christmas Heliconia/Paraguay. (2013)

There are different colors of heliconia, but the red one is best known and most dominant. The heliconia is a tropical plant which grows best in shade, prefers warm or humid weather, and dies in the cold. However, the Christmas heliconia is vulnerable because shade is more and more rare as its native habitat - southeastern Brazil - is deforested (Wikipedia). Loggers cut down 575,114 sq. km of forest between 1990 and 2011 (World Bank). Please read my poem below which tells you about the plant and how you can help save it from extinction. 

The Christmas Heliconia

Christmas…
A happy and curious holiday
Presents get unwrapped and new things come into your life
A happy moment to remember

The opposite of happiness is happening to the christmas heliconia
A rare plant
Only relates to christmas because of its color
Only grows in warm and shady places
Needs tress and their shade to live

Without trees the heliconias can't survive
They are sensitive and are alive

A challenge for this year;
To give this plant as a gift to somebody you care about
Or by giving a financial gift to the U.S Botanic Garden,
A group who teaches about the importance and values of ecosystems
Such gifts help the environment
Plastic toys only create more carbon dioxide
You can help Heliconias survive this Christmas

References:

" Forest Area (sq. km)." The World Bank. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.

"Heliconia Information." http://members.iinet.net.au, n.p. Thur. 10 Oct. 2013.

"Heliconia." www.heliconia.org, heliconia society international. Thur. 10 Oct. 2013.

"Heliconia angusta" www.wikipedia.com. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.

Knust, Barbara. Personal Interview. 16 Oct. 2013.

"United States Botanic Garden." www.usbg.gov, government. Thur. 10 Oct. 2013.

Salvar Las Vidas De Las Mamas

In this unit we were told to investigate on an MDG, then choose an issue that follows under the goal. I choose MDG 5: Improve Maternal Health, the goal was to reduce by three quarters,between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio, and my issue was to investigate on maternal mortality ratio for the US and for another country. The reason for choosing a country was that the US can learn from that country on the issue. In this case I used Spain as an example because they have less maternal mortality then the US. After comparing information for both countries we wrote a letter to a senator or a representative that serves our country. For this I decided to write to Kay Hagan, she is a senator of north carolina and an attorney. I choose Hagan for the reason that she can understand what i'm writing and see it from the women perspective. I am proud of the information that I found (with some help) and the citations. One thing that I learned during this unit or investigation was that how many women die from childbirth, I thought that we didn't have that much deaths due to the resources and technology that the US haves. Im glad that I learned this because as a women I informed my self for the future.

KIS. USA and Spain maternal morality rate. (2013)

Sen. Kay Hagan
512 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Hagan,

I am a high school student at the Global Citizenship Experience (GCE) High School in Chicago. I write to ask for your support in lowering the rate for maternal mortality in the U.S. As a member of the attorney committee in Congress, you have a voice to speak for mothers’ health rights. The United States has 8 deaths out of every 100,000 births. That rate is good enough for 48th place in the world rankings, but it’s not good enough. I think we can lower our number.

For an example of a country we can learn from, look to Spain, in 14th place. Spain is smaller than the U.S. in terms of geographic size, population, and resources. Yet, it has lower maternal mortality than the U.S. How has Spain done this? Spain has looked at the many reasons why women die during and after childbirth. Reasons include lack of access to a health care, haemorrhage, sepsis, hypertensive disorders, a unsafe abortion, and pregnancies too close together. (Unicef, 2008)

As a result, the strategies and priorities of Spain are designed to address the challenges above. The Spanish government has increased family planning and sex education by building a family planning centers network. According to a United Nations report on Spanish health, “The Government believes that instruction, information and assistance should be made accessible to the entire population so that couples may decide the number and spacing of their children.” (UN Report on Spanish Health)

Spain has managed to achieve a low maternal mortality rate of only 6 deaths out of 100,000 births. This means that in Spain, even with good health measures, 946 mothers still die every year as a result of complications from pregnancy and childbirth. This is a tragedy. However, if the United States could reach the same percentage Spain has, losing 6 mothers rather than 8 for every 100,000 births, our country would be better for having saved the lives of 6,269 American mothers annually.

[Call to action] We have many resources and connections we can use to improve maternal mortality rate in our country. One way that we can improv is by checking in on the women that are pregnant and help them with any complication that they have or my have.

I am trying to spread the word by posting this letter on my blog. I look forward to hearing from you with what actions you can or have already taken to support this cause.

Thank you for your time in reading this letter.

Sincerely,

K.S



Sources:

Population Statistics,

"Spain Population." www.google.com, n.p. Tue. 8 Oct. 2013

United States Population -www.google.com, n.p. Tue. 8 oct. 2013

"UN Health Report on Spain" http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/doc/spain.doc

"Unicef." www.unicef.org, unicef. Tue. 8 Oct. 2013

pH Lab Report

In this project we had to gather five different resources of water. The reason why we gather different types of waters was to measure the pH (partial hydrogen) of them. After we measured, the unit asked me to build a water filter to clean dirty water. The unit was based on how I can help people when they have a flood in their country and all the clean water resorces got contaminated. Now I can offer them a resource that they can use to clean their water and not get sick from the dirty water. I learned how to make my own filter in case anything happens to my water. Im proud of my success in building the filter and almost making it drinkable.

                                                            KIS. Water Filter. (2013)   

                                                     KIS. pH measurements. (2013)

The materials that I used to build this water filter was a container (from my house), half of an empty soda container, cotton balls (at the bottom and at the very top), sand (from the beach), gravel (from Home Depot), grass (from my backyard), activated carbon (teacher provided for us), and finally dirty water (from lake Michigan).

Please see the picture for a clear visual of my filter.

The process that I took to build my filter was. First I cut the soda container in half, second I take of the cap of the soda (I was suppose to poke a hole through the cap but it was to hard). Third I put a layer of cotton balls in the bottom, Fourth I put a layer of sand. Fifth I put a layer of gravel, Sixth I put a layer of grass. Finally I put a thin layer of cotton balls and I poor lake water into the filter. In order for my filter to work I had to be careful with how much I put of one thing and in which order will be best for the filtration. My filtration example is similar to the actual filtration that happens under ground and that cleans the water that we drink today.

The pH of the lake water was 6.5, after I filtered it once it was 6 and when I added activated carbon to make it a little more cleaner it still had a pH of 6. When I first filtered it it came out yellow probably because I put to much sand. In my second filtration it came out much better it was more clear and it still had a pH of 6 so even if it looks clean preferable not to drink it until your sure. The pH after i mix the activated carbon increase and it was a pH of 7 so now its more neutral.  For this project I had a choice to drink the water but I decided not to for safety reasons. Also during my experiment I noticed that you have to filter the water couple times before it gets clean and you to be able to try drinking it.



Reference-

"Survival Skills." www.wilderness-survival-skills.com, n.p. Fri. 27 Sep. 2013
"Practical Primitive." www.practicalprimitive.com, Feral Human Productions. Fri 27 Sep.2013
"Water Filter." www.wikihow.com, Media wiki. Fri 27 Sep. 2013

Albany Park Community Center Local Profile

This project asked us to choose a target from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the United Nations, and a local organization that works to help achieve that target. Then, we had to research about the organization and the ways in which they help the target, and write an essay about their work. I am proud of finding relevant links about the organization I researched, Albany Park Community Center (APCC).  I learned that the APCC head-start program really helps the kids improve their education.

Sunil060902. Albany Parl stn signage. 2008. Internet: Wikimedia Commons

APCC LOCAL PROFILE

The organization that I chose for my project was Albany Park Community Center (APCC). One reason why I chose that center was because it is in my neighborhood; the other reason is because the organization helps kids get a better education. Albany Park has been serving people since september 24, 1975. They serve people by welcoming multiple cultures into their programs. They also have a head-start program for kids age 3-5. They not only have an educational program that teaches kids, but they have other programs, like babysitting for parents that have to work. APCC has lots of programs for little kids. Albany Park is a multi-cultural place, with about 40 languages from the kids who come from all over the world to participate in the programs. Because of that, Albany Park is recognized as one of the most diverse neighborhoods/schools in the United states.

Albany Park mission is to serve, support and educate diverse and multicultural community. Their vision is to have a community where people respect diversity and each other. They also vision people using their skill and talents to help others, they want a safe place, a place were theres good education,etc. Albany haves head start as a program and kindergarden-3 program too. In Albany Park they volunteer/participate in a Care food program that helps provide founds for the costs of meals and snack for the kids in the program. As any other organization Albany Park Community Center haves values, one of their values is that they respect everyones dignity involving their cultural traditions. Another one is that besides that they provide a high level service in a good way.

I couldn't interview because they close early so I went on youtube and searched up a head start teacher interview. The teacher name was Synova and she explained in a way that they want to build confidence in the kids and also try to help them build their own self esteem. I also found a teenager volunteer interview, an interesting fact that they mentioned was that a 3 year old knows how to count 0-999 and also knows how to add.

I feel like Albany Park goes into the Esteem level on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it doesn't really say education goes there but i think it does because it describes achivements which that is related to education. It mentions more what you do for for your self and others which thats what Albany Park does with their teachers,staff and volunteers that haves skill that would help. Albany Park is a safe environment in my opinion because theres lots of people there that theres someone keeping an eye on the kids and the students are happy to go to the park there to socialize with other kids. Head start program haves over 30million kids (in all the head starts programs). They provide breakfast,lunch and snacks.

In Conclusion to all of this Albany Park Community Center is a good educational place for children to go. They are safe and they care about your children. I know that from experience because I went there when I was little, my mom put me in the head start program and I think it was fun ( I don't remember that much about my childhood or when i was a baby). Albany Park is a good place to start your child's education, especially if you put them in the head-start program. I would recommend it.
Please click on the titles & links below to investigate more about APCC:

• APCC (2012) Keep the Window Open! Synova, Head Start Teacher. Internet: Youtube.
• Albany Park Community Center: video 
• West,J., L. Malone, L. Hulsey, N. Aikens, L. Tarullo. "ACF/OPRE Report Head Start Children Go To Kindergarden." December 2010 12 September  2013 http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/hs_kindergarten.pdf

Daily Water Usage VS. France Profile

In this project we had to calculate how much water we used per day. After we did our calculations, we went to the Chicago river with some containers that helped us take water from the river back to the school (we were suppose to carry the number of gallons we use). The purpose was to compare our water usage to another country's and to understand how it feels to carry water for a long distance. I learned how to appreciate the water I have and not waste it.

KIS. MY Daily Usage VS. France Daily Usage. (2013) Internet: Easel.ly

The country I am going to compare my daily usage is France. I use 137 gallons a day and everyone in categories, Hygiene, Consumption,Cleaning and Other. For Hygiene I used 35 gallons (25%)-France used about 20gallons (26%, estimating), for Consumption I used 15gallons (10%)-France used about 20gallons (26%). For Cleaning I used 52 gallons (37%)-France used about 25gallons (32%), for Other I used 35gallons (37%)- France used 12gallons (15%). The similarities that both of us have is that we both used water between 10-60gallons. The difference is that we have different usage in gallons and percentages.

In addition to all of that getting water to one place to the other is hard and heavy you have to walk at a pate were water wont come out from your container or that not much water spills. Relating to the FE we went on it took 30 minutes to walk like 0.3miles carrying water, imagen walking double or more from the source to your house it would probably take 4-7hours in my opinion.

In the 18th century France didn't use that much water, they thought that being dirty was a good thing. They also thought that the air was contaminated and that contaminated air got int heir skin, so the only way they can get un contaminated was to take hot showers. For the reason not to take showers every time they get contaminated they decided to not take a shower and if they did they would use very little water. There was even this guy named Louis XVI only took a shower once in his life and that was on his wedding day.