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Saturday, May 28, 2016

“One Of The Worst Supreme Court Decision Ever In The United States”

For the third unit of the course Policy we studied, we learned the purpose and powers of the judicial branch, and how those powers have been executed throughout history. We learned the role of the judicial branch and who is that branch today. We learned the difference between Federal Court and State Court, the different wars America has been in and habeas corpus. For our action project, we had to choose a court case and find research on it. The purpose of this action project is to document a historical Supreme Court and analyze how it has affected society since. I chose the Dred Scott v. Sandford case because I had some previous knowledge of it and because I think that this case had a change in our history. The media I chose to present my finding was prezi because I think it’s easy to handle and I think it captures people's attention when there's animation. During this project I had difficulty finding the truth because in every website it was different dates, different scenarios and I just didn’t know which one to believe. I also struggled with getting the quotes to go along with what I was explaining and that supports it. At the end of this project I learned to have patients when researching because it was a lot of research and lots of contradictions, but also to know what's coming because when researching about historical moments there are lots of versions to the situation, so that’s a hit that the research won’t be easy. I hope you find my prezi below informative.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Music As A Career?

During the school year I was studying music at The People's Music School. I have been at that school for a long time and I attend that school every year during the school year. This year the system changed a little, meaning they will try to accommodate everyone to a schedule so they don't go to the school like 3 days or more. Last year I was going 3 days, but now I only went twice. On Mondays I have my Harp lesson and in Tuesday I have my theory class (I am in theory J). I used to be in Choir, but this year they didn't put me in it. I was going to ask why, but then I saw the opportunity to practice my harp more, so I took it. I don't regret taking that decision because we had a Harp recital and I felt so confident in my piece because I practice a lot. Soon I will have my juries where I will play in front of Violin and Viola teachers. I am almost done with this year and I am happy of my accomplishments.


Harp. Free PhotoBank. Torange. Biz. Web. May 27, 2016.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Redesigning is Hard?

For the third unit of the course Urban Planning we studied things such as how do all of the different parts fit together to create a city, and what is the difference between a well-designed city and a poorly designed one. We also studied different cities to see how they were planned, how streets are organized, how transportation works and how everything comes together. We also learned that T.H.I.S. means Transportation, Housing, Infrastructure, and Services, while N.I.M.B.Y stands for Not In My BackYard. We watched TED Talks from different people, who believed that our city is boring, it needs to be fixed, it needs to be beautified and the new urban planning should benefit the people. For our action project, we chose a spot anywhere in the world to redesign according to what we learned. I chose the city Matagalpa in Nicaragua because I am going there for the summer and I chose a triangular spot that didn’t have anything. During this project I had difficulty with Tinkercad, a 3D design program and I learned how redesigning a place for people around the area is not easy.




I will be redesigning an area in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. The area I chose is a triangle with nothing on it, not even grass. It’s in a corner between two streets, in front of houses on two sides and next to a soccer field. Strengths of this area are that it’s big, and it’s close to a street so it’s not in the middle of houses. Some weaknesses are that it’s a triangle so it will be difficult to use the whole space, it’s close to the soccer field, so people might prefer to go there instead and it’s in front of some houses, so people living there might complain having strangers in front of their house. This space needs a beautiful garden with a fountain, different trees, seats and lots of flowers.

The shape is a triangle. The measurements are 314.06 ft by 442.71 ft. The equation to find the area of a triangle is ½ x base x height. Plug in the numbers and you get: A= ½ x 314.06 x 442.71, A= ½ x 139,276.566. A= 69,638.283ft^2.

KIS. Google Matagalpa Space. 2016.

Some improvements that this space can use to make it for the people and pretty are to add a leaf design to the space, add a bridge so they can be able to see the design from above, add trees to make it like a park, stepping stones so they don't step on the grass, and a flower like seating area (tall and cut in half both ways to make the seat).

KIS. New Design. 2016. 

I was inspired by a leaf vegetable garden design called La Chatonnière. I was inspired by it because of the way it included nature and enhanced mother earth. I was also inspired by the Japanese garden, not only because of the trees, but also the bridges they have. Their bridges have different architecture than usual ones and that was something that caught my attention and I would like to make a similar one.

My redesigned space is for pedestrians primarily, there is no designated parking for cars. There are lots of houses close to the garden and the garden has a bridge so they can see the design from above. Some services that my garden will need will be water to take care of it and someone will need to buy grass because there is no grass in that area.

Flower pedal seat: Half a cylinder
Diameter: 29.6 ft, Radius: 14.8ft
Height: 8
Pi x 14.8^2 (8) = 5505.07/2 = 2752.53ft^3

Tree Sphere:
Diameter: 21 ft, Radius: 10.5 ft
4/3 pi x 10.5^3
4/3 pi x 1157.625
4/3 (636.78) = 4849.04ft^3




One difficulty I encountered during this process was putting some space between the park and the houses that are close to it. I used the bridge to draw an imaginary line so I that my design doesn’t go beyond the bridge. I also struggled a little in making it appealing because since there’s a soccer field next to it I want my design to bring people and use the space. I also struggled with the Tinkercad program I used to make my 3D model because it was hard to get precision and try to create everything that is on my sketch in the model. The only thing that I don’t have on my model is the seating inside the leaf and I wasn’t able to show the bridge clearly.



Latin Artist

For my third period Spanish, we learned basic Spanish and things related to food, past tense, present tense and Spanglish. We practiced a lot how to translate english to Spanish and how to identify words. We did Spanish work on an app called Duolingo, where it focused on how to write Spanish and we played games. A big topic in class was Spanglish and how it's used in todays world. For example, advertisements, tv, comedy and people talk Spanglish.


Monday, May 16, 2016

Was The Iraq War Just Or Unjust?

In the second unit of the course Policy, we studied in depth the wars that the United States has been into. We had many discussions about different wars, when did the United States entered the war and why. We also learned the purpose of the execute and how it functions. For our action project, we had to find a war of our interest and that the United States participated in it. I chose the Iraq war because it was recent and when it was happening, I had no idea what was going on. Thats where my interest came from just knowing what was happening around me when I was a kid. During this action project I had difficulty finding a policy that was made in that time and how the citizens interpret it. I had lots of information, but it was difficult to place in information in the right place. I learned how to write an essay with lots of information from lots of websites.

Bush Doctrine. Wikipedia. March 23, 2016.

The war was fought in Iraq. The war takes place 2003-2011, the U.S was in the war since the beginning because they started the war. Countries involved in the war against Iraq are United States, United Kingdom, South Korea, Italy, Poland, Australia, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, MNF-I, and Azerbaijan. Countries in Iraq are Baath Loyalist, Islamic State of Iraq, Mahdi Army, Special groups, IAI, and Ansar al-sunnah. Some tactics and strategies that the U.S. Army used was the Coalition forces were able to topple the dictator's regime and capture Iraq’s major cities in just three weeks, sustaining few casualties. “Despite fears that Iraqi forces would engage in a scorched-earth policy—destroying bridges and dams and setting fire to Iraq’s southern oil wells—little damage was done by retreating Iraqi forces; in fact, large numbers of Iraqi troops simply chose not to resist the advance of coalition forces” (Encyclopedia Britannica, page 1.) The causes of the war was The Dictatorship of Saddam Hussein that violated the peoples human rights. Also it was suspected that the dictator had a weapon of destruction or was making one to attack other places, such as the United States since the United State was certain that the dictator was involved in the 9/11 attack that happen in New York. Some underlying causes was the United Kingdom notice Iraq getting lots of weapons and technology. When that notice was made they requested the UN inspections to see if Iraq had a lot of weapons and Iraq didn’t comply. I think that the Iraq war was unjust because all of the President's Bush reasons were at the end proved wrong. All of his assumptions were just assumptions nothing that he claimed they had was true and yet many lives were lost both from America and Iraq citizens. Though several antiwar protests occurred in American cities in the lead-up to the invasion, many opinion polls showed considerable support for military action against Iraq before and during the war. American opinions on the war sometimes crossed traditional party lines and doctrinal affiliation, with many to the right of the avowedly conservative Bush seeing the war as an act of reckless internationalism and some to the political left—appalled by the Baʿthist regime’s brutal human rights violations and its consistent aggression—giving grudging support to military action.

Just after the United States Army stated the explosion on rock Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, U.S. President George W. Bush announced in a televised address, “At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger” (History, page 1.) President Bush declared war in Iraq on March 20, 2001. Congress supported President Bush because they didn’t want another attack, they knew that the terrorism of 9/11 were from around there and Iraq had a weapon of destruction. Congress agreed to help protect the people of the United States. President Bush and his advisors built much of their case for war on the idea that Iraq, under dictator Saddam Hussein, possessed or was in the process of building weapons of mass destruction.

The Bush administration's foreign policy will be remembered mainly for the Iraq war and the doctrine of pre-emption.The pre-emption policy that President Bush made for the Iraq war was to allow the United States to attack Iraq before Iraq attacks them. Although the United States reasons weren’t as valid to attack and kill many people who might have been innocent. Mr. Bush's doctrine of pre-emption, which calls for attacking a country or group deemed to be posing an imminent threat before it attacks the United States. He proposed this because he felt that after 9/11 attack, he needed to be ready for another attack and with the knowledge of weapons in Iraq he didn’t want to risk another attack. Before knowing for sure he decided to make this policy to attack potential terrorism before 

they do. The policy was intended to prepare the country to go to war for potential reasons of President Bush.

Although the war wasn’t in the United States, there was protest about the war in Iraq. People didn't agree to the declaration of war because they didn’t see how sending sons, daughter, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers to war and putting their lives in danger was an honor. Not only people in Iraq will die or get injured, but also american citizens can have the same fate. Making the soldiers believe that they were fighting for something great, when actually there was no need for that blood shed and all the trauma the soldiers had to go through just for a policy that our government made. Government can declare war, make bills and laws, but most of the time they just make them because it doesn’t affect them. When declaring war they are safe at home far away from the war and they just have to deal with some updates about the war, the government don’t go through what the soldiers do. Soldiers fight, see things that they shouldn’t and do things that might be against their will, but the government doesn’t understand because they aren’t in the war they are just in the side lines. In Chicago about 5,000 protesters gathered at Union Park and marched to Federal Plaza. Three students were arrested for walking on the street and charged with disobeying a police officer, resisting arrest, and damaging to property. I think that the way the american citizens protested against the war and try to defend our soldiers and innocent lives in Iraq was just because they can see a solution without violence and risking lives. Consequences of this policy is Iraq was in January 2005, the Iraqi people elected a 275-
member Iraqi National Assembly. A new constitution for the country was ratified that October. On November 6, 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.

I think that the war was unjust because President declared war on Iraq when there wasn’t strong enough valid reason. There was the cause that the dictator in Iraq violated the people's rights, but the United States didn’t go to war to protect and fight for innocent people. The United States fought for an assumption that Iraq had destructive weapons and that they will attack the United States, but at the end after investigations there was no evidence found. President created the pre-emption where allows the United States to attack a group of people before they attack them, but there was no evidence that the group was going to attack even if they had the weapons people claimed they had. After the war american soldier were traumatized from the war and many lives were lost on both places. It was hard to restore law and order in Iraq because since the dictator was in power a long time and many people were on his side, people didn’t know who to trust, follow or who should be in charge.

Citations:
"Iraq War." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. Web. May 13, 2016.
“List of wars involving the United States.” Wikipedia. May 12, 2016. Web. May 12, 2016.
Nicholas Kralev. “Iraq war defines foreign policy.” The Washington Times. January 15, 2009. Web. May 13, 2016.
“Thousands Across U.S. Protest Iraq War.” CBSNews. October 27, 2007. Web. May 14, 2016.
“War in Iraq begins.” This Day In History. March 19, 2003. Web. May 12, 2016.

Monday, May 9, 2016

Electrical Circuit and Home Appliances

In the second unit of the course Urban Planning, we studied circuit diagrams, circuit flow, more about the World’s Fair, Ohm's Law, AC vs. DC and the War of the Currents. To study more about structure we went to the only building left from the World’s Fair, which is the Museum of Science and Industry. There we saw a Tesla coil and we went to the Brick to Brick exhibit, where all the structures of buildings were made out of LEGOs. For our action project, we were given a scenario to build a circuit with five resistors, one main switch and one parallel switch. We were put with partners to create the circuit and along the way it was very difficult to get all five resistors to work at the same time and to have the parallel switch. I learned how to make a circuit in this project and how something small can stop the circuit from functioning.