This is the undocumented future

In our last unit Revolt of the course P'art of History we learned about revolting and how people in our history has revolted for what they believe. For this unit we specifically watched a movie called "The Chicago 8" which was a situation that happened in Chicago's history. It was about 8 men getting blamed for a big riot, they were blamed because they were some how connected with teenagers. At the end they all got send to jail for a crime that they didn't do. We also studied the race riot, that was started when black boys accidentally crossed onto the whites beach. The white started throwing rocks at them thinking it was funny when a rock hit a blacks head and died. The police came and the blacks expected the police to arrest the whites for killing their friend but the police arrested the blacks for entering whites property. That was when they blacks and whites started fighting each other for eight bloody days. In this unit I learned so much about injustice that happened in Chicago and how to make a meaningful simple message. One thing that I am proud of is the way I color my titles and the tiles them selves.

KIS
Immigrants everywhere
Soft lino-cut, plaster, clay carving tools
6 inches by 6 inches
July 24, 2014

In my mini version of a poster I wrote a message for the Dreamers “there is no limit”. In further depth I mean that Dreamers shouldn’t stop fighting for what they want and their right. Also that they shouldn’t let anyone else determine what they want to do or their future. I also include the chinese world means dream.

The way I created this piece was by creating a drawing of my message about what I would revolt for. Then I transferred my drawing onto soft lino-cut to start carving it. After I finish carving I built clay walls around my lino-cut so when I poor plaster onto it to create the tile. When the plaster was finished drying, I painted it. The, we will install the 3 tiles we created in this course in a public space.



Poem

This is the year that DREAMERs
can march into any university of their choice
get accepted and achieve their American Dream
This is the year that parents of DREAMERs
achieved their American Dream
and can put their daughter on the path of success
with their hard-earned money without the help of the government

This is the year that graduates without papers
do not have to wear the uniforms of McDonalds, Burger King, or KFC
and flip burgers or fry chicken for minimum wage
This is the year that graduates without paper can apply for jobs
that will put them on the path of being a lawyer, doctor, professor, dentist, astronaut,or an engineer

This is the year the undocumented immigrants invites the president
to their homes tell him why they want a better life
and how his country can help them achieve that dream
This is the year where undocumented immigrants take ICE to their homelands
and show them the few opportunities they have in their countries.

This is the year Dreamers succeed in life to become what they want
travel the world with their money with no restrictions
This is the years politicians accept undocumented immigrants
and become themselves a dreamer

This is the year where immigrants are no longer immigrants they are citizens and are no longer treated like criminals.

If The Race Riots of 1919 began
with the mission to demolish segregation
then this is the year;
If Blacks band together to fight for equal rights
then this is the year;
And if The Great Migration began with hopeful
Blacks pursuing opportunities in the North
then this is the year;
If every person can realize that every person that contributes to a society IS a citizen of that society, then this is the year.

So may every undocumented immigrant
who work hard and comply with the law
live without fear or restrictions.

Chicago's Resilience

For our second unit of the course P'Art of History we study how Chicago shows resilience. Three events that shows resilience clearly is the construction of Illinois and Michigan canal, The Great Chicago Fire and The World Fair of 1893. In this unit we also studied Art Deco, which uses symmetry and geometric shapes. For this project, we chose an event in which Chicago has shown resilience in our lifetime. I choose to talk about The St. Patrick’s Day parade, an event special to me and my family, that is ruined yearly by the masses of intoxicated people.In this unit I learned how to create cement tiles. I am proud of how clearly my image stands out in the tile and the smooth texture of the tile.

KIS. Safety. 2014

Safety
KIS
Soft Lino-cut, carving tools, cement,clay.
6 inches by 6 inches
July 14 2014


The main purpose of this piece is to show how Chicago has demonstrated resilience in our lifetime. The question that we answered was How may you visualize Chicago's resilience today?

A way that Chicago has shown resilience is in the ways that they have dealt with big neighborhood-wide events such as St.Patrick’s Day. I like going to St.Patrick’s parade because you get to see the water get dyed and you memory’s with your family but, people get drunk, they drive, provoke accidents and makes a safe family event very unsafe. The cause of these accidents and risks are due to business selling alcohol or people illegally bringing their own alcohol to these events. Many people also drive to these events, making the roads very unsafe. Chicago has shown resilience by adding more police to patrol large events, like The St. Patrick’s Day parade. Another thing they do is warn people about drinking while driving and encourage them to take public transportation.

A time in history that shows resilience is The panic of 1837. What caused the Panic was “Land gambling”, it was easy credit since the nationwide bank was no longer in charge. The western banks took over and took risk on loaning lots of money to people who gambled. So now people spend a lot more money on land that was worthless before gambling started. Andrew Jackson (the person who came up with the idea) saw that people weren't paying back the bank he knew he had to do something to stop it. So Jackson ordered the banks to stop giving credit to the people, so now people who wanted to buy land have to buy it with gold or silver. For that reason people who buy stopped buying, investors were no longer able to invest and property values plummeted. Their economy went down and people had to pay the amount of money they bought lands for and payback the back the money they loaned. People who were rich became poor. The way Chicago showed resilience was by one person named William Ogden, became Chicago’s first mayor. Mayor Ogden sustain Chicago while the panic and r he presided over Chicago’s grim years and had a time of hibernation. He also improved Chicago by building the first swing bridge, building parks, laying out city streets, provided clean drinking water and had a sewage system. He also helped destroyed the red light districts. 

I used three symbols to address how Chicago has shown resilience in their efforts to make family events like The St. Patrick’s Day parade safer. First, I used Sankofa (shape of a heart) which means learn from the past. Second, I used Eban (diamond) which represents safety and security. Lastly, I used Sekhem represents authority. I used two Kente symbols and one Egyptian symbol.

The way I created my piece was by drawing my visual with Egyptian and Kente symbols that represent my story. From those three symbols, I arranged them on top of each other to create a pattern by using repetition. Then I traced the drawing onto the soft linoleum block. Then, I started carving out the symbols. After that I build walls of clay around my block so that I could pour cement over the linoleum to create a print. Lastly, I mixed the cement to the consistency that I wanted and poured it on to the box where the linoleum cut with my drawing was sitting.

Art Deco is a luxury, glamour, exuberance and faith. Art Deco takes the form of geometrical shapes and has symmetrical patterns. I incorporated Art Deco in my piece by repeating the pattern two more times in the block and I used symmetry and geometric shapes.

My Story of Chicago

In the course P'Art of History we study the early years in how Chicago became how it is today and how people discovered it. This class is mostly a history class but it also include art related to it. For the first Unit we read two chapter of the book City of Big Shoulders, that was about early Chicago years. For our project we created a poem or story answering the question who claims Chicago, I decided to write a story. After writing my poem I made a visual representing my story. Then I transferred that image on to a linoleum block and carve it out. Another thing that we used was neoclassical art which describes the piece. One thing I am proud of was my carving and my visual because it took me a long while to get my message across my visual and it was hard to carve the detail in the block but I managed to make it clear. Through out this course I learned about Neoclassical Art and a lot about Chicago that I didn't know about.

KIS. Chicago. 2014.

KIS

My Chicago

Soft-cut Linoleum, carving tools

6in. by 6 in.

July 2014

The main purpose of this piece is to answer the question Who lays claim to Your Chicago?  and to talk about our Chicago experiences.

In my Chicago, the government and police control everything. From gas prices to who is and isn't allowed to live in the city. People with money get treated well and have luxuries while the people who don't, get treated badly. Most of the people who do not have money are immigrants who may be forced to work in factories that endanger them physically. Education, which is often controlled by the government also influences how I experience Chicago. Education determines how much power a person can have. Although there are a lot of conflict in Chicago, I see many opportunities, especially in education.

My Chicago is claimed by the government which controls my education. As far as I can remember, my mom taught me the importance of education. It also seemed that she understood that the government controls my education and based on that she took control of my education, she didn't trust the government to do a great job. My mom laid claim to my Chicago experience by ensuring I get a good education by putting me in a head start program, finding schools that accepts me at a young age and finding better schools for me. Through my mom’s actions, I am now at a high school that is different than regular schools. My high school is a private school, and its named Global Citizenship Experience. This school offered me a full scholarship, it has small classes and it used technology. From these experience, my mom made me realize that the government controls my education by determining the quality of education different neighborhoods may receive often based on the income or race of its residents. Because  my mom recognized this, she made a huge effort to give me the best education I can get, rather than relying on the  government to provide it.

One date of early Chicago that relates to my story is 1784, when Chicago became property of the United States. It relates, how people who have a high education, haves lots of money and own land. Another date that relates in 1833, when Native Americans had to surrender their land to the settlers. It relates, when immigrants come to the United States they have no choice but to work in dangerous jobs and if they don’t they will be sent back to their country.

I incorporated elements of Neoclassical Art by making my carving a little simple and emotional.  Neoclassical Art is based on the principles of of simplicity and symmetry. This type of art includes clean lines, heroic figures and sometimes unemotional.

I created this carving by first, creating a visual that represents my story of who claims my Chicago. I did different drawings until I decided on one and shaded in heavily the letters that I was going to carve out. Then I transferred my drawing by rubbing it onto the linoleum block. After that, I traced the letters again so I can see better what I am going to carve out. Lastly I carved the letters out. In the second  we will make a cement tile of our carvings.

My Visual reads Chicago with each letter representing different parts of my story. The “C” is drawn to look like a set of handcuffs and represents the presence of the Police in my Chicago. The “H” is drawn to look like a factory and it represents the places where lots of immigrants have to work at in Chicago. The “I” is drawn to look like a diploma and it represents the high standards of education that Chicago provides. The “C” is drawn to look like the symbol of cents and it represents the presence of money in everything we do in CHicago. The “A” is drawn to look like the capitol building and it represents the government who controls everything in Chicago. The “G” is drawn to look like gas in a flame of fire and it represents the use of it everyday. Lastly the “O” is drawn to look like a heart and it represents the health of people who suffer in working.

Future of Agriculture

In Unit 4 of our Food for Thought we briefly learned about decay and rebirth which talks about what our future may look like. The process for creating this project was simple. In my group we decided to make a path that split. The reason we wanted the road to split was because we don't know what will happen in the future so we wanted people to choose what they wanted. I took inspiration from a piece of artwork created by the Beehive Collectives. The poster I looked at was called,”True Cost of Coal.” The inspiration i took was by seeing how they traveled through the poster and told a story about past, present, and future. I think what was challenging for our group was to represent the future. We found it difficult because we did not take this unit we just briefly talked about it.I think that the future of food is still undecided. We have an opportunity to fix everything we have caused, but if we do not try to change then we will stay a course on the path we are on currently.

GS. Food For Thought. 2014

N.O.A and KIS. Future. 2014

N.O.A & KIS
Food Poster
18in by 24in
Big Paper, Color Pencils and pencil
May 2014

The unit that we picked was unit 4, Birth, where we had to predict how the future of agriculture will look like. The class didn't do the unit so the prediction came from what we know already. We had to predict if the world is going to get better or worse. What my partner and I decided to do was to create two paths, one organic and the other GMO. GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organisms. Most of our food today is GM and the way they do that is by injecting a certain gene that has a desirable trait. On the poster we created there will be two futures. How humans act in the present will determine which future we will have. We used 3 words that represent the future, and the words are organic, GM and polyculture. On one side we have organic and polyculture, and on the other side, there's GM and monoculture. Polyculture means the farm has a variety of plants. For the organic side we used as an example one of our FE partner’s farms, Marc. We tried to incorporate most of the things he had in his farm onto the paper, such as his polyculture plants and his free range animals. For the GM side we incorporated lots of things that we learned in our other class. For example, we included crops being covered in chemicals. We also incorporated GM crops along the road as a fence so people don't know what is going on. Something that both futures require is recycling. Recycling plays a big part in the future because if there is lots of garbage on the land then we don't have space to grow crops, and if there is garbage on the water then the water will be polluted. There won't be water for the crops to grow or for us to drink and survive.

Anti GMO

For our unit 3 called Evolving in the Food course we studied plant genetics and genetic engineering. For plants genetics we used Gregor's Mendel (the father of genetics) method of the punnett squares to know the probability of the traits that the offspring will receive from the parents. For genetic engineering we talked about GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) crops, and finding out that the reason why farmers produce food all year even in winter was because the modify the foods genes by adding another organisms gene onto it. After studying GMO our last project was to have a debate on pro GMO and anti-GMO. I chose to argue against GMO so that makes me an anti-GMO, the reason why I chose anti-GMO because because GMO is not natural organism produced from nature and nature process on growing organic food. It also mixes everything and creates bigger problems like or health especially kids. GMO creates new allergies that kids get for the use of different chemicals on our food. If we didn't use GMO than we wouldn't have health problems and the food would have its natural value than none of this would happen. During this project I learned what GMO's are and how they work. I am proud of the debate

Steak Tacos

In the unit Birth for the course Food For Thought we studied processed food vs. organic food. We watched a movie on Netflix called Food Inc. It was about the way big food companies treat the animals and how the companies feed the animals corn so they can get fat. We also read chapters from Pollan's books, about his view on todays food. A major thing that we are using from his reading are the 5 transformations on the foods. For our project we study the difference between restaurant food vs. homemade food. We had to chose a food that we like and that we can make. Then after that we had the option of doing a written food review or a video about our experience. I chose steak tacos and I did a video. I made the tacos with the help with my mom and I have cooked steak tacos before so it was easy for me to make. I really liked the experience because this project made me think of processed food and organic food. For that I had to use my 5 senses so it was very interesting to try something that is the same but has a difference. Throughout this project, I learned how to distinguish processed food and organic food. Another thing that was interesting was one of the ingredients that I used, which is the seasoning.It had an ingredient called citric acid. Citric acid is a flavoring and it is cheap so it is used a lot and it is safe. One thing that I am proud of was my voice over because I basically had to the write  review, then do the voice over and I was the only student who made a video.

Script -

Taqueria:

I went to a taqueria called Los Dos Primos. Once I got there I ordered two steak tacos and waited 10 minutes. When the dish came the aroma of the steak tacos filled the room and as it came closer to my table I became more hungry. Once I got my plate I was able to hear the steak bubble a little. In taquerias they give you two tortillas so I had four tacos. The tacos had steak, cilantro and chopped onion. When I took the first bite the steak was soft and juicy in my mouth. The tacos were a little salty and spicy (because of the hot sauce) but overall they were appetizing. From what I tasted and what I could see the meat wasn't dry or old it was fresh, the cilantro and onion were also fresh.

Home made:

A day after I went to the taqueria I made my own steak tacos. I bought all the ingredients necessary to make good steak tacos. In the process of making them I sprinkled the meat with a sour/salty dressing. Then I put it in a frying pan and started cooking it. When the steak was cooking it released a pleasing smell and while the steak was cooking I heated up four tortillas. Once the tortillas were ready, the meat was almost ready too. When everything was cooked I put the meat in the tortillas. Then I added cilantro, onion and a little bit of hot sauce on the tacos. The tacos looked small, a little dry but delicious. The meat sounded a little crunchy but soft in my mouth. The good thing is that there was a lot of meat in the taco. Since the tacos were small, I could eat more than I usually eat with regular size tortillas in tacos. I would say the tacos were fresh because of the cilantro and onion. The meat was also fresh.

Comparison:

In comparing both tacos, I prefer my homemade tacos because the meat tasted better and I could put whatever I wanted on the taco. Since I am a picky eater I prefer to make food my way. A difference that I noticed between the two tacos was the size of the tortilla and the quality of the meat. I like the meat that I used for my tacos better than the one the taqueria had. I would recommend home made steak tacos because you can make them how ever you want and you know what ingredients are in your food.

Pollan’s food transformations:

My experience relates to Pollan’s Food Culture to Food Science transformation. It relates to it because people now think of foods as numbers instead of just eating a delicious food.People now are concerned about calories, fat, sugar, ect and they don't actually enjoy eating food. The reason why we now think like that is because since processed food loses its nutrition people add different ingredients to the food. An example would be my tacos, if the taqueria used processed meat then they add different ingredients from other countries to get the same nutritional value or taste. Tacos is Mexican food and they are delicious but in the US the tacos are americanise or are in the process of being americanised, how? Well american culture and Mexican culture are being mixed together and the food loses its original culture. Mexican tacos are greasy and have lots of meat but now there's barely any meat and mostly no grease.

A new kind of cupcakes

In the second unit of the course Food we studied cooking, specifically the chemical reactions that happen when you mix the ingredients. The first thing we did was look at the 5 essential ingredients used in baking. We studied the purpose of each ingredient in baking, the product of their chemical reactions and how when they mix together they make bread. For our action project we made cupcakes, following the recipe in the control group and replacing baking powder in the experimental group. The reason why we did this was because there was a cooking magazine that was focusing on the Passover. Passover is a time when Jews don’t eat certain food because their was a plague that destroyed their crops like leavening agent (baking powder), to symbolize that they didn't have time to let their bread rise because they had to make a hurricane escape from egypt. Therefore we had to submit a cupcake recipe without baking powder. We had to pick two ingredients that would substitute baking powder. During this project I learned how to put the proper amount of ingredient to put into each cupcake. I am proud of how I baked the cupcakes and how they tasted so delicious.

     

                    JV. Experimental group.2014.                                                                          AC. Controlled group.2014 


                      

Title of your Lab Report

Substitution of baking powder.

1. Introduction

This lab report contains the data from our cupcake experiment. We worked in groups to find ingredients to substitute the baking powder for the experimental group. My team and I chose lemon juice and olive oil. The way that baking powder works is by having an acid mix with a base. The way a acid-base reaction happens is when the acid gives a way a hydrogen and the base obtains it. By mixing together they neutralize, make salt, co2 and water. Which then helps the dough rise. Therefore we substituted lemon juice is the acid with a pH level of 2 and the olive oil is the base with a pH of 8. What we did was put different amounts of lemon juice and olive oil in the six cupcakes to see which one of them will rise the most. For the controlled group we just followed the recipe. It was an interesting experiment to test to see. 

2. Research Question

Will an acid and base mixture in a cupcake rise as high as leavening agent?

3. Hypothesis

If we replace baking powder with lemon juice and olive oil in a cupcake recipe then my cupcakes will rise as high.

4. Materials

Lemon juice
Olive oil
1/12 cups of sugar
1/48 cups of flour
1/24 cups of butter
1/24 cups of milk
⅙ eggs
⅙ tsp of vanilla extract
⅓ tsp of baking powder

5. Procedure

For Control Group:

1. We preheated the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Melted the butter for 10 seconds. 
3. Mix together the sugar and butter in a medium bowl. 
4. In another bowl we beat the eggs, then we added vanilla and mixed it. 
5. Then we added the flour into that same bowl and mixed it using medium force. 
6. After mixing we added baking powder and mixed it again. 
7. After mixing we added milk into the mixture. 
8. Combine sugar and butter into the mixture. 
9. Grease a muffin pan with a nonstick spray. 
10. Mix all the ingredients until it is smooth. 
11. Finally pour the dough into the pan. 
12. Bake cupcakes for 20 minutes. 

For Experimental Group:

1. We preheated the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Melted the butter for 10 seconds. 
3. Mix together the sugar and butter in a medium bowl. 
4. In another bowl we beat the eggs, then we added vanilla and mixed it. 
5. Then we added the flour into that same bowl and mixed it using medium force. 
6. Add the milk into the mixture and mix it. 
7. Combine sugar and butter into the mixture 
8. Grease a muffin pan with a nonstick spray. 
9. Mix all the ingredients until it is smooth. 
10. Pour dough into the pan. 
11. Add the measurements of lemon juice and olive oil into each cupcake.
12. Bake for 20 minutes. 

6. Data

Controlled group

After baking our cupcakes for 20 minutes they were light brown, dark or burned from the bottom. It smelled like vanilla and it was soft.

Chart of experimental group

After baking each cupcake with different measurements of lemon juice and olive oil. The first on tasted a little bit like flour but good, the second one doesn't have the lemon flavor but it did have the vanilla flavor so it was good. The third one tasted almost the same as the first cupcake, in the fourth cupcake you can taste the lemon juice more than the others so it has the strongest flavor. The fifth one you can taste the lemon flavor a little bit more it taste more like the first cupcake and the sixth didnt really taste like anything it was just bread no flavor in specific.

Ingredient	Cupcake 1	Cupcake 2	Cupcake 3	Cupcake 4	Cupcake 5	Cupcake 6
Lemon Juice (tsp)	1/16	0	1/8	3/32	1/64	7/64
Olive Oil (tsp)	1/16	1/8	0	1/32	7/64	1/64

7. Graph

This graph shows the difference between controlled group and the experimental group in terms of height.





                               





8. Recipe in Metric

Ingredient	Amount in cups/tsp	Amount in mL
Lemon juice	7/64 tsp	0.49 mL
Olive oil	1/64 tsp	0.07 mL
Sugar	1/12 cups	20 mL
Butter	1/24 cups	10 mL
Flour	3/24 cups	30 mL
Milk	1/24 cups	10 mL
Vanilla	⅙ tsp	1.22 mL
Eggs	⅙ egg	1.22 mL

9. Conclusion

In conclusion my cupcakes did rose but not as high as the ones in the controlled group. In the experimental group the highest cupcake reached 3.5 cm, 0.5 cm less than the controlled group which was 4 cm.The reason why the cupcakes didn't rise as well was probably because we didn't use an ingredient had a high level of base.The controlled group cupcakes had a base of 8.5 and the experimental group had a base of 8, so the 0.5cm missing is because we didn't have enough base.The cupcake in the experimental group that almost reached 4 cm was cupcake 1, cupcake 4 and cupcake 5. My hypothesis was wrong because the experimental cupcakes weren't the same height as the controlled group. I will submit cupcake 3. Although its height is 3 cm, this cupcake has more flavor than the other cupcakes and it is delicious. It was my favorite.