War!

This is the second action project for my Humanities class called, “Policy”. In this unit we learned about the executive branch of our government. One of the things we did in this unit was create a timeline that shows the different cabinets in our government. In this action project we had to create an essay that explains a war that was fought by Americans and find out whether it’s just or not.). One of my struggles during this action project was finding out how the war changed in morality throughout the war. I ended up choosing to World War 2 because I immediately believed that it was a just war but I was interested in going into it further. Enjoy my project!

The beginning of World War II for the United States started with Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and ended after the bombing of Nagasaki on September 2, 1945. This war was right because the United States was trying to protect itself from future attacks from Japan and hopefully any other country. It is possible that there would have been another way to solve the issues between Japan and the United States, but after being attacked it is very human to want to fight back.

The United States got involved in World War II because of the attack on pearl harbor in 1941. This made us declare war on Japan and put us in the world war. Four days later Germany declared war on the United States. During this time Franklin D Roosevelt was the United States president. He delivered a speech that hugely impacted the mindset of the American people called the "Infamy Speech" which was spoken an hour before the United States declared war on Japan. This Speech was his reaction to the Pearl Harbor bombing and previous conflicts with Japan.

The first executive action of the war was the declaration of war on Japan when it was signed by Congress on December 8. Knowing that we were attacked just a day earlier, this set a policy that The United States has to be ready to defend itself if we were ever to be attacked. It was proposed by President Roosevelt because he believed that the attack from Japan on Pearl Harbor was what he called "a date which will live in infamy", meaning that he didn't want the United States to have this embarrassment. This policy was intended to protect the U.S. from future attacks as well as future embarrassment. The end of the war in Japan was fully decided in 1945 when the Japanese signed the Potsdam Declaration on September 2.

This policy was of course applied by sending troops to fight the Japanese. I personally think that the beginning of the war was justified since the Japanese did the first physical attack. Even though this was justified there were still serious consequences. One of them was the bombing of both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. These bombings killed over 129,000 people and is still affecting others with radiation.

The reasoning for this war initially was right but eventually it was taken too far. At first the war was meant to protect the United States from Japan, but eventually it turned into an unfair massacre. I believe that it is pretty logical to fight back if you are being fought. Even though we had to fight back, the bombing on Japan killed hundreds of thousands of people. If you compare that to the initial attack which started with over 2,000 deaths then you start to realize how far United States went to win the war. This was too far because it was more about ending the war instead of protecting the United States. If the United States had kept up with it’s original reasoning for the war then it would have been justified throughout the entire war, but at some point during the war America became too focused on winning.

TCP Review

This is my final action project for my class called Forbidden Books. In this unit called “Diversity”, we learned about why certain books were banned for promoting different diverse communities, and how they were protested against. For this action project, I wrote an essay review on the movie “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, and I talked about why people were against it. My favorite part of making this action project was getting to watch the movie, since I never watched it, and I actually learned a lot more than I expected. The biggest problem I had while making this project that I would’ve changed was that I have never actually seen the movie before. The problem I had was that since I never saw the movie it made it harder for me to do my review because I had to keep going back and looking at certain parts. I eventually was able to collect enough information to finish my action project.

The Color Purple Cover (2012) Pintrest

The movie, “The Color Purple” is a controversial film and book made Steven Spielberg and Alice Walker. It takes place in the early 1900’s in the southern part of America. At this time, there is still racism and you were able to get married at much younger ages. The story talks about at the beginning that the main character (Celie) has had two children with her father, and that he sold one those children to other parents and gave the other away for free.

One of the reasons people who wanted the movie banned for was because it was filled with scenes of domestic violence. When the book came out, everyone couldn’t stand that Celie was always being beaten. For example, in one of the scenes in the movie Celie is brushing the hair of her husband's daughter and the daughter can’t stop screaming in pain. When her husband asked Celie if she would make his daughter stop screaming she told him she couldn't. When she said that she couldn’t, Her husband ended up hitting Celie for talking back. Scenes like these were just one of the reasons why people fought to get the book banned.

Another reason that people wanted to get the movie banned was because it had a disturbing amount of racism towards black people. This especially made the black community upset because some of the scenes in the book would seriously offend them. An example of one of those scenes is when a white woman asks a black woman to quit her job and work for her as a maid. When the black woman said “Hell no”, a white man walked towards her in order to intimidate the black woman. When he attacked her she punched him in self defense, but she was soon surrounded and she was forced to leave her kids while she was attacked and sent to jail. This scene shocked the community who watched the film and it even made some of the watchers mad enough to fight against it.

The final large reason “The Color Purple” community tried to get the movie banned, was because it referenced a lot of “mature content” like sex and cursing. In the movie basically every other scene is either talking about or having sex, and cursing. A good scene that portrays this argument is when Celie and her sister Nettie are talking about how their dad keeps trying to make more children with Celie while waiting to do the same to Nettie when she’s old enough. They keep making fun of it, but you could tell they were really sad to have to go through that. This was mostly disturbing for parents because they were afraid their children would read the book and talk to them about it.

I honestly don’t think the book or the movie should be banned because every reason that people tried to get it banned actually happened to people. I feel like this book is more of realistic version of history with all those factors that were mentioned. If we always banned books with content similar to “The Color Purple” then we wouldn’t have a real version of history or anything to work away from, like slavery, or racism.

Fried Chicken

This is my third and final action project for my “Food for Thought” class. This unit was about  understanding how the Industrial Revolution & World War II changed our food system. It was also about understanding the impact these changes have had on both our food and environment. For this action project we created a taste tested the same food from two different places and compared them as if we were food critics. One of the places had to be your house while the other had to be a restaurant. My favorite part of this action project was being able to eat for a grade. The only problem I had while making this project was that I forgot to take my picture the first time I made it at home so I had to redo it.

Chicken(2016)MJF)

Popeyes(2016)MJF

Garden of My Dreams

This is my first action project for my “Food!” class. This unit was about different plants and how they interact with each other through symbiosis. For this action project we created some ideas for a garden that we could potentially grow near our houses. I made a drawing of the garden that I could grow where the plants help each other using a diagram I made with Google drawings. My favorite part of this action project was seeing all the different ways you could raise the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium level of the soil we were given. The only problem I had while making this project was that I accidentally left my computer charger at my cousin's house, so I had to use one of the school computers. It wouldn’t have been a problem if the school computers were good but the mouse button kept getting stuck therefore making my illustration harder to make.

My garden will be on a flat area of my roof. I would be able to put the bins and tank in any formation or pattern I want because the space that I can use is fairly big. The only major problem that might come up is that there are a lot of pipes up there which lowers the amount of space I could have had.

I have three different sized bins that I could plant my garden in. One is a bin that is 2.7 by 1.7 by 1.7 ft3. I think this container will grow the most vegetables because it has the largest height and the roots of the plants will be able to grow deeper. The other bin I have is a lot shorter but it has a longer width. Its dimensions are 3.8 by 1.7 by .6 ft3. I think the plants in this bin will grow the least because it has the lowest height, and the plants won’t be able to grow their roots. The final container I chose is a glass tank with the dimensions of 2.1 by 1.1 by 1.1 ft3. I have no Idea how the plants will grow in this container but it would be interesting to find out.

My original soil quality had a ph level of 5.0. This is not good because it’s too acidic for some plants. The best way to raise the acidity level would be to add limestone to the soil. The soil also had a nitrogen level of 2 which is about 20 ppm (parts per million). This is a little to low for vegetables so to raise it I would have to add 5 pounds of blood meal per 100 acres and 7 pounds per 100 square ft if I had that much soil. My original potassium level was 2 which is about 400 ppm in the soil. This means I don’t need to add any potassium to my soil because the potassium level is just high enough. My phosphorus level was 3 which is also a perfect amount because it’s just high enough so I don’t have to add anything to it.

I chose the plants I chose because they’re all plants that I like. They also happen to help each other out. When anything of the other plants fall off the mycelium that I would plant to grow the mushrooms would decompose the fallen biomaterial and turn it into nutrients for the other plants to help them grow and it would be a never ending cycle of love.

My garden is actually pretty efficient because of the symbiotic relationships that help the plants grow. In this project I was able learn how to help plants grow each other the way Masanobu Fukuoka did in his book One Straw Revolution.

MJF Garden (2016)

Pollution

This is my final action project for my fuel class. This unit was about different ways how pollution is a problem and the ways we can help reverse the process we’ve created. For this action project I looked at the different ways I could stop my own pollution emissions, and how much pollution I give off in a year. I showed one of my actions that I would use to help reverse pollution using a diagram I made with google drawings. My favorite part of this project was seeing how other people in my class gave off pollution compared to the amount I gave off. The only problem I had while making this project was that my computer stop working so I had to finish it on my phone. I eventually got a new computer, and besides that this AP was pretty fun.

M.J.F

3-8-16

Fuel

Saving the World

Pollution is just contaminants that are put into the earth leading to the harm of the planet. Pollution is released into the atmosphere in many different ways. A common way pollution can occur is through gases that we emit through vehicles. A second way we give off pollution is through making products, because they release gases like CO2 which gets caught in the carbon cycle. Pollution is also created when we don’t compost food. Decomposers can’t break down food when they’re put in landfills because the chemicals in other waste kill the bacteria that should decompose the food.

I release 15.3 tons of carbon per year if I continue to live my life the same way I've been. My annual greenhouse gases are equivalent to about 0.711 garbage trucks of waste recycled instead of land-filled. My annual CO2 emissions could compare to 578 propane cylinders used for home barbecues. To offset the carbon emissions that I give off per yearI have to plant 356 trees. The site used the equation 23.2 lbs C/tree × (44 units CO2 ÷ 12 units C) × 1 metric ton ÷ 2,204.6 lbs = 0.039 metric ton CO2 per urban tree planted. This means that each tree that I plant will take in 23.2 pounds of carbon. Then they divided the molecular weight of carbon dioxide to carbon. After that the website multiplied that with the ratio of 1 metric ton per pound.

I have come up with 3 actions that I could do to help reduce the atmosphere’s carbon ppm (parts per million). My first action to change would be to insulate my house which can reduce the cost of my house’s cooling as low as 90%. That would be great for the atmosphere and my family's wallet. The second way to help reduce the carbon in the earth's atmosphere would be to drive a Tesla electric car, because it gives no CO2 emissions off. A car that uses gas releases 20 pounds of carbon per gallon, and on average 6 tons of carbon is released in a year by a single gas using car. This can also benefit my family specifically because we wouldn’t have to pay for gas which can cost a lot of money. My last idea to reduce the amount of carbon is to travel less, meaning not flying. This would lower my CO2 emissions by 53.3 pounds per air mile, as one air mile produces 53.3 pounds of carbon dioxide. I travel about 1632.14 miles per year so by taking a plane I give off 86993.062 pounds of carbon.

MJF (2016) ”Action 3 Diagram”

My actions will help reduce the global carbon ppm ​from 400 to 350 since that is about the amount that is healthy to the earth because they are all more efficient ways of what I do now. I won’t make much of a difference just by myself, but I could influence or inspire people to follow some of my actions which can cause a massive chain reaction of influencing others which would create an astronomical change in the earth's atmosphere’s carbon ppm.

Works Cited

1."GHG Equivalencies Calculator - Calculations and References." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 8 Oct. 2015. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.

2."Powerwall." Tesla. 2016. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.

3."First Understand, Then Destroy, Your Home Heating Bill." Mr. Money Mustache.Money Mustache, 2011. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.

Dreamcatcher

This is my final action project for my “Who Am I?” class. This unit was about dreams a very important philosopher named Sigmund Freud. For this action project I created a dreamcatcher based off of a dream that I once had using color and what I decided to put in the middle. I used sued string and a wood loop to make the outside edge to my dream catcher and used wool to do the web of the dreamcatcher. My favorite part of this project was seeing how other people in my class represented their dreams using just color size and materials. I had two problems while making this project. The first was that my computer stop working so I had to finish it on my phone. The second was that I started my hoop too big so my AP took way longer than I wanted it too. I eventually got a new computer, and besides that this AP was pretty fun.

In the center of my dream catcher I have a second dream catcher. A second dream catcher was my choice to put in the center of my dream catcher because I wanted to show how complex my mind is. I want feelings of reassurance to pass through my dreamcatcher since I can feel anxious during the school year. While I sleep the dreams I am have are being controlled by my id , and I don't want my dreams to be filled with messages that I don't want. I chose the colors of white and gold because I wanted to convey mystery so it was a slight reference to a dress that was created recently which was also white and gold but could look black and blue. This element contributed to the dream that I analyzed, which I want those to be filtered by my dream catcher. I made my second dream catcher that I put in the center of first out of green thread because green is favorite color meaning that I'll feel comfortable sleeping with it over my bed.

The dream that I chose that has really affected me was a nightmare when I had it. Here is the story: I woke up on a single mattress in the middle of a room filled with candles. As I was looking around the room I had on thought in mind, “Where are my parents?”. Suddenly I was in a hallway from the house that I was in when I was having this dream. I wandered around the house for a little bit until I found my parents bedroom. When I got in there I saw that my parents were sleeping. I felt an urge to wake them up, and when I did they said good morning in perfect unison. When they said it I noticed something funny, their voices had switched. This made me want to look at them closer and when I did I noticed that their torsos switched as well. When I had this dream I was 9 so this was the point where I started freaking out. I ran to my bed and forced myself to go back to sleep.

If I could go back to that dream, then I would never have gotten out of bed so I wouldn't be traumatized. This dream really changed me because I assumed that it all had to mean something. If this dream was sending me a message or lesson it would be that people in my life are changing.

MJF Dreamcatcher (2016)