Snapshots of Street Skateboarding!

Welcome to my blogger. For my final presentation of my Sophomore year, I decided to focus on my love for skateboarding and include it towards a snapshot of how I have been spending my time during this quarantine. I was able to meet an artist by the name of Andrew Durgin-Barnes and connect with him about a particular painting of his and what it reflects. I hope you enjoy this last project of my Sophomore year!

"We All Live Here" (Edgewater)

Hello, welcome to my blog. This is a volunteer opportunity that I was lucky to get. After my class of Drawing Lines, I decided to take an extra step towards pursuing a career path in art. 

I decided to take the opportunity of working with a mural artist named Rich Alapack of "We All Live Here". He has a mural saying his infamous phrase all throughout Chicago's 77 neighborhoods. Recently, we helped begin the process of putting up a mural at Moody's Pub in Edgewater.  With this I volunteered to work on a mural in the neighborhood of Edgewater in Chicago.

 

Here below, you can see me (on the roof), Rich down below wheat-pasting the mural to the wall. 

Endoscopic Colonoscopy

Hi and welcome to my first action project in my S.T.E.A.M. course class Cure, we studied and researched a surgical procedure. I chose to research an endoscopic colonoscopy because I had access to a former patient to interview and colorectal cancer is common among many people in the United States. In this class via virtual learning, we learned about cells in the body and surgical prefixes for procedures. We got the opportunity to video call with Dr.  Neeraj Jain about his experiences in his career as an anesthesiologist. For this action project, we were required to describe a surgery in detail and a patient's experience from the surgery. This project was very interesting and exciting to me because I learned about all of my possible options in case I was facing nerve damage. It was very interesting to learn about how and why this specific procedure is very common and important in our world today. During this time of this global pandemic of Covid-19, I'd like to say thank you for taking the time out of your day to view my projects. I hope you enjoy this action project!

Here are some vocabulary words you might want to consider as reference points as you continue down this post. 

Electrocautery: A process where an electrode generates heat to destroy tissue inside of the body.

Colorectal polyps: A small clump of cells that forms on the lining of the colon. Over time, some colon polyps can develop into colon cancer.

Oscopy: The viewing of something with a scope.  

Rectum: The final section of the large intestine.

Biopsy: The examination of tissue removed from a living body to discover the presence and cause of a disease. 

Sedative: A drug taken for its calming and sleep-inducing effect.

Heres a video of a colonoscopy. 

In conclusion to this action project, I've enjoyed researching this surgery. The biggest lessons I got from this interview were to make sure to get yourself checked out periodically for the sake of your health, research the drugs prescribed by your doctor to be aware of what goes into your body and the effects of it, and discuss your health with your doctor and family.

Works Cited

Whelan, Corey. “How Safe Is a Colonoscopy?” Healthline, Healthline Media, 29 Oct. 2018, .www.healthline.com/health/colonoscopy-risks#risks. Accessed 16 May 2020

“Colonoscopy: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia.” Medlineplus.Gov, 2016, medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003886.htm. Accessed 17 May 2020.

‌“Colonoscopy - Mayo Clinic.” Mayoclinic.Org,  , 2020, www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/colonoscopy/about/pac-20393569. Accessed 17 May 2020.

‌https://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/understanding-hemorrhoids-basics#1

“Preparing For Your Colonoscopy | Kaiser Permanente Washington.” Kaiserpermanente.Org, 2020, wa.kaiserpermanente.org/html/public/specialties/gastroenterology/colon-prep. Accessed 18 May 2020.

Marks, Jay W. “Colon Polyps: Symptoms, Causes, Cancer Risk, Treatment, and Prevention.” MedicineNet, MedicineNet, 17 Dec. 2019, www.medicinenet.com/colon_polyps/article.htm. Accessed 18 May 2020.

‌

Sonnet to Lucentio

Hello, and welcome to my blog. This is my first action project for my Humanities course called Drama. In this class, we broke off into parts and read William Shakespeare's play, "The Taming of the Shrew". We studied and compared the gender roles of the Elizabethan Era our present time now. Due to Covid-19, we weren't able to physically attend any performances but we virtually attended a play titled "School Girls Or The Africa Mean Girls Play" which was presented by the Goodman Theater. For this Action Project, I chose a character from a play by Shakespeare, and wrote a sonnet in Shakespearean style. Requirements of a sonnet are (14 lines, iambic pentameter, 10 syllables per line and alternating rhymes), while keeping my message clear. In my sonnet, I gave advice to the character I chose, Lucentio. I wrote it to him because he was a main character that had fallen in love with a woman at first sight. I wanted to write a sonnet to tell him how he should treat his love. I liked creating my video and writing my first sonnet. I was challenged by finding words that rhyme and that also made sense accordingly. I enjoyed reading "The Taming of the Shrew". Enjoy!





Ode to Lucentio 
Lucentio do not entreat the old  Or make Bianca chummy to your lust The castle stands as your humble abode. Respect love yet still you grow amourous. 

The thought of thee some stillness do beget. Passion turns the “thyself” and “mistress” to “they,” Your lives are join’d in lovers’ sweet duet. Love, like a tracking beam, doth hold its sway,
Love blossoms when ‘tis planted in the heart, Love doth not worry, love doth not betray, Love needs a learner’s fire with Master’s art. For all those who hate, know your love will slay

You must love the other til death do you part  “ And may you prove, sir, master of your art!”

Song of Solomon Should Not Be Banned

Hello, my name is Nakiya'h and welcome to my final action project for my Humanities course, Forbidden Books. Overall I have really enjoyed this hands-on course focused on literacy and literature  In this unit, we discussed books in America that might have been controversial and surprisingly have been banned. For my action project, I re-read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. I researched the reasons behind the banning and censorship of one of her most popular novels. I hope you enjoy reading my research paper!

Toni Morrison, 2006. Oil on canvas by Robert McCurdy

Prostate Cancer

Hello and welcome to my blog. This is my very first action project for my STEAM course, Disease. In this unit, Body, we studied different diseases that are very common in our world and country. In class, we thoroughly learned about the 11 body systems of the human body and what's in blood along with other topics. We went on a field experience to the Museum of Science and Industry where we ventured their YOU! exhibit. The exhibit helped us dive deeper into the human body while having an engaging experience. For this action project, we were instructed to interview a family member or friend that had been diagnosed with a disease. We had the choice of who and what disease we wanted to do. I chose to interview my grandfather who once had prostate cancer. I chose this because my grandfather has been negatively impacted by this cancer. While I learned more about the disease, I have become more aware of the seriousness and risks of it.

My grandfather's name is Willy. He is an African-American in his mid-late 60s who lives in Chicago, Illinois. Grandpa Willy began experiencing noticeable symptoms of prostate cancer when he was 62. He started to have pain in his lower back, pelvic area, and knees. He was very active years prior to cancer. He used to shoot hoops with my older brother and me while at the same time living with his asthma. Ever since he was diagnosed with cancer, he has noticeable fewer amounts of energy at times. This disease is included in SDG 3 because the goals focus on influencing healthier lifestyles and advocating for access to health resources such as medical evaluation and immunization in order to catch diseases before they possibly become lethal. Some prevention methods for prostate cancer are maintaining a healthy diet full of fruits and vegetables, consuming foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals over vitamin supplements, and sustaining a healthy weight. These prevention methods aren’t applicable to areas that have food deserts and are experiencing malnutrition and food shortages.

I interviewed Willy and asked him 5 questions to get his perspective on the disease and its impact on him. My grandfather was 62 in October of 2015 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He will be 67 years old this year (2020). This year will make his 5th year mark after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Some of his initial questions were, “Is the disease serious meaning life-threatening, will I need surgery for prostate cancer? Grandpa Willy decided to seek treatment the same year he was diagnosed with it. A couple days after his 63rd birthday in late-October of 2015, he started treatment in November. He attended External Beam Radiation Treatment (EBRT) for one year. According to the American Cancer Society, “In (EBRT), beams of radiation are focused on the prostate gland from a machine outside the body. This type of radiation can be used to try to cure earlier stage cancers, or to help relieve symptoms such as bone pain if the cancer has spread to a specific area of bone.” They compare each treatment to getting an x-ray. The radiation becomes stronger in each procedure but is typically painless. Treatment only lasts a few minutes, but preparing for it takes a while. Prostate cancer occurs when malignant (cancer) cells form in the tissues of the prostate. The exact cause of prostate cancer is unknown. It is a multifactorial disease with genetic and environmental factors involved in its make up. It is a non-transmittable disease.

Willy from the interview; “I would usually go for radiation therapy treatment out of a 5 day per week limit. I received treatment in an outpatient center. I had to go for 30 days which was 6 weeks of radiation therapy.” At first, he was terrified after hearing the news, but after getting treatment and good news from the doctor, he was relieved of the burden. Willy was aware of the risk of the disease of killing him. It’s been a couple of years since he beat prostate cancer. It has negatively impacted him because he goes to the doctor once every 6 months to participate in a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. (PSA) is a substance that's naturally produced by your prostate gland. It's normal for a small amount of PSA to be in your bloodstream. In the test, they examined his blood sample and he received his results in two weeks' notice. They look for a test reading between 1-4. It can vary within an increase or decrease in change of the reading which is relatively a red flag of cancer. If a higher than normal level is found, it may indicate prostate infection, inflammation, enlargement or cancer. His symptoms from this disease were the urine flow being stopped at times and having trouble releasing urine from the bladder, and the bladder not feeling emptied or feeling full. I feel that prostate cancer can be considered hereditary in our family because Willy’s grandfather died from it and his uncle currently has it. Prostate cancer is one of many diseases that appear in unpredictable patterns within older black men.

The body systems affected by this disease are the lymphatic, urinary, and skeletal body systems. The lymphatic body system is made up of a network of lymphatic vessels, organs, and tissues. Prostate cancer may metastasize (spread) and form tumors in nearby organs such as the bladder, or travel through your bloodstream or lymphatic system to your bones. Signs of metastatic prostate cancer can include swelling in legs or pelvic area, numbness or pain in the hips, legs or feet, and bone pain that doesn’t go away. The symptoms of prostate cancer often differ from patient to patient. The most common first sign of recurrent prostate cancer is a rise in the PSA level in the blood. Medical organizations recommend men to consider prostate cancer screening in their 50s, or sooner if they fit the risk factors for prostate cancer. Willy says men should get tested for it in their early 40s to be safe.

The risk factors of this disease are your age, family’s history of the disease, race, hormones, folic acid in the body and obesity. Older men, African American men, in particular, are more susceptible to prostate cancer. Women very rarely get this disease. It’s a widespread disease across the United States and common outside the country. Scientists don’t know why black men have it more than white men worldwide. According to the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF), “African-American men are nearly 1.6 times more likely to develop prostate cancer than Caucasian men. They are also 2.4 times more likely than white men to die from the disease.”


Diagrams

N.L. Anatomy of Prostate Cancer. 2020.

N.L. Lymphatic System. 2020

Conclusion
I was interested in learning about this disease and the possibilities it holds for me since I am at risk by being an African-American male. I’m not scared but more aware of the importance of my health as I age. I was able to connect with my grandfather and enjoyed the interview with him. I have stored much of my research on this specific cancer in my memory for future references.


Works Cited

“Symptoms of Advanced Prostate Cancer | Cancer Research UK.” Cancerresearchuk.Org, 2019, www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/prostate-cancer/advanced-cancer/symptoms-advanced-cancer. Accessed 31 Jan. 2020.

“Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) Test.” National Cancer Institute, Cancer.gov, 4 Oct. 2017,
www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/psa-fact-sheet. Accessed 1 Feb. 2020.

“Prostate Cancer In African Men | Prostate Cancer For Black Men.” Spaceoar.Com, 2018, www.spaceoar.com/patients/prostate-cancer-resources-and-articles/prostate-cancer-in-african-american-men/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2020

‌“Prostate Cancer - Diagnosis and Treatment - Mayo Clinic.” Mayoclinic.Org,  , 2019, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/prostate-cancer/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20353093. Accessed 1 Feb. 2020.

“Prostate Cancer Treatment (PDQ®)–Patient Version.” National Cancer Institute, Cancer.gov, 12 June 2019, www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/patient/prostate-treatment-pdq. Accessed 31 Jan. 2020.

E-Cigarettes VS The Youth

Hello, I'm Nakiya'h and welcome to my blog. This action project is for the first unit, "Politics", for my Humanities course class, "Forbidden Books". In this class, we discussed banned books and censorship. Censorship is when a private body of people, or government, decide what form of media, like books, videos, news articles, and so on, contains content that they deemed as offensive. So far we've got to read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this book, many interesting events within the dystopic society led up to a shocking change of events towards the ending of the book. I enjoyed reading this book for the first time.

Socrates was an ancient Athenian Greek philosopher who was a fundamental part of Western Civilization because he developed what is now the Socratic Method. The Socratic Method is the dialogue of questioning an opposer until the opposer makes a contradiction from their point of view. It's considered a dangerous method from Socrates's methods because he was executed after using the method he created because he proved his overseers wrong. For this action project, we had to record a Socratic Debate about a chosen open-ended topic. In our project, Kate and I address the topic of teens smoking e-cigarettes and the dangers it may have on a teen later in their life. I took on the role of Meletus, who was answering the questions, where Kate asked me questions and brought up points as Socrates. Eventually, I nudged towards changing my perspective on smoking as a teen by agreeing that I would make an effort to stop smoking overall. I hope you enjoy the Socratic Dialogue.


 
E-Cigarettes VS The Youth from NL on Vimeo.

Works Cited 

“Is Vaping Safer than Smoking Cigarettes? | National Center for Health Research.” National Center for Health Research, 22 May 2016, www.center4research.org/vaping-safer-smoking-cigarettes-2/. Accessed 27 Jan. 2020. 

“Lung Damage From Vaping Resembles Chemical Burns, Report Says.” The New York Times, 2 Oct. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/health/vaping-illnesses.html. Accessed 28 Jan. 2020.

‌“Quit Vaping Program Sees High Enrollment and Engagement.” Truth Initiative, 2019, truthinitiative.org/research-resources/quitting-smoking-vaping/quit-vaping-program-sees-high-enrollment-and-engagement. Accessed 28 Jan. 2020.

DRAWING LINES

Hello, and welcome to my Civic Term course called “Drawing Lines”. In this 3-week course, we have had a lot of hands-on field experiences. Sadly but surely, it has come to an end as all good things do. This is the final and only project for my class, "Drawing Lines". In this course, we focused on defining what public art is. My definition of public art changed after taking this class. At the beginning of this course, I believed that "Public art is any art that resided outside or in the public’s view.” Throughout this course, I saw public art through touring different areas of Chicago such as the Downtown Loop, Pilsen, and Wicker Park. We met with people and organizations such as Nathan Mason from Chicago’s Cultural Center, Katanya from Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, and the Chicago Public Art Group. From these experiences during this class, I have come to finalization on my definition of “public art”. Public art is art that resides in the public’s accessibility and is a representation of expression either of one’s self or a group of people." We studied public art first-hand by becoming tour guides in the neighborhoods of Lincoln Park, Downtown Loop, Pilsen, and Wicker Park. We mapped out routes through these different areas in order to have a time-efficient route. Some of my favorite artworks were by Eduardo Kobra, Hebru Brantley, and Sam Kirk. Something that stuck with me from these tours was the reasoning of how street art is interpreted by non-graffiti writers compared to graffiti writers. The difference between graffiti art and gang tagging/graffiti is important because it differentiates something positive to an artistic group from a negatively impacting group of people. We watched, broke down, and discussed the movie, Style Wars. It's a movie about how graffiti writing and tagging came into existence through hip hop and break dancing influences. The biggest takeaway from this course is the work we did with Rich Alapack of "We All Live Here". He has a mural saying his infamous phrase all throughout Chicago's 77 neighborhoods. Recently, we helped begin the process of putting up a mural at Moody's Pub in Edgewater. Our class put together a coffee table book from thorough research behind artworks by many different artists. Each artwork wasn't just a mural, some were sculptures and even moving digital graphics.

Hiu To. "Beginning We All Live Here Mural".2019

For this action project, we were instructed to make a public art proposal for the Grossinger Toyota and Kia of Lincoln Park. The area surrounding our current school campus doesn't stand out with public art or any exciting colors. Our group decided to focus on the people who make the neighborhood thrive in diversity and wealth; the employees of several businesses throughout Lincoln Park and Near North. Our mural would have to speak to a specific group of people and have a meaning behind it. We also decided what we wanted the public to interpret from the mural.
The part of this action project that I am most proud of is our group's sketch proposal because of the effort and different ideas that went into the finished product.

Here below is our group's mural proposal for Grossinger Toyota/Kia of Lincoln Park.

Hiu To. "Grossinger Mural Proposal".2019

Hiu To. "Grossinger Mural Proposal".2019

Hiu To. "Grossinger Mural Proposal".2019

Artist Statement

We sophomore global citizens at GCE Lab School created this public mural proposal for Grossinger of Lincoln Park, to recognize the working citizens of this community. Public art is anything created with the intention to portray a message and be easily accessible to everybody of the art’s surrounding area. The meaning behind this public art mural proposal is the societal recognition of non-resident working people of Lincoln Park. We think that it is important to represent working-class people and people of color. It will inform and educate the residents and community members of Lincoln Park on why recognition of the working people at the establishments in the matters and why these workers should be respected. The inspiration for this piece is based on the people we interviewed, who work in this area but don’t live here. They sacrifice their time because they take public transit in order to get to their jobs. These working people build the community of this neighborhood because the residents of Lincoln Park are dependent on the services that they provide. If these people weren’t here, the community would not have its fancy food and dining, entertainment, education, shopping establishments, businesses, and institutions. This art piece is supposed to give credit to the working-class citizens of this community and how they are lifting up the neighborhood, Lincoln Park.

Thank you for reading through this action project. In conclusion to this 3-week civic term course, I got the opportunity to work with a professional artist and muralist, meet important people from organizations such as DCASE, CMAP, CPAG, and the Chicago Cultural Center. The most impactful experience for me was being able to seek out art more through my academics.

Domestic Desert Cats

Hi and welcome to my blog. This is action project is for the second unit of "From and To" for my S.T.E.A.M course, Populations. We have been learning about the behavior and traits of animals and evolution and the changes in organisms by how they adapt to the environment around them. We have been studying the concepts of combinations, permutations; sample, population, scatter plots, standard deviation, quartiles, mean, median, and mode. We went on Field Experiences to Lincoln Park Zoo, where we interviewed and listened to Professor Stephen Ross. During this discussion, we learned about how zoos collect data specifically on primates and apes; where do zoos get their animals from, and how scientists record data identifying behavior and traits of the primates and apes. For this project, we were instructed to pick a random number of either cats or dogs from a data collection that our class made together. With my "sample" of cats from the entire "population" of cats, I decided where I would travel to in order to experiment with their behaviors, traits, and adaptations to their new habitat. The most challenging part of this action project for me was creating the clay model of my animal(s) in the future. It was very time consuming but I enjoyed the outcome of my art and this project.

In this project, I decided to incorporate the math and calculations inside of the google spreadsheet so they wouldn't distract you from the story of the project. You can click on the link highlighted to view my calculations.

Citations

Nemtsova, Anna. “The Aral Sea’s Disappearing Act.” The Daily Beast, The Daily Beast, 4 Oct. 2014, www.thedailybeast.com/the-aral-seas-disappearing-act. Accessed 12 Nov. 2019.

“Wildcat | Mammal, Felis Silvestris.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019, www.britannica.com/animal/wildcat-mammal-Felis-silvestris. Accessed 12 Nov. 2019.

“BBC - Science & Nature - Wildfacts - Fennec Fox.” Archive.Org, 2012, web.archive.org/web/20131202191221/www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/146.shtml. Accessed 12 Nov. 2019.

"Karma, Snap Rabbit and Dash the Wolf"

In the second unit of my Humanities course class, "Stories", focused on the concepts of morals and values. We studied and read some of Aesop's Fables to get inspiration and examples for what makes a good fable. Reviewing different well-known fables brought back nostalgia from my childhood. To get into our morals and values, we did a self-evaluation exercise that influenced some of my characters' traits. For this action project, we were instructed to create our own fable about anything as long as we end our story with a clear moral or lesson. We had to describe the setting of our story using descriptive language and we also described our protagonist and antagonist by using anthropomorphic features for animal characters in our story. Our story finally had to have a piece of symbolism in it. The parts of this action project that I am most proud of are my story itself because I put a lot of effort into and my edited photo of a scene from my fable. I hope you enjoy my story.

N.L. "Thank You Snap". 2019

“Snap Rabbit and Dash the Wolf"

The blossom of spring in nature made the animals’ homeland burst into beauty. Every Summer morning, the birds sang louder than an opera and the frogs played beats from their bellies. Snap Rabbit loved waking up to the sound of grace in the morning. He skipped through the forest to his job of gardening in the center of the forest. Whenever he had time to spare, he traveled throughout the peaceful forest to greet his neighbors. “Hello, how are you” and “You got help if you need it”, were his most common sayings when he kindly greeted his neighbors. Every day when he was done working, Snap would visit his forest friends to check up on and help them out in any way possible.

All of Snap Rabbit’s forest friends loved having him around. He often helped the foxes, weasels, birds, mice, and squirrels find and collect food for their young. He also took care of Grandma Owl by making her soup for her cold. Only one animal did not enjoy having Snap Rabbit around, Dash the Wolf. Dash didn’t have friends because she didn’t get along with the other animals very well. She lived pretty far from the rest of the animals, besides Snap Rabbit and Grandma Owl.

Snap Rabbit and his family lived in a burrow placed around the western points of the forest. Dash the Wolf lived in the cave 3 miles away from Snap Rabbit and Grandma Owl. She enjoyed being mean to all the other animals as her hobby. She would take backpacks from the children of Snap Rabbit, mice, and weasels to confuse them on which ones belong to who. Dash would often get yelled at by the other animals for playing tricks on them and their families, but she did not care.

Since Snap Rabbit was a good friend of all the other animals and always willing to help them out, the animals gifted him a celebration to show their appreciation for him. A “Thank You” banner hung in between the trees while Snap received gifts from the other animals. During Snap’s party, Dash decided to have some fun of her own since she wasn’t invited. She took some of Snap’s gifts and ran off towards her home with them. Squirrels whispered amongst each other as they watched Dash the Wolf run off with the gifts. In a matter of minutes, Dash was struggling to get out of the giant spider web near Grandma Owl’s home. The spider web caught Dash like how a dreamcatcher catches bad dreams and allows good dreams to flow through it.

The three squirrels ran to Grandma Owl and told her to beware of Dash the Wolf. Grandma Owl didn’t like Dash but she felt bad for her. Instead of staying in the comfort of her home, she went to go help Dash out of the web. She was still sick but helped anyway. Dash was puzzled about why Grandma Owl wanted to help her out of the web. They didn’t have a positive relationship with each other but Grandma Owl wanted to change that.

The biggest nuisance of all the animals in the forest finally was struck with bad luck while hanging in a giant spider web. After Dash was out of the web, she felt bad for stealing Snap Rabbit’s gifts so she decided to return them. She also said sorry for being mean to the other animals and gained trust from them. In the end, Snap Rabbit and Dash the Wolf become good friends and lived peacefully among each other and the rest of the forest animals.


Moral:

Be good to others and good will come to you.
Be bad to others and bad will come to you.

Karma is the constant cycle of good and bad energy flowing through people and their lives based on the actions of people.

Green Tree Python

In my first unit of "In/out" in my sophomore STEAM course class Population, we have been learning about the math and science behind organisms. We have been learning about Set Theory; which is a language used to write mathematical statements for grouping things. Something similar to Set Theory is taxonomy. Taxonomy is the science of classifying and organizing organisms. We went on Field Experiences to Lincoln Park Zoo, where we took pictures of an organism that we would study for our action project. In class, we got to dissect a Lubber Grasshopper, which taught us about morphological features, differences from similar organisms, and the anatomy of the organism. For this project, we were instructed to pick an organism, breakdown and represent the taxonomy of that organism. We had to create a mosaic that would represent and showcase the taxonomy of our organism. We also had to compare and contrast our animal to that of another student’s animal. Lastly, we had to represent our organism using Set Theory. The most challenging part of this action project for me was creating the mosaic of my animal. It was very time consuming but I enjoyed the outcome of my art.

TG. "Green Tree Python". 2019

The Green Tree Python can be found in places below the equator including Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Australia. According to ExoticAnimals, “They are usually in or near a rainforest and are primarily arboreal, residing in trees, shrubs, and bushes”. Occasionally, you can see them on the ground. “Green tree pythons have a particular way of resting in the branches of trees; they loop a coil or two over the branches in a saddle position and place their head in the middle. This trait is shared with the emerald tree boa (Corallus caninus) of South America.” Fun fact, females grow bigger than males when they mature.

TAXONOMY (Classification of Organism)

Kingdom	Animalia	It’s a multicellular organism and reproduces 25 viable eggs per clutch.
Phylum	Chordata	It has a spinal cord and tail.
Class	Reptilia	Maneuvers on the ground. (Tetrapods)
Order	Squamata	“Squamates” or scaled reptiles.  Suborder: Serpentes
Family	Pythonidae	A family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia.
Genus	Morelia	A genus of large snakes in the family Pythonidae. Currently, eight species are recognized as Morelia.
Species	viridis	Scientific Name:  Bright Green Snake Morelia viridis (Green Tree Python)

Taxonomy Gif

Here is a Gif I created to represent the taxonomy of my organism.

N.L. "Green Tree Python Mosaic". 2019

Venn Diagram

My Venn diagram below shows the similarities and differences between three other organisms chosen by my peers. They are my Green Tree Python, the Two-Toed Sloth, Dwarf Mongoose, and the African Giraffe.

N.L. "Four Set Venn Diagram". 2019

Even though these organisms might be similar by some traits or characteristics, each has its own traits to separate from each other. The African Giraffe is a tall mammal and herbivore that eats small fruits and leaves. The Two-Toed Sloth shares a connection with the giraffe in eatings small fruits, leaves, and other plants. The Green Tree Python is a carnivore that eats other small reptiles. Lastly, the Dwarf Mongoose is a small carnivorous animal that lives in South and Central America. All four of them have similarities such as they all live in places below the equator and they all depend on trees throughout their lives. In other words, they are considered “Tree Huggers”.


Set Theory

Here is my list of math sets of my organism and the organisms I used in my Venn Diagram as well as organisms that share similar traits and characteristics.

Epsilon ϵ = Is an element of.
Set Brackets { } = All elements of the set.

Reptiles = {green tree pythons, alligators, lizards, turtles, cobras..}
green tree pythons ϵ Reptiles
English Translation
 Animals that are included in the Reptile set are green tree pythons, alligators, lizards, turtles, cobras, etc...


Carnivores = {green tree pythons, dwarf mongoose, tigers, bears,...}
green tree pythons ϵ Carnivores
English Translation
 Animals that are included in the Carnivores set are green tree pythons, dwarf mongoose, tigers, bears, etc...


Tree Inhabitants = {green tree pythons, dwarf mongoose, chimpanzees, two-toed sloth, giraffe...}
green tree pythons ϵ Tree Inhabitants
English Translation
Animals that are included in the Tree Inhabitants set are green tree pythons, dwarf mongoose, chimpanzees, two-toed sloth, giraffe, etc...


Vertebrates = {dwarf mongoose, chimpanzees, two-toed sloth, giraffe, green tree pythons...}
green tree pythons ϵ Vertebrates
English Translation
Animals that are included in the Vertebrates set are green tree pythons, dwarf mongoose, two-toed sloth, giraffe, etc...


Morelia viridis = {green tree pythons}
green tree pythons ⊂ Morelia viridis
English Translation
Animals that are included in the Morelia viridis set are green tree pythons.

In conclusion to my very first action project this year, I was interested in learning about my organism and I found out ways to look deeper into biotic organisms. I hope you learned something new and mostly I hope this engaged and raised questions for you. Thank you for visiting this project. Please give me any feedback you can. Thank you!