Reducing Our Carbon Footprints

Hello, my name is N.L. In my Freshman STEAM course class Fuel, we have gotten into the third unit. During this unit, we have been reviewing and learning about solving and plotting inequalities, the carbon cycle, the laws of conservation of energy and thermodynamics, and balancing chemical equations. Throughout this class, I have learned a lot about different sources and types of fuel and energy. We went on a Field Experience where we walked around the Goose Island neighborhood of Chicago and looked for different forms of pollution. Pollution is when any substance is in the wrong place or concentration in the environment. The most interesting and true thing I learned is that "invisible" pollution like carbon emissions is worse than "visible" pollution like litter on the ground. For this Action Project, we were supposed to write an action plan for reducing "our" carbon footprints. Hope you enjoy!

The Ojibwe Nation and Dream Catchers

Hello, my name is N.L. I am a freshman at GCE Lab School. This is my final action project for my Humanities course called "Who Am I ?" Now in this class for our second unit of Doubt and Dream, we have been learning about the study of dreams. Freud was a cultural philosopher who had a lot to say about dreams and he came up with psychoanalysis, which is a theory to treat mental disorders. In this unit, we studied surrealism, which is an “artistic method that implies symbolic meanings”. We studied many surrealist artists and interpreted their many artworks. We partnered up with a classmate and shared our dreams with each other, and interpreted the meanings of them. For this Action Project, we were supposed to create a dreamcatcher that represents a dream we had, and the positive and negative elements we want and don’t want in our future dreams. I enjoyed making both of my dreamcatchers and learning about the meaning behind them.

N.L. "First Dream Catcher" March 23, 2019

Dream catchers originated from the Native American Ojibwe Tribe. Most dream catchers are made by grandparents and then given to their grandchildren. They believe that everything you make for the first time, you shouldn't keep but give it to someone. Since this was my first time making a dream catcher, I decided to make my first one for my two baby cousins and a second one for me. The purpose of a dream catcher is to protect someone sleeping from negative dreams. It allows positive dreams to pass through the web and reach the sleeping individual. The dream catcher works by trapping and filtering out the negative dreams and letting positive dreams go by. The positive dreams slip through the web and flow down through the hanging strings to the person sleeping. Negative dreams get caught in the web and burn out when the sun shines on them. Each part of the dream catcher symbolizes something. The hoop of your dream catcher symbolizes strength and unity. The center of the dream catcher symbolizes your “Creator,” "Great Mystery," and or your bliss. Someone’s bliss is what makes them happy and spreads joy to them.

The center of my dreamcatcher symbolizes the “Creator” because it represents the balance of good and evil in our world. In my dreamcatcher, my superego and id and the good and evil forces of my mind are fighting against each other. The “Great Mystery” in my life is the bliss of having relationships with people I love, the feeling of love, blessings I receive from God every day, sports and music. I chose to put a yin-yang symbol in the center of my dreamcatcher to symbolize good and bad in my life and to symbolize the balance of good and evil. The three different colored feathers hanging from my dreamcatcher represents the Pan-African flag which symbolizes the goal of encouraging and strengthening bonds of unity between all people of African descent. The center of my baby cousins’ dreamcatcher is a heart which symbolizes the love I and my family has for them. The two different beads and different colored thread represents both of my baby cousins and their differences. For my dreamcatcher, I want positive dreams of my late (past) family members and of good memories from my life in the past, wishes of success, protection over me and my family, and the elements of peace, love, and bliss, and “good” to pass through my dreamcatcher. I symbolized these positive elements in my dreamcatcher by having a red thread in my dreamcatcher’s web. For my baby cousins’ dreamcatcher, I want the positive dreams of family, wishes of good health, and the elements of peace, love, and bliss to pass through their dreamcatcher. I symbolized these positive elements by making the ring of the dreamcatcher red. I used the color red to represent strength, passion, and love.

N.L. "Second Dream Catcher" March 23, 2019

I want my dreamcatcher to filter out the negativity of negative minded people, negative or evil energy from demons in my unconscious/subconscious, fears of dying, and killing. I symbolized these negative elements by putting one side of my web white and the other black and also putting a gun on my web. I want my baby cousins’ dreamcatcher to filter out negative memories of trauma and conflicts in their lives, negative or evil energy from their unconscious and subconscious minds, and the fears of the things they’re scared of. I symbolized these negative elements by putting on the ring of the dream catcher.

We went on a Field Experience to the American Indian Center where we talked to Fawn Pochel and I learned about some of the different Native American tribes and nations and their some of their beliefs that differ between tribes and nations. I was very interested in learning as much as I could not only for a future grade but to expand my knowledge. She also gave us some tips on making dreamcatchers. Another Field Experience we went on was to the Art Institute of Chicago where we looked at artworks from surrealist, abstract, and cubist artists. The Ojibwe thought that dreams were very important. A psychologist named Freud came with the theory of psychoanalysis therapy, which is to release repressed emotions and experiences or to make the unconscious in your mind conscious. The unconscious mind is your thoughts while you are unconscious. These two things factored in with artists in the modern time of Surrealism. Surrealist artists were obsessed with Freud's ideas because they believed leaving an open door to your unconscious mind opens up a gateway or path to creativity and new ideas. In class, we did dream sharing and interpretations. I interpreted my partner's dream as a horror-filled dimension where murdering a masked killer was the only way to get out of the loop. If I were in their dream, I would’ve felt stuck inside of a place similar to hell. If I kill the masked murderer I will wake up from the dream. These were the two "if" statements I interpreted from my partner's dream. I recently had a very realistic dream recently and it has been on my mind for a while. Everything was so perfect. My family was one huge happy family at my grandma’s house, but then all of a sudden that vision started to fade and I woke up. I feel some factors in this dream could be the rationalization of the dream and repression of negative things that I might have been on my mind in this dream.

In conclusion to the class "Who Am I ?," I learned that truth, memory, doubt, and dream make a person. Experiences and beliefs can be determined as truths and doubts as well as memories and dreams. Learning about different people's history, knowledge, and wisdom has impacted me to appreciate different cultures and educate myself about different cultures. I have really enjoyed the many discussions, field experiences, and experiences in general in this class.

Solar Energy VS Fossil Fuel Energy

Hello, my name is N.L. and I'm a freshman at GCE Lab School. This is my second Action Project for my STEAM course, FUEL. During the second unit of this class, we visited a Tesla showroom to learn about the difference between electric battery cars and gasoline and diesel fuel cars. In class, we have been learning about slope or rate of change not only in lines but in things like products. For this Action Project, we choose a renewable resource that we wanted to make an infomercial about. I hope you enjoy this video.

Works Cited

“Where Is the Best Location on Earth for Solar Energy? – Sunmetrix.” Sunmetrix.Com, 30 Sept. 2013, sunmetrix.com/where-is-the-best-location-on-earth-for-solar-energy/.

“Hello, Sunshine: See Target’s Latest Solar Installations Take Shape.” Target Corporate, 2017, corporate.target.com/article/2017/04/solar-power-update.

Richardson, Luke. “The Pros and Cons of Solar Energy: What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Going Solar?” Solar News, EnergySage, 2 Feb. 2019, news.energysage.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-solar-energy/.

Wind, Northwest. “Northwest Wind and Solar.” NW Wind & Solar, 2015, www.nwwindandsolar.com/solar-power-in-seattle-and-the-northwest/how-do-solar-systems-produce-energy/.

“Solar Panel Cost 2019 | Current Avg. Solar System Price by State and City.” Solarreviews.com, 2019, www.solarreviews.com/solar-panels/solar-panel-cost/.

“What Are Solar Panels Made Of? | Greener Ideal.” Greenerideal.Com, 3 Mar. 2018, greenerideal.com/guides/0613-solar-panel-basics-what-solar-panels-are-made-of/.

United States and Venezuela Oil Production

Hello, my name is N.L. I am a freshman at GCE Lab School. This action project is for my STEAM course "Fuel". In this class, we have been learning about energy and energy density, renewable and nonrenewable resources, slope, and the elements of the periodic table. A field experience guest speaker named Christa from Nicor Gas company talked to us about what her company does, many different and interesting energy resources, and how important carbon emissions are. For this action project, I made a slide show showing oil production between two different countries by using slope or rate of change.

Awareness Podcast

Hello my name is N.L. I am a freshman at GCE Lab School. This is my first action project for my Humanities course called "Who Am I?"In this class for our first unit of Truths and Memories, we have been learning about many Greek philosophers including Socrates, Descartes, Plato, and Anaxagoras. We also researched the many philosophers and their influences to their thinking and their philosophy. We've had an guest speaker named Katie Moody come in and talk to us about her work in dog training. She explained how behaviorism is demonstrated through the basic training of teaching a dog to sit or go near a certain place. She discussed the many different techniques people use to train not only dogs but people and other animals. I hope you enjoy this podcast.





Podcast Script

Awareness, yes it is an important principle in survival, but what does awareness truly mean when broken down. Awareness to the world and to our lives. Hi, I am N.L., a freshman in high school. I have come to the realization that some people are not aware of much going on. Not only in their lives, but also in the lives of other people. I want to prevent misunderstanding of awareness and teach the truth of awareness. I believe the ideologies and importance of self-confidence, success, and heritage. I value contributions toward positively impacting my society and neighborhood. I seek truth and knowledge.

I believe that "awareness" or "being aware" is a principle of survival in life. When I say awareness, I mean being truly aware. Being aware of your surroundings, the people around you, issues, conflicts and problems of all people. Not being scared of everything by watching everything around you but recognizing the presence of other people, the risks of specific actions, and the consideration of others and their feelings. Awareness is introduced in our lives through conflicts and trauma. You experience conflict or trauma which awakens a skill which can be mastered over time. Awareness can be an utmost important undervalued skill for non-privileged people. And an overlooked, underrated, and slept on skill to privileged people. Now obviously looking down at your phone while walking through a busy city only makes you aware of what is on your device's screen. But walking around a busy place while looking around makes you aware of many more things that are on your device's screen.

Based on this belief of awareness and being aware, I have not always believed in this "ideology". My childhood innocence factors in with not being aware but as I have grown and am growing, every day I have become more and more aware of many things. Based on this belief of awareness and being aware I realized that there are many scenarios that can relate back to awareness. This experience contributes to my belief of awareness. I was taking the CTA Red and Purple Line trains to get to my art school. While on the Red Line train I noticed these three kids about my age, one younger and another may be a little bit older than me. I heard them plotting on stealing someone's phone and one of them even pointed at the person they were going to steal from. I interfered in them stealing one innocent woman's phone by telling them that her phone was not the iPhone X the group of boys thought or portrayed it to be. Two boys scolded the boy who pointed at the woman for not being able to tell an android from an iPhone. They proceeded to exit the train car to another. As I transferred to the Purple Line train, the same group of boys were on the same train as me. Crazy right. I knew they were up to no good once more. I sat further away from them compared to how close I sat by the when I was on the Red Line train. As soon as the train came to a stop, I looked up and it happened. One of the boys had snatched a woman's phone right out of her hands ripping her earbuds from her ear. The boys ran off the train luring the woman and her friends to go after them but at the same time making an escape by returning to a different train car as the doors closed. At the next stop, I got off and went to my destination. Another experience that happened on the same day was when I was coming home from art school. I saw my train had just got to the station so I ran to catch it. When I jumped down those last stairs to get to the train doors, there were three women walking behind each other, all of them face down into their smartphones. I had to bump into them in order to get their attention and to fully get into the train car. This experience made me fed up at the time with how people look at my generation as always on our phones when adults walk around with their faces sunk into their devices. These truths of not walking around blind but seeing deeply and not addressing a problem but looking deeper than noticing a problem or issue contribute to my belief of awareness. My belief of awareness connects to the ideas of Descartes because the two elements of self-awareness, the awareness that one is thinking and awareness that one exists played key role in Descartes' epistemological project. Another philosopher who had a philosophy of awareness is Franz Brentano. The Brentanian theory was called "Awareness of Awareness." According to this theory, "all conscious experience is in a certain fundamental sense "self-intimating"; all conscious awareness constitutively involves awareness of that very awareness."

My belief in awareness implies that I am a very thoughtful and cautious person. Awareness has influenced me into making the right decisions in my life and to also look out for others. This belief relates to my culture and me as an individual because being a young teen and an African American in the United States' society. This means that I will always have a target on my back. That is where awareness comes in. Growing up with these targets on my people's identities make people different from us feel superior to us. My people's cultural unconscious is still very real in our lives today. We really had no other choice but to be aware due to all the pain and suffering we have gone through in this country.

I have come to finalization of my concluding thought that awareness can become something you do unconsciously. I also wonder how does the belief of awareness relate to our collective unconscious starting from early human existence and throughout different times. How have we inherited this "principle" or factor in our lives? The group of three young African American males who took that white woman's phone were aware of almost everything around them. The woman who was sitting with her two friends while on her phone and listening to music was not aware of the boys' actions until her phone was snatched out of her hands. We all have the thought process that, "nothing will happen to us", but we also believe that anything is possible supporting the thought " anything will and can happen." That is why awareness is very important.
End of Podcast Script

Citations

"Awareness of Awareness: The Brentanian Theory." The Brains Blog, 31 Jan. 2017, philosophyofbrains.com/2017/01/31/awareness-of-awareness-the-brentanian-theory.aspx.

Smith, Joel. “Self-Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford.Edu, 1 Jan. 2017, plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-consciousness/.

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