Charity Fair Project Blog

Summary:
    The Charity Fair. A time of year where we make products to sell for charity. This may seem simple, BUT NO. We first off must pick a charity that suits our passions and our group's passion. Then you must pick a product that correlates with your charities. Next you do tons of things like see the cost and profit of your product. You need to know at what price to sell it at. Then you need to see the charity statistics to check how reliable your charity is. Next we looked at the Carbon Footprint of our product. We have to see how much carbon out product released into the air by traveling to us. We also made special logo's to sell our company to passer byers. We wanted to attract them after all. We continued on that trend and made infomercials about our charities work to provoke emotion in people.  Then  we made an ignite presentation to pitch at the charity fair our product, and especially our charity. Then the icing on the cake we made a beautiful tri fold to show all the work.

Backwards Looking: In what ways do you think you need to improve?
    With many assignments to do there is many ways to make an error. Just a few mistakes that I think I could have improved on but a main one was  my journey of our product. In the journey of our product since we had two products was just jammed into one. That was not supposed to be so and it was intended to have two. I honestly believe that with the two we should have had it would be much more of a realistic representation of just one product. If someone was to want to make one of the two products it would be alot harder to find out exactly the effect of the product you would be making because it is all mixed together. So if I had more time and could improve this work I would separate this into two google maps for my audience to be able to understand more.

Inward Looking: What did you learn about yourself as you worked on this piece?
     During this product I began to find my passion in this sort of work. I figured out that when I find a topic that really matters to me I can drive that passion into things like scripts and presentations. That is why in our presentation we start out by saying why this matters to the group. I believe that when people explain why they are passionate it makes other see how they can be passionate too. My overall strong suit is being able to drive emotion into my words and put meaning to presentations through images and word choice. So this project really was a great example of that skill in my life.

Outward Looking:  What is one particular thing you want people to notice when they look at your work?
When people look at the Charity Fair Project I would like them to see the craftsmanship and creativity it took to think of our products, our logo, and our trifold design. Most things in the charity fair product are put there with much intention. For example all the designs of the necklaces were hand picked and put in to make a great assortment. On top of that the boxes of the design are perfectly fit so it rests perfectly in the bottle and folds up to make a clean design. Then as for our bracelets we made the shrinky dink designs correlate with the symbol of each color on the LGBTQ flag. Red represented with a heart, orange represented with a bandage, yellow represented with a sun, green represented with a tree, blue represented with a star, purple with a dove, and finally indigo with a tea cup.  Then if you see the trifold it has a cloud design making it look like our logo which is a girl  holding a rainbow in her hands like she is a rainbow over the clouds.

Forward Looking: One thing I would like to improve on?
If I could improve I would make sure that communication is the top priority. You never want to retrace your steps or miss the mark on things with a lack of communication. When you understand where everyone is at  then you will know exactly what must be done. Then next step would be clear on what you are doing for the team and if there is a problem make sure you can keep a communication with your team and solve it really quickly.

Should we bring back extinct species? WAC

    

       Imagine, a world where mammoths could roam the earth and passenger pigeons could be sitting on your window sill. This may seem just like a figment of imagination but this could be our reality. Science has advanced so far that we can take steps towards de-extinction which will bring back these animals. Even though this may sound amazing bring back extinct species is bad and will not do our world good. Extinct species will destroy balance in the environment, waste money that could be used to save other threatened species, and create many variables in our world. Even though this may be something that we as people shouldn't do the best way to show you why is by explaining how this would even happen. De- extinction is the idea of using process such as genome editing, cloning, and backwards breeding. In this essay we will talk about these process and of course the biggest question of all, why we should not bring back extinct species.


        First before we get into the debate lets explore how this is even possible. I assure you that this is not just a piece of science fiction but actual processes that are in the works as we speak. First off, genome editing. As stated in the QUEST article, Reawakening Extinct Species in Paragraphs 15 and 16; Using DNA extracted from passenger pigeon specimens stored in facilities like Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum, Novak and Shapiro are putting together as much of the passenger pigeon’s genome as possible.” and “ Once researchers have identified these genes and built them in the lab using chemical compounds, they’ll insert them into the band-tailed pigeon’s genome using new genome-editing technology.” As you can tell the basic idea of genome editing is you take the closest relative of the extinct species and take genomes from the old DNA and combine it with the closest relatives DNA to try and piece together a somewhat perfect replica of the old animal.


         Then next we have cloning. As stated in the QUEST Article Reawakening Extinct Species in Paragraph 6 "To clone the bucardo, the researchers defrosted cells they had obtained from Celia’s skin samples. Using technology developed to clone Dolly the sheep in 1996, they transferred the nucleus from Celia’s cells into cells from domestic goats whose nucleus had been removed (a cell’s nucleus contains its genetic material, in the form of chromosomes). They then stimulated the cells with a jolt of electricity and waited to see which ones grew into embryos. They transferred 154 embryos into surrogate mothers, a cross between domestic and wild goats. A bucardo kid was born in 2003, but died after a few minutes from a lung deformity." Basically you switch the nucleus of the extinct species with the nucleus of the closest relative. Get the egg fertilized and let the baby be born. Since the nucleus is the instructions to create the organism if you give something the instructions to be like a certain thing it will. Then finally backwards breeding. Backwards breeding is when you take the two closest relatives to the extinct animal and breed them together to try and get the traits of the extinct animal in the baby.


           Now that you know how this is even possible let me explain why this is NOT good. First off we have thousands and thousands of endangered species on our planet. As said in the New York Times, paragraph 6, We might soon resurrect extinct species. Is it worth the cost?, “If you have the millions of dollars it would take to resurrect a species and choose to do that, you are making an ethical decision to bring one species back and let several others go extinct,” Dr. Bennett said. “It would be one step forward, and three to eight steps back.”. As Dr. Bennett said it is a moral decision. Our environment is already unstable with all the animals dying and with their habitats being destroyed. We need to make sure our world is stable and ready to add more animals in. Until then unless we need these animals an extreme extreme amount to help us reach that goal then we need to manage what is alive now.


        Next big problem with bringing back extinct species is what will their place be in the ecosystem. For example not saying this is what is going to happen but we bring back the t rex. Well the t rex was built to fight and defend itself from other dinosaurs. Obviously nothing that exist now is up to par in strength or size with any of our old dinosaurs. This would make the t rex the top of the food chain. It would probably end up making more species extinct by eating their entire population then saving them. As said in the SENCER article, paragraph 5, Should we bring back extinct species?, “Lastly, we don’t know the environmental impacts of bringing back extinct species. Would they be invasive? If there weren’t predators for this species, it could become overpopulated. Alternatively, it could become a “new” predator and wipe out other species." We truly have no clue what these animals will do especially since for the older ones most of us weren't alive to see them in action. Why bring something back that would slowly destroy our wildlife?


       Then finally I think we all must admit that we have hurt our planet. We cut down its forest, pollute its air, hunt its wildlife. So one of the biggest question de extinction makes people as is perfectly presented by the SENCER article in Paragraph 1 of Should we bring back extinct species?, “Is it worth the time and the money to bring extinct species back? Is it our moral obligation to bring back extinct species that have died off as a result of human activities like deforestation? What would be the implications?” My thoughts on this question is yes we have destroyed a lot of this beautiful planet but instead of fixing our mistakes little by little we need to look at the bigger picture. If we want to really help our environment and somewhat repay what we have taken we should reduce what we are still currently doing such as cutting down forests, and hunting species to extinction. Once we stop all those things the real problem then maybe we consider taking it a step further and look into extinct species.



       In conclusion, no we do not need to bring back extinct species. They will not be a big enough help that we should put so much time, money, effort and risk into bringing them back. As we covered of course it is possible. A lot of time and effort has already been put into making this research possible, but it isn't what the world needs right now. That research don't have to go to waste. We can use it to improve our medical. For example if your family has a high risk of heart failure then maybe you do a genome edit and take that out of your families DNA pool. As for cloning we could try one that tech is successful to use it in child birthing. You could have someone else maybe carry your baby for you with such technology. Extinct species may one day roam this earth but they should not any time soon.

Should we resurrect extinct species?

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/article_small/public/thumbnails/image/2015/08/22/18/Mammoth-1-NHM.jpg

Summary: I know this topic may make you think Jurassic Park but it is something that will be coming very soon. So prepare yourself for the debate of should we bring back extinct species? First question. Is it possible?  Yes. and is being researched as we speak. Second question. How is is possible? Well there are many approaches scientists have in mind such as gene editing.Gene editing is when you take pre existing genes in de extinctions case the closest relative to the animal and taking genes from the old animal and mixing/editing them. It is like having lines of code. Then deleting a few and adding in new phrases. It changes the code all together. Then you have cloning. This is where you try to make an identical copy of the old creature. The ways they have tried doing this is by switching out the nucleus from the closest relative with the nucleus of the old animal in the starter cell of the baby and fertilizer it and let it be born naturally. Those are just two ways to do it but there are many more ways science is leading us towards the day we could have mammoths or other extinct species roaming the earth.

S&EP: Asking Questions, Defining Problems:
With looking at all these informational articles and sources on this very complex and multifaceted topic we had to look at all the different issues. We needed to see what was really going to need to happen before any of this cool stuff could place a foot on this earth. For example, what would it cost to  bring back these species? It can't be cheap to make all of these crazy things happen. The answer to that is it could cost millions and millions of dollars to get a stable species of lets say wooly mammoths on earth. This of course is a problem because as one of the articles says when you make a choice to spend all this money to bring one species back you are also making the choice to let many other endangered species die off when you could have helped them. Another thought we had to look into is when these animals come will they be an invasive species and help endanger other species? Or will they be the top of the food chain and create a giant trickle effect on an ecosystem? These are the questions we must answer before we bring back any animals.


XCC: Stability and Change:
When it comes to de extinction you have of course many things that are unknown. Since this has never been done before and most of the animals we are looking at came before our time there is a lot of unpredictability. One major thing is what role will these animals play in our world? Most scientists working on bringing back these animals say that they can help balance out the environment and prevent global warming. For example the  wooly mammoth will be put in the Tundra. It would be useful in the sense of stopping global warming because it can stomp down the snowy floor helping lock in the carbon that is trying to come out. There is so much carbon trapped that if it gets loose it will double the amount of carbon already in the air. Yet of course as I said before we can not make promises that these animals won't be an invasive species or a top predator. We don't know how stable the world will be after they leave there effect. We truly must be ready for all that can come with this big change!

The Journey of the Necklace and Bracelet

Summary:
  You have probably seen thousands and thousands of products in your life time. All products have a story. From where their materials were harvested, how they were produced, their travel to the retailer, and being brought to you. Products do tons of moving around, let's explore what these products do to our environment.  First off can you guess what the highest polluting mode of transportation is? If you didn't answer plane then you are wrong. Planes release 0.8 g of CO2/kg per mile they travel. As you know planes travel thousands upon thousands of miles making their CO2/kg per mile extremely high. For example shockingly our simple bracelet and necklace materials produced 21446.2 CO2/kg. This is an insane amount and is the majority of the carbon footprint for our product. Then to sum up the consumption of a train and a car, a train has a release of 0.17 g of CO2/kg per mile they travel. As for a car they release 0.41 g of CO2/kg per mile they travel. In total our product travels 31478.82 miles and the total CO2/kg released is 22247.6122 g.

S&EP: Using Models: Of course as you can see up top I worked with Google maps to track the distance and the amount of CO2/kg released. Google Maps is an interactive map program where you can pinpoint certain areas and connect them to each other. When using this program we had to find exact addresses to be able to locate the specific location of the manufacturer, retailers, and school. You can even use a zoom function so you can have either a large over view or a very specific location like Michaels on Snell. One things about google maps that if very different then any other mapping i've done before is that you can see as close or a far away as you want.

XCC: Scale, Proportion, and Quantity:
In this project we dealt with a lot of quantity. You see to understand how much CO2/kg per mile that is covered on this map we need to know a few things. First we need to know the mileage that everything has traveled. Yet this is not just good enough because everything is not traveling by the same mode of transport. So we had to determine that if a product is travelling from the store to you, you probably got it by car. Then for anything within the country it most likely travelled by train. Then last of all if it is from a totally different country it is probably by plane. Now that you know this you need to find the exact CO2/kg per mile expenditure of each of those modes of transport. I mean could you expect a car and a plane to be the same. Then when you figure that out you have your perfect quantity. Being exact is key.

FLUXX Project Blog

http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/zoom/hrtg_fluxx.jpg

Summary: Fluxx. The competitive game where with every turn the rules change and the end goal differs. Players have cards that can either hurt them like creepers and some unwanted new rules. Or card that will aid them on the game. Fluxx games all are basically the same. The only thing that differs is the goals and the keepers. Keepers are your key to winning a Fluxx game. On the goal cards you need to find two keepers that match up. Throughout rounds of ever changing rules you do your best to be the first to win. You never know when someone may change the goal and the quest starts over again. Some of the Action cards even mess you up. Like rotate hands or stealing others Keepers. This wonderful game was recreated by my class and I. We picked Science related topics and based the entire themes of the game on that. So welcome to the world of Fluxx!


Backward Looking: In what ways do you think you could improve?
     I believe our cards would have looked really amazing in color. I feel it would have added more of a lively feel to the entire game. Also I feel our lamination could have been improved. Since I had to redo it on some of the cards the ink that transferred from the card to the sheet made it harder to read the card when put back on. If you look at the example up above they are all colorful and bright. If ours had that it would make it look for like the real deal!

Inward Looking:How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?:
    I really liked  how when we were creating the game we got a good look at first off how this game works. When it came down to actually playing since I had been working on the mechanics for so long it was really simple. Also I think it was a good lesson on how things connect just like the Cross Cutting Concepts. When making goals it took a deeper understanding of the topic and the value of the goals depended on how in depth you went with your ideas.

Outward Looking: If you were the teacher, what comments would you make about this piece?:
     If I were a teacher I would comment on the printing of our cards. I would not comment on how it is not in color though because some people just can't print in color. I would more so suggest that if we are using a darker color that you make sure all your images and works are dark enough and contrast enough with the white background. You want people to be able to see your keepers/images.

Forward Looking: What would you like to spend more time on in school?:
     If I had more time on this project I would have made sure that the card stock was more fun. For example if we had planned the dates better we could have organized a time to use the color card stock and apply them to different types of cards. It would have made our deck pop a little more and possible improved the general aesthetic. Just to make the cards more desirable would be the main goal.

FLUXX

http://www.looneylabs.com/sites/default/files/Fluxx5.0_3D-Contents_sm.jpg

Summary: Fluxx is a game were every round the rules and goals for winning change up. It is a game where you have to see connection between different keepers. This game is a great reflection of Cross Cutting concepts. Keeper goals always have to do with connection two related keepers together to win the game. We have been presented with the challenge of  making a Fluxx game related to a science topic. For example my game is about Astronomy so one of the goals could be collect the Big and Little Dipper.


S&EP: Asking Questions Defining Problems: We mostly  were asking questions and defining problems when making our goals. We of course wanted to make our goals interesting and not too much of a stretch. This did require mixing things around and replacing keepers. It took further investigating even into greek mythology. We say how important or unimportant a keeper was and changed or kept it accordingly. It wasn't just a two second choice but you needed to select your keepers with care so they could fit. Just like a puzzle piece. All the pieces must have a purpose and fit or it just won't work.

XCC: Patterns: Have you ever looked up at the night sky and traced the stars? Well other people had that exact same hobby. You have just made a constellation. Constellations are like the connect the dots of the stars. This makes interesting designs such as the Big Dipper, and Orion's belt. Constellations which ties into my Fluxx game tend to have a background. For example the constellation Hercules connects with the Greek Mythological hero Hercules. Galileo was one of the first astronomers and he looked into the night sky like you may and discovered many things. Like the rings of saturn and Callisto. So next time you are staring at the stars know that their is an entire world up there!

Pingo-uck Project Blog

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TpYStXkReZYrPkGshVuxuReDVsSnhHWD

Summary:
       Met the Pingo-uck. The Pingo-uck is a bird that has pieces from flamingos, flies, peacocks, and parrots. Lets start from head to toe. The head has umbrella like feathers to prevent its body from getting wet. Its eyes are multipfactited to be able to see all around its surroundings.  Then its body is covered in color on the one side to attract mates and the other side grey like rocks to camouflage. It has a wide tail that acts like a flotation device in the water. Then depending on the gender its feet will be webbed for catching fish ( female) or clawed for catching deer mice ( male). Evolution may sound random but this project is supposed to simulate how organisms are so well thought through. For example all the things I listed out to you right now have a purpose and could be added to a future organism that could like a Pingo-uck through Natural Selection. If your dreams of an organism don;t include magic or something that doesn't already exist your ideas may become a reality.

Backward Looking: In what ways have you gotten better at this kind of work?:
This project was definitely a creative curve for me. First just the creation of such a unique creature was something I haven't done before. Especially making a creature fit for an environment that wasn't this overpowered beast. Making something you could actually see in a part of the world is a really special thing and it takes a different level of creativity. Another things this project pushed me creatively to do was draw. Once we knew how this organism would act in the environment I had to use what I imagined its day to day life being like onto paper. Putting the image in your brain onto paper is bringing a world to life. The Pingo-uck was mashing science and imagination and it was awesome!!!

Inward Looking:What was especially satisfying to you about either the process or the finished product? : In the end I found it really satisfying that out of all the groups we were really the only one to really use a lot of hand drawn imagery. Other people just got images from the internet to show in general what they were trying to describe. With hand draw images we could be very exact on what we wanted the view to feel and think when they looked at the image. We could control the image it left in their head and didn't leave them guessing on what we were intending.

Outward Looking: What was especially satisfying to you about either the process or the finished product?: If I were a teacher commenting on our work I would comment on two things. One since the images added a sort of charm to our presentation some slides could have really used more than one image. Since it is somewhat a leverage for us we could have definitely made sure there was more of that to really give a closer and clearer idea of the Pingo-uck.Plus we could have really used practice on our presentation. At some points it became rather repetitive and we could have possibly done without some lines.

Forward Looking: What's one goal you would like to set for yourself for next time?: 
Next time I do a project I really hope to bring justice to my creativity. My presentation was fair and I think the slides looked really good. Next time I will make sure the script is more solid and that it matches with the amount of real effort we put in the project. It didn't quite reflect how much thought went into the animal. My goal will to be show my projects worth and create an engaging presentation.