Thursday, January 30, 2020

It's My God Given Right




For my first Action Project of the course “A Nations Argument”, we took a deep dive into the history of America's declaration of independence and the claims made within it. We challenged ourselves to decide if those words in the declaration were upheld today. Later on, we looked at other countries' declarations to see how people gain what they want. I saw a tendency for there being a war to get independence in most cases. Yesterday we visited Alderman Walter Burnett of the 27th ward and there we discussed his job and what his daily tasks are. We learned about his background and reasoning for being an Alderman also some fun facts about politics. Alderman Burnett stated that “politics are like a relationship and there’s always a mutual compromise.”Getting back to the course we were tasked to look into declaring independence from our on made up independent study of our choosing. By this creating an argument that we think is worth fighting for or rather declaring it. 

Topic: Music

Have you ever heard of a saying music to my ears or move to the rhythm? Well, hold your horses you were inspired by music bud. Music is everything it soothes and then all of a sudden takes over, Music is life. It is necessary that I deserve to be able to learn about music and how it empowers people on this planet. I understand that life is all about learning from mistakes and understanding that things don't always go your way. At least that's what elders tell me what it feels like every day. But I should learn about something that has been giving people joy for ages and still does today. This Declaration will help me understand why humans enjoy the nature of rhythm. Is it from our mothers’ heartbeat at birth or is it from a flame within that we cant see?

Purpose of School and Learning: 
The purpose of school is to supply the average young scholar knowledge that they can use in the future for their career or their ordinary day job. Also, provides them some type of figure to help contribute to society. If I'm undoubtedly true I feel the school is a waste of time and takes hours of my life that I can't get back. The purpose of learning, in my opinion, is to use what we learn and share it with others and use it to our advantage. Learning also makes us unique that everyone knows a little more than you do. When you learn something new it can affect you and your future.

Unalienable Rights:
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness/ I have the right to be a creative music Goddess and share with my peers.
  • I have the right to be alive and breathing
  • I have the right to Liberty, meaning my freedom of choice without any restriction by any means necessary
  • I have the right to create my own happiness, whether that be playing video games, drawing, playing basketball or expressing emotions and thoughts through music
  • I have the right to play music
  • I have the right to discover more and reimage what music actually is
Guiding Question: 
How can music bring others together from totally different backgrounds? How will this affect the world?
I will pursue this study by examining the people before me in the world from different heritages and cultures. Beginning with experimenting with different instruments and sounds during this study. I also will track progression and see through my data how these different things make people feel and how it makes people more sociable. My objectives and outcome out of this study are to learn what makes music so powerful to influence and to see if branching this theory turns out to make some bound.

What is an argument:
 
I’m arguing that maybe hate and fear in our world conquer people’s minds and makes them distant from one another. Things such as labels, stereotypes, and racism make up all today. But if we connect more this is destined to change. Roles in our society are as they are because of social systems put in place by people like me and you. I know that music impacts people’s lives daily. In fact, you’re probably listening to music now or was a few minutes ago. So if I could do something to change these low standards of life that we set for ourself it would be amazing.

Syllogism: 
P1- Music has been around since about 40,000 years ago
P2- Music effects peoples spirits
P3- Music gathers attention like a drug and brings out crowds of people
P4- Music makes people feel better when sad
Conclusion- I have the right to be able to study music for positive purposes for the change of our world

P1- I enjoy playing the guitar from time to time
P2- All humans enjoy music
Conclusion- Lets all rock out on Guitar Hero! :)

Historical Revolution/context:
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in our brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. This steams for the day you are born. Music has also been linked to dopamine release found in the late 90s, involved in regulating mood and craving behavior. Music also seems to make us feel good and connect with others. The oldest discovered instrument was a flute made from a bone of an animal. The flute dated back to almost 40,000 years ago. During human, migration music played a major role in entertainment and hope to thrive to get going. Even looking into Greek mythological music played an integral role in ancient Greek society. With this, views and thoughts were changed in the process. African tribe the Mandinke what is now Mali invented the djembe drum invented in the 12th Century. This sparked a tradition for many many years of rhythm and love of people coming together and dancing.

Resource list for this Independent Study
People-Ralph Haynes, Omar Cheng, Gregg Parker, Adam Cohen, Quanzina Haynes, Deborah Moon

Musical Instruments
Guitars, Pianos, Drums, Brass, Woodwind, Percussions( maracas, tambourines, etc)
My Official Declaration
Music is a necessity to life and to live for any creature on this planet. Music comes from the water as it ripples, it comes from the wind blowing off the trees and the birds chirping in the morning. Music is powerful and I shall the right to use my talents to bring people together.

Citations
Music and the Brain: What Happens When You're Listening to Music. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/your-brain-on-music/

Monday, January 27, 2020

Using Light To Our Advantage

In my STEAM course Light, Sound, and Time we went over light and how it affects our everyday life. We learn about the human eye, time, light rays and the power of the sun. The course begins by reading a book of our choosing and after we read and we share a lesson plan with our class. This engaged classmates and challenged one another to think deeper. We learned about the properties of light and how it acts both as a wave and a particle. Later, we spent time discovering the electromagnetic spectrum and experimented with the visible light spectrum. We did this by using a prism and focusing light at the center of it. During our short course, we noticed how similar the human eye and cameras are. So after experimenting with the idea our teacher gave us, the assignment to design our Pinhole Camera, we actually went on an FE to a dark room at Truman College. There, we got our pictures processed in a dark room and learned the thorough process of making an original picture. We had to take our light-sensitive paper from the box and place it in 3 chemicals. First, we put in developer, fixer, and stopper. After we washed the picture, we dried it and took it home. Below are images of my Pinhole Camera that I made out of a tea box.

JNL.2020
JNL.2020
JNL.2020
JNL.2020

Step by step process of building it

  • Collected materials for the camera, these included (Cardboard box, Tape, Black paint, Aluminum can
  • Cut out a tiny hole in the middle( I used a pen for this)
  • Paint the entire box black. Either tape or paint
  • Cut out a square piece from the aluminum can; Keep it as flat as possible
  • Make pinhole by using a thumbtack and putting it through the aluminum
  • Tape your aluminum onto the very small precise hole
  • To make a shutter you can cut out a square piece of cardboard and tape over the hole
  • Use a closet as a darkroom to add your light-sensitive paper with the glossy side up with tape on the bottom
  • Close your shutter and make sure no light gets in 
  • Now find something to capture and open the shutter for approximately 5 minutes

JNL- Math Calculations 2020


The first photo that I took on my pinhole camera developed, but looked more like a ghost than my object. At first, my object was a water bottle, but after going to the darkroom I changed my object to a tree. I think my camera was open for too long and had more exposure than I needed. At Truman, our guest generously helped us to make sure we didn't leave empty-handed. So we took at least three runs to capture some images, either by adjusting the amount of time we exposed our camera to light or to check if any light was getting through. I enjoyed learning about the process I thought it was pretty neat. A term that was brought up in our class was refraction. Refraction is the phenomenon of light and radio waves being deflected in passing obliquely through the interface between one medium and another or through a medium of varying density. It can change at different speeds and focus on certain parts of the eyes.

JNL 2020- Picture I took of a tree outside of Truman College

My Pinhole camera captured enough light through the shutter. The light captured flashes and reflects what I'm aiming at onto the light-sensitive paper. We painted our inner box black because white reflects and black absorbs. If it was white, there wouldn’t be a clear image of the photo I took. The black inside won't let any light through, so when you open the shutter a certain amount of light will come in and then close back up. The light that shines through acts as a wave, while also behaving like a particle because the light is made up of photons that can act like particles. 
To wrap things up, I think that this action project was pretty beneficial to learning more about light. We applied simple but complex lessons in class. Directly, to our pinhole cameras, it related to what we learned, which was a plus. I think to go forward another FE would be great and more experiments to get us more engaged. Learning about light this course was pretty unique and interesting. 

Shoot for the Stars..... Not So Fast!

During my second unit of my STEAM course, Frontiers, we've explored the skies and beyond. We have been looking into space like a book wi...