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For our first quarter benchmark in American Government, we were tasked with telling the story of one bill's journey to becoming a law.  I chose to research the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, which sought to overturn President Bush's 2001 policy, which halted federal funding for stem cell research on new embryos.  The story contained a few twists and the journey was influenced by many outside parties.  

Below is the link to my comic book.  Once it opens, simply click the thumbnail to view the entire book. 

H.R. 810: The Story of a Controversial Bill's Fall from Grace:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1954347/H.R.%20810%20Comic_Valentine/Launcher.html

My first quarter benchmark is a prezi that tells the story of how Copyright became a law. Hope you enjoy. Prezi

How The American Clean Energy and Security Act bill became a law

​Bill H.R.2454

How The American Clean Energy and Security Act bill became a law

​Bill H.R.2454

How The American Clean Energy and Security Act bill became a law

​Bill H.R.2454

->Click here for Benhmark<-

​In this benchmark, I chose to talk about H.R. 17 which would allow the American people to protect themselves in an event of a robbery and/or break-in in their home or business. Below, you will see my presentation on what this bill is, who started it, who supports it, and a personal note on what I think about it.

My first quarter benchmark is a prezi that tells the story of how Copyright became a law. Hope you enjoy. Prezi

Click the thumbnail to view an illustrated history of the Volstead Act.



BILL COMPLETED FOR ENFORCEMENT OF PROHIBITION. 27 Jun. 1919. The New York Times. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

Mendelson, Richard. From demon to darling: a legal history of wine in America. 2009. Google Books. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

Moore, Mark, and Dean R. Gerstein. Alcohol and public policy: beyond the shadow of prohibition.  20 Oct. 1981. Google Books. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

PLAN STRICT ACTION ON DRY BILL HERE. 29 Oct. 1919. The New York Times. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

PROHIBITION ACT PROBABLY HELD UP UNTIL JULY 7. 28 Jun. 1919. The New York TImes. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

"The Prohibition Era." historicpatterson.com. Historic Patterson, New York, n.d Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

Tumulty, Joseph. Woodrow Wilson as I know him. 1921. Google Books. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

For my benchmark I researched the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act of 2007 law. In order to tell the story of how this Act became a law I used a website named Xtimeline in order to create a visual time line. On there you can also look at the event list and read about each individual event that took place over time. You can see the time line section here while you can see the event list here. Also under each event you can see some of the resources I pulled from to craft my project.

<iframe height='390' width='928' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0'scrolling='no' frameborder='0' src='http://www.xtimeline.com/timeline/Animal-Fighting-Prohibition-Enforcement-Act-of-2007/embed/928/390'></iframe>

Me: 1. What motivated you to vote?

Ms. Boykin: My grand daughter goes to Temple and told me Joe Sestak was personally handing out flyers. That showed dedication I had to go vote.

Me: 2.  Do you vote every election?

Ms. Boykin: I vote at every Presidential Election.

Me: Do you know why we vote on Tuesday's ?

Ms. Boykin: Yes! Because they assume I don't have anything else to do. Just kidding, I remember asking my dad why, and I think he said something like way back , people went downtown all the time on Tuesdays to go to the markets. It was the most busy day so they kept it on Tuesdays, to keep a strong vote turnout.

Me: Where do you encounter the most campaigning ads?

Ms. Boykin: On Tv and on my dag' gon porch!

Me: Did you learn about voting in school?

Ms. Boykin:Nope!

Me: Are you always sure of who you are going to vote for when you walk into the booth or do you deliberate in the booth?

Ms. Boykin: Most of the time I know because I mainly go vote during Presidential Elections.

Me: Thank you so much for your time Ms.Boykin.

Ms. Boykin: No problem.

Nuestro grupo creó un podcast que explicaba la experiencia Latina Americana en los E.E.U.U.  Usamos partes de las historias de tres mujeres latinas, quienes migraron a los EEUU: Yolanda García, de "Como las muchachas Garcías perdieron sus acentos", Negi, de "Cuando era Puertorriqueña", y la madre de Natalie. Es es un cuenta de progreso y éxito.

Aqui está. :)

Que lo disfrutes. 
 

This is my quarter 1 American Government Benchmark. For this assignment I had to pick a bill and explain the process it went through to become a bill. The bill i picked was vetoed by the President. This made my project a little more interesting. To present my assignment I decided to create a Prezi.
Here it is.

I did a song to successful about the girl scouts coin that was passed by the House of Reps and congress and eventually signed by the president. In this song I talk about the process and the main sponsor and what he had to do to get the bill passed.

*The purpose of this project was to TEACH NOAH SPANISH!
*For this project, we wanted Noah to be able to: 

(1)...say where and when he's been to places. 
(2) be both informative and entertaining in speech.

These were are goals as well, but we also wanted to be able to:

(3) create a video that clearly explains the past preterite tense in a clear way.


*We decided these goals because we believe that they include all of SLA's core values, and that they are the key fundamentals to the unit.
*And for our questions to Noah? 


Why did you choose to move to Spain without knowing Spanish? 
Did you enjoy our video? 
Which video have you seen that was the most informative?

Nuestro grupo hizo un poema de tres partes que convertimos a un podcast. Jaccar fue el voz de Negi, Jhonas fue el voz de Yolanda y Josh fue el voz de Superman.

Jackie Garcia
Jhonas Dunakin
Joshua Martin-Corrales

Introducíon:  Cada persona en nuestro grupo leyó un libro que se trata de la experiencia latina en los Estados Unidos. Pensábamos, como un grupo, en los temas de estos tres libros, Cuando Era Puertorriqueña, Esperanza Renace, y De Como las Muchachas Garcia Perdieron el Acento. Dimos cuenta que un tema grande en todos los libros es el cambio de identidad. Entonces buscábamos ejemplos de eso.  En cada libro, una personaje se muda a nuevo lugar y pierda algo que tenía. Conectábamos el idea a la experiencia de la madre de Emma Connell, quien vivió en el Ecuador por un año. En el podcast, contamos las historias en el forma de diarios.

El tema general de este proyecto es para adapatar con culturas extranjeras. Nosotros usamos los libros "Cuano Era Puertoriqueña" y "Como los niñas Garcias perdieron los accentos" y una entrevista con Martha Robles sobre su vida llegando a los Estados Unidos. Todos las cosas que usamos contiene historias sobre personas que llegaron a los Estados Unidos cuando eran adolescentes. Todos ellos lucharon para poder adaptarse a una cultura extranjera.
Estudiantes en el grupo:
William Marsh
Martha Robles
Emma Hersh

AQUI

When starting this project I didn’t have a set idea on what I wanted to do. I never had a solid idea on how I wanted to make a project out of recycled material. At first I thought, wow a project made of recycled material this is a good idea. But I didn’t want to add none recycled material to it, I wanted to be made out of all recycled material. After thinking about a few ideas and sketching some ideas out I started coming up with some projects. I didn’t want the projects of projects just to do. I wanted them to be connected to me or relate to me somehow. What I had decided to do was paint over used cardboard boxes and cut and past letters and words from recycled magazines. After cutting out the letters and words I planned on making a poem about our environment and how recycling is a good idea. At first I didn’t have a poem on how to write it so I found a recycling poem that a 4^th grader had made, cited it and used it as part of my project. The world’s greatest artwork wasn’t finished in a day, and neither was mine. But I plan to finish the poem idea and place it on the school wall so that every one can see it.

Another idea I had was similar to the artist we saw at the exhibit. Her name was Aurora Robson. She took her nightmares and made them into her own creations. She took plastic caps, bottles, and string. She cut them and made them look like jellyfish and flowers hanging from the ceiling. My idea was to make the bottle caps and bottles into a collected of flowers. In my head I thought of paining them a light color so the glossy effect from the bottle still showed. I just started this project a few weeks ago and it’s taking me some time to do this project. I hope to also complete this project for the second quarter benchmark as well.

These projects that we are doing is tying into a quote that we are all probably know. Someone else’s trash is another person treasure. The students of advanced art took this quote into consideration without even realizing it. We’re helping our community and giving the thrash/ recycled material a voice. A voice that hopefully will be heard.

​A Very Trashy Dress
by Maximilien Marton

Artist Statement
When I think of statements like "Go Green," I think of a fashion statement. I realize that it is terribly pessimistic of me, but today, it would seem that when one says they are "green", it is almost like they are saying that they just bought that expensive pair of jeans everyone wishes they had. I constantly see celebrities on the news talking about what they have done for the environment.
Observing this unfortunate reality, I perceived an idea for an art project. I figured that if I take this hypothetical fashion statement, and turned it into an actual fashion statement, I could turn the negative to a positive. This is why I decided to create a dress out of a recyclable materials. I chose garbage bags as my medium, simply because they are black. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the phrase "green is the new black", and because of that phrase, I coined my own, stating that "black is the new green".
Unfortunately, I was unable to finish my dress. It took me a very long time to figure out a design, but eventually I settled on a v-neck dress with cascading newspaper along one seam. Around the later days of my process, after cutting, gluing (I still have some burns), and assembling the dress, I realized that I didn't have enough time to finish. When I realized this, I found out another horrible truth. My mother's boyfriend was looking for a trash bag, and picked up my dress. attempting to open the "bag", he tore the art by both seams. That was about four weeks worth of work, down the drain. You can imagine how livid I was with him.

Pictures
Sketches
      
The Dress So Far and the Dress Form That I Made (Duct Tape)
  

Bottle Cap Poster

The inspiration for my poster was resources being wasted, as you can see, the pepsi bottle is being emptied and wasted. Thus the slogan for the poster, "DON'T WASTE!"

Here is the timeline I created. It outlines the legislative history of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)



And here is a document containing the sites that I utilized in the making of this timeline.

Enjoy!

-Harrison