This issue is significant because we are fearing people that are supposed to protect us. This was stated in another [article] (https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793)
, “For young men of color, police use of force is among the leading causes of death.” This here picture represents an estimated lifetime risk of being killed by police by force as while as sex. This data is from 2013 to 2018. You can’t make these things up. ( check out this [link] (https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1MQj3Y27CP7t4oNlHg5QpBrF-q92kCF2rmkMvxLnxdOo/edit) for more information).
In some of my ongoing research I haven’t really seen any progress to ending police brutality, but I can say I really haven’t seen anyone post something that involves police brutality. I can say that the George Floyd case is finally over and the officer was charged with murder , [link] (https://www.npr.org/sections/trial-over-killing-of-george-floyd/2021/05/04/993665655/derek-chauvin-files-for-new-trial-in-george-floyd-murder-case).
I decided to create a zoom so African American young people( in the school) could have a safe space to talk about their feelings towards police brutality. It was an ok experience, this is something that I will make sure I keep track of because it’s very important as a young black American. I felt good doing this project, it felt good to learn things that I never knew. I learned that this topic was more touching to me than I thought it would be. I feel like I could have put more effort into this project. What’s still left is us getting our voices heard.
In my previous post, I discussed what problems happen often with police mishandling situations, and what programs we can implement to help stop police brutality. This is a very big problem that has a lot of media attention already, unfortunately because of the people who lost their lives at the hands of police. We see this primarily with the Black Lives Matter movement and I see a lot of people raising awareness over social media. An interesting website I found called Campaign Zero, is a national organization which focuses on stopping police brutality by pushing to pass legislation to create anti brutality laws. They also find solutions to police issues and organize protests. Another website that I found is Dream Defenders. They are based in Florida and believe in creating our own programs to uplift our communities instead of relying on the police. I think these kinds of organizations are the most effective way of making positive change, by really acting on the issue. While being educated is a great step, not using that knowledge to act on a problem is not as helpful as it could be. So this organization is a great way to act on the issue. On raising awareness, I think social media is the fastest way. This could be a problem though because sometimes false information is spread around. But usually I find that it’s a good way to bring attention to a cause.
My agent of change was creating a website that educates the reader more on my topic of police brutality and provides sources to how they can help by donating or signing petitions. I decided to share my website in three ways.The first way was by sending out an email to orange stream. Second, I put it on my instagram page in my bio, and lastly I posted it on Padlet. My experience creating this was good. I enjoy making websites so this was a more enjoyable project for me. I was effective in making change in the way so if someone decides to view my website, even if they decide not to donate or sign petitions, they will at least be educated on how we can stop police brutality.
The home page of my website
I learned a lot during this project. I learned a lot about police brutality in general, and it’s terrible effects. I also learned about the big question; how do we stop police brutality? I hear frequently “defund the police” and “police reform” but not actually how to do this and what steps to take. And I’m happy to say I learned a lot of ways to do this properly so that communities and people get the support they need. I felt like researching this was my point of pride in this project. It really is a really interesting topic thats so important. What I liked seeing in other people’s projects is what interested them or what they’re passionate about. Just their choice in their topic alone is interesting. What I felt that I could do better is time management. I struggle at many points to get it in on time. All that is left for this project is hopefully more people click the link to my website so they can learn more about how to stop police brutality.
In my previous SLATE post, I talked about the recent hate crimes going around, affecting the AAPI community during the Pandemic. I gave awareness by talking about the sources that I used to help me give off this information, gave some of my opinions on recent hate crimes, and why these hate crimes are happening towards the AAPI community. But overall, giving knowledge to the readers that there is a major issue that is not being taken seriously.
Now, in my journey of making my website, I came across sources that helped me a lot to make the way my website looks and the information that lies in it. The first source that I used to make my website was NextShark. I couldn’t have made any of this without NextShark. NextShark gave me the information and knowledge, that I needed to help me translate the information back to people who didn’t know about AAPI hate crimes, during the Pandemic. The website is just filled with the latest information on AAPI hate crimes or just typical news in the AAPI community. They also talk about the latest AAPI “business, culture, entertainment, politics, tech, and lifestyle.” - NextShark. The second source that I used for my website, is this gofundme page. I talked about if people wanted to help, to stop these hate crimes, they could donate to that gofundme page. And the people who are raising 8 million dollars for the AAPI community will help “organizations that empower and uplift the AAPI community, with initiatives such as increased community safety and support for those affected by violence.” - gofundme description. And finally, the third source that I used was SYSTRAN Translator. I used this translator to make my digital flyer in different Asian languages. I translated my English sayings to Chinese (Simplified), Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Thai. I translated my words into 5 languages because I didn’t want my digital flyer to just have Asian Americans helping the AAPI movement, but elderly AAPI too. The elderly AAPI are always the “easier targets” for hate crimes. But they have been through the thick and the thin, just to live a good life in the U.S. So, giving them this type of information would help the AAPI movement impact others more quickly.
When thinking about what I could do for my Agent of Change project, I didn’t really think of doing something big. For my topic, I knew it was a big issue to tackle. That is still happening in the world. Then the idea of making a flyer about AAPI Hate, and putting those flyers up around my neighborhood seemed like a great idea to me. Then my sister suggested making a website with a digital flyer instead. I wasn’t really into that idea but as I continued thinking about my sister’s suggestion, I thought that it wasn’t that bad of an idea, and I could add more information about AAPI hate. So, I started my website by not knowing what I was doing and wondering if I should change my Agent of Change idea but pulled through. I first started working on the format of my pages, then settled on good-looking formats and went with that. Afterward, I started working on my page backgrounds, and decorate them with Stop AAPI Hate posters, created by artists: Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, JULIA KESTNER DESIGNS, colorsofhoney, Danielle Chandler, pauline.c.cuevas, Pi Delta Psi, Michelle Wang, Yuk Fun, Lauren YS, evexcristina, Eric Lee, Tika, and Brett Sayles. To make my website have an indie, friendly feel.
Stop AAPI Hate posters by: Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya
Stop AAPI Hate posters by: JULIA KESTNER DESIGNS, colorsofhoney, and Danielle Chandler
Stop AAPI Hate posters by: pauline.c.cuevas, Pi Delta Psi, and Michelle Wang
Stop AAPI Hate posters by: Yuk Fun, Lauren YS, and evexcristina
Stop AAPI Hate posters by: Eric Lee, Tika, and Brett Sayles
And, after finishing with all the requirements that I thought my website needed, I began to notice that this was a good first experience making an actual, professional website. I enjoyed researching this topic because being part of the AAPI community made me passionate about reading victim’s stories. I feel that doing this initiative, making a website to get individual’s attention about Stopping AAPI Hate was a great idea after all. I know for my project, I could’ve joined in Stop AAPI Hate protests in Philly, but since of COVID-19, I decided to make my project virtual. Overall, I hope that I affect many people in the SLA community, to know more about the struggle that the AAPI community is facing.
After looking at the final product of my website for a few days, I felt pretty proud of what I made. Even though the process of making my website was pretty stressful and difficult, I still was fulfilled with the final product. I learned that I am capable of more things than I thought. I would’ve never thought that I was able to make a website that might impact other people’s lives for the better good. And, I learned that other people who are supporting the Stop AAPI Hate movement can really benefit by impacting the world. The Stop AAPI Hate community is very diverse and has a lot of different perspectives from this movement. The movement isn’t just to help the AAPI community but could also help other voices that also need to be heard. For example, “Over 85 Asian and LGBTQ+ Groups Band Together to Oppose COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act” - NextShark. Currently, in NextShark news, the LGBTQ+ and the some Stop AAPI Hate organizations have banded together to support each other in ways society never supported them. By helping each other to spread awareness and support for one another.
Some things that I thought that I could’ve done better for my project was, to try to put more information about the Stop AAPI Hate movement. For my “About” page, I put questions that are very essential to learn about the Stop AAPI Hate movement. But specifically, I didn’t get to tell the stories of the victims that were affected by the hate crimes. I knew that there were things that needed to change for the movement to make the AAPI community feel safe. And the things that we could start with: peaceful protests. It could catch the attention of the news, and make the government think about making a new equal rights amendment or act, that will help affect the AAPI but also communities that are in need of being heard. To fulfill their safety and equality. I know doing a protest sounds like a lot because it is. But this is a big issue that we’re dealing with. So, taking big steps for a big issue may just be an acceptable idea for what we’re dealing with.
In my previous Slate Post I talked about the effects victims have after experiencing being trafficked. Whether they are affected Mentally, physically, emotionally or all three everyone’s situation should be equally justified.
The biggest way victims of sex trafficking are being supported that I found through my research is organizations that give victims the support they need. Some bigger organizations I found are the Center for Human Trafficking Awareness (Florida), National Sexual Violence Resource Center (Pennsylvania), and Project Reach (Massachusetts).
Ways that people who haven’t experienced anything like trafficking but still want to help can always do things like, sign petitions, volunteer with local organizations, educate themselves, and create a club to spread awareness. Those are just a few simple ways you could help! I think these are great ways to educate yourself, others and support victims. The first way to become an ally is to make sure you are educated on the topic. As for the organizations, I also think these are really great sources for any victims that will find comfort in them.
This is an informative infographic I found very useful when educating yourself
While I was researching for ways to be an ally towards victims of sex trafficking I stumbled across an organization, here in Philly called Dawn’s Place. The mission of Dawn’s Place is to proactively support women affected by CSE and its abuse by providing direct services to women, raising awareness through education and generating prevention, public policy reform, and community collaboration. Dawn’s Place was a local organization, the website made it sound like all of the workers were so passionate about helping these women in need. So I emailed them asking if anyone was available for me to interview and Mary Shay, the program director and trauma therapist responded! So we talked for about half an hour, if you are interested in listening to the interview I will put it at the bottom of this post and hyperlink it here.
Dawn's Place
The reason I wanted to do an interview was that I think it was one of the best ways to learn more about my topic, and to hear about it from someone who dedicates their life to it and not just researching from google. Ms.Shay was an excellent resource and interviewee. She seemed super passionate about her job and how awesome of a place Dawn’s Place is. I am incredibly grateful I was able to interview her. I hope that through this project I was able to educate others about how much of a negative impact sex trafficking can have on a victim, I definitely learned a lot myself.
At the start of this project I was pretty nervous and had no clue what I was going to do. I am a pretty shy person and didn’t know how well my project would end up because of that. But in the end, I think the Agent of change portion of my project went very well. As for my project as a whole, I am pretty proud of it. I worked really hard and learned a lot about my topic. I think I maybe could have done better in finding resources, not necessarily better ones, just maybe more of them? Obviously, there is so much to do to prevent sex trafficking but like I said earlier and if I am remembering correctly it was also said in my interview, the best way to start is to educate yourself to the best of your abilities.
For my Capstone, I 3-D printed a Zen Garden Tray for children who had symptoms of anxiety or showed signs of inattentiveness and impulsivity. since I also wanted to incorporate Psychology and Engineering into my Capstone, I designed my Tray to appeal to 1 of the 5 senses. by appealing to 1 of the 5 senses, my design would teach children how to be calm and mindful.
It would also teach children a grounding technique, and possibly inspire them to do something Engineering-related. on the back of each design would be instructions, showing step-by-step instructions on how to design the product.
Zen Garden Tray on Fusion 360
3-D printed Rake that would be used for the Zen Garden Tray
For my capstone I decided on doing something I found a rekindled love, I would say I have for. Which was stop motion. I decided to make my capstone about stop motion because it is something that has been in my life for a long time and I knew as soon as we were assigned this I wanted to do something for it to show my work throughout the past year. So in this project, I decided I would go for an informational video that discusses the overall history, and how to make a stop motion yourself that I feel would inspire others hoping to make their own.
Here is the doc where I started everything:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PUyX8_LOUJOPGp5XaKjfmHicusLNqtJzNhWl22JW55c/edit
Since its not letting me post the video into here. here’s the youtube link:https://youtu.be/2Mf-mUfkI94
Intro:
For my senior capstone project, I wanted to make a website that talks about how the Coronavirus pandemic has affected the way students learn. In this website, I included my personal experiences with getting adjusted to the change in learning, as well as my struggle with procrastination/productivity. I also included different ways that students’ learning and mental health has been impacted during this time and ways we can provide support for them when things eventually start to open back up again. I wanted this website to be some sort of time capsule into the crazy times that we are living in today while also trying to support students by providing them with resources/ideas to help them during this difficult time.
My capstone was the progression of running a business as a student amid Covid-19. I have the last year and a half worth of footage documented to provide photo evidence of an ongoing skill that progressed with time.
Abstract: My mission for my capstone was to create a historical artifact about, what can be agreed upon as, the most historical 4 years of SLA. I want to create something that future students and possible prospects could use to get insight and understand the core of Science Leadership Academy; while making something we all can look back at. This website is a mix of stories, poetry, narratives, and reflections from the people at SLA.
The mission I created for myself for this Capstone was driven by a question: How can I Encourage the Youth to Invest at an Early Age? Although I am a young investor in cryptocurrency and the stock market, I still wish that I started investing earlier! Developing good money habits and management earlier would most likely have left me with enough money to go to one of my dream colleges. Not only that, but these habits would have saved me a lot of money, and helped me get started on my path to financial freedom way earlier! Now to educate others on the topic of investing, I also had to educate myself. So for the entirety of my senior year, I devoted most of my time to researching any topics related to the stock and cryptocurrency markets as I was still so new to investing. Through my journey, I spread the knowledge I was gaining to people such as my friends, parents, other family, and peers. My capstone had an “Inquiry” to drive this project, had “Research” and “Collaboration” with other young/old investors to complete this project, “Presentation” to fully utilize the potential of this project, and lastly had “Reflection” to learn from this project and learn from educating others.
For my capstone project I chose to make a small parody film about what goes on in the mind of a procrastinator. Throughout the year my capstone goal had been changed around a lot, from me wanting to make a full professional film to me just wanting to make something silly and amusing. I decided to take out a small part of the film that I initially scripted since this scene had included both the stereotypes of your average procrastinator while also contradicting some of them. Most procrastinators are seen as lazy and unproductive, so I decided to show said procrastinator being productive despite it not being what the procrastinator initially wanted to do. Throughout the school year it was very difficult to focus on school due to in-home responsibilities, so there were many times when the need to focus on my home responsibilities overpowered school. My film was mostly an opportunity to toy around with premiere since past years I didn’t get much experience with it.
For my Capstone, I wanted to find out what family meant to different people. In order to do that, I sent out an online survey about who people considered to be in their family, and then asked the respondents further questions about their different ideas on family. I then used the answers and put them into a website so that people could view the different responses I got.
For my Capstone I created a short audio and visual podcast series called “The Dead and the Decomposing”, looking into what happens when we die and how the living have decided to cope with it. Each episode had a different topic: “The Process of Death”, “Methods of Burial”, “Effects of Death on the Environment”, and “Mass Death” - including a “Field Trip” episode which is essentially a short vlog of my spring break when my mom and I poked around some old New England cemeteries.
My goal was to combine all of my creative interests such as writing, drawing, and video editing with my academic strengths: giant research papers, while also creating something fun and easily accessible (so the opposite of a giant research paper).
