Final Food Benchmark


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Macaroni Salad 


Recipe:

◦ Macaroni – Whole box

◦ Vegetable oil – 2 caps

◦ Salt – 1tbs.

◦ Butter – 1 TBSP.

◦ Parsley Pereil – N/A

◦ Turkey Ham – A Whole Slice Of Turkey Ham Cut Up

◦ Bacon Pieces: Bacon Flavored Bites – N/A

◦ Peas - Half Of A Can

◦ Dry White Cooking Wine – 4 Drops

 

Steps On How It Was Made:

  1. Stir macaroni into 6 cups boiling water
  2. 1 tsp. of salt into the pot
  3. Boil rapidly 7 to 10 minuets or until macaroni is tender
  4. Drain the macaroni
  5. Put it into a bowl (or wherever you want to put it at)
  6. Grabbed 1 slice of turkey ham
  7. Sliced the ham into little boxes
  8. Put it into the salad
  9. Pour 2 caps of vegetable oil
  10. 1 TBSP. of butter
  11. Mix it up
  12. Pour some parsley into the bowl, doesn’t matter how much you pour but what I did was I shacked it once or twice so that it can have some type of taste to it
  13. Same with the bacon pieces, you can pour how much you want into your salad but I shacked it a little once or twice so that it can have flavor
  14. Pour half of a can of peas
  15. 4 Drops of white wine
MIX IT ALL UP & you’ll get a macaroni salad


Self Reflection:
 I’ve learned a lot since I’ve had science and society. In this class we talked and read about the big food vs. big Insurance op-ed basically the op-ed talked about how three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet, there’s smoking, for instance. We also learned about cancer and one of the articles we had to read was a cure for cancer? Eating a plant based diet, and that article talked about how one out of every two of us will get cancer or heart disease and die from it. And starting in the year 2000, one out of every three children who are born after that year will develop diabetes. We also talked about sugar prices. My mom also said that cooking at home can be a healthier and cheaper solution, the effects of diabetes can be reversed with a good diet and that eating healthy is much easier when you have a simple food rule to live by because buying stuff from the store or from the cart isn’t healthy. I think its better if you cook at home then buy junk at the store or from anywhere else it’s way healthier if you cook at home because usually my mom would buy mostly healthy stuff for the house even though me, my brother and my sisters love junk food on regular basics.



Food Rule:
This is a statement my mom always said to me when i used to always buy random things in the store and eat anything i had in my house. I thought this was a good rule because i thought it was true, you cant trust everything you eat, what if its old or have something in it that you don't know about.


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Screen shot 2011-11-10 at 3.00.39 PM

Lobbying Post #2

Who represents me?

Michael Nutter

What do you and your representative have in common?

We like Larry’s cheesesteaks, and believe in public service to your community.

·       Learn their biographies

·       Micheal Nutter born in 1957 lived in west Philadelphia and attended Saint Joseph University. He moved on to The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. In June 2002, as councilman, Nutter introduce a measure requiring college students under 23 years old in Philadelphia’s Fourth Council District (students at SJU). He has influenced much of the policies throughout Wynnfield.

·       

·       His main policy is direct to community affairs, to serve and help the community.

·       His interests are directed toward community service, and ethics.

·       We have worked together before and both believe in community service to better our environment.

 

Art 2- Quarter 1- Art Collection

​Figure Drawing & Clear Object Drawing

In my experience I had a very hard time comprehending how to draw the person, when we were doing our figure drawing. There were many times when I did want to stop, give up and be done, but since Ms. Hull doesn't let us give up, that wasn't an option. I think in the end i did have a good out come, I do think I could have made it better though. That applies to everything though. This was one of the harder things I've ever had to do in any art class. That was because I was completely out of my comfort zone, I hate drawing people. I am proud of what I accomplished though. None of our drawings looked exactly, but after a while I understood that everyone has a different perspective, so there really is no "Correct" way for your project to end. So though I don't think it's perfect, I'm proud of what I was able to accomplish, because it was much more than I ever saw myself doing. 

With the Clear Object Drawing I was scared before we started, because I've never drawn anything I could see through before. So that was something new, and clearly I did finish it, but I feel like there was a point in the middle of the process where I would have liked to stop and be done. Not because i was tired of the drawing, it just felt finished to me. I do like what I ended up with though, I think I did eventually get the essence of the glass. The video we watched in our art class really did help though, before that I had no idea how to even start drawing the cup. It really gave you the essence of how to get all the curves, and the lighting and how that traveled through the glass. So in the end, I like my outcome, and am glad I learned from the experience.






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2011-11-03 14.21.57

Marquis Simmons Drawings

This quarter I drew two pictures, the see-through glass drawing and the full body drawing.

Glass Drawing:
For the glass drawing, I used charcoal and an eraser. The charcoal was used to shade the background and draw the actual glass. Then I used an eraser to create the reflection of the light off of the glass. The hardest part of this drawing was making sure the reflection of the light looked right and in the correct perspective of the glass. I didn't want to make the light look too unreal, but I also didn't want to not have enough of the light because it would have taken away from the 3-D aspect of the picture.

Full Body Drawing:
The full body drawing was the hardest out of the two drawings I did. Going into the drawing I thought it would be easy. I started off by outlining the model's body from my perspective of her. Then I tried to get into detail by adding little things to the picture. It was hard to try to copy her exactly and to keep certain parts of her body in proportion to the rest of it. If I had more time, I would have probably gone more into the details of her face and clothing; adding shade would have given the picture a more realistic aspect.
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CIMG0037
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CIMG0035

Art Within Bodies

        This project required me to take photos of five different people. These photos were taken in the same position and around the same place. By doing this, I ensured that there was no difference between the pictures that would drastically affect the difference in body structure. All of the pictures were in taken in a natural and relaxed position. After taking all those pictures, I went into Photoshop and cut the photos in fourths. The fourths consisted of head, shoulders to waist, waist to ankle, and ankle to end of shoe. My intentions were to put a persons head on top of another persons shoulders on top of another persons legs with someone else’s feet. However, I kept the heads next to each other at the top of the page, and spread the rest of the parts of the people throughout the rest of this page.

         Within this project, I focused on what I wanted to express through my art. I wanted to convey the different parts of people and how they can be looked at separately and more in depth. I wanted to show why certain parts of the body are a certain way on certain people. The final project conveys how people are meant to have certain features about themselves. If they are not on their own bodies than they should just be in space.  

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Screen Shot 2011-10-26 at 8.12.02 PM

Reflection! Mohamed Marzouk

https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/election-holiday/

https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/election-holiday/rebuttal-paper

Questions:
How did you group go about making a decision for what to focus on for the project?
We just told each other to work on each others part. And, who ever had problems we would help out. Also, when coming down to a decision on what to focus on we just agreed  


·       11th grade Essential ? - What is the role of the individual in creating and sustaining change? 
We have to always change. Because, no one's perfect.  Everyone has there own prefrefence so they are responsible for there own learning

My understanding of the electoral process improved, since I talked with someone close with the process so, he told me a lot of the things that he knew and he told me some things that I already knew, but he was a lot of help.

 

I thought it being written down would be the best way because people can read the interview and really understand what the person is saying other then a video because sometimes a video can go too fast and not explain anything.

Benchmark:History Of A Bill

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/present/edit?id=0AfCQjOyVevDQZGc0enB3OWZfMWdma2hjZGRu

  • I chose to do my benchmark on Defense Of Marriage Act, because i thought it was interesting and i wanted to know more about it. I chose Keynote because i think keynote is awesome but sometimes it crews you over because it can't be uploaded to some places such as Scienceleadership.org so i had to screen shot the slides on my keynote and add it to google docs and make it into a presentation on there so that my teacher can see it, so of course i had to share it with her. If i had to do my benchmark over i would probably put less words, (i do not know if its to much words) because i have lots of wording in it and i think it looks smashed together, and i do not like my presentations with to much of information. When i first started researching my bill/law i noticed that the Defenses Of Marriage did have lots of problems, people had trouble with there lover because they couldn't marry the same race. I thought it was pretty hard doing because i didn't know exactly what to put on my keynote.

Artist Statement - Breeanna Noi

So my first drawing was of Gabe. It looks very cartoon-like and it resembles Sam Sirochman more than it resembles the "model." I attempted to draw it in a more realistic form, but all of my screw ups caused me to just say, "This isn't working, so let's try it THIS way.." But other than that, I think my alternative piece came out well enough. 

My first drawing was of a round clear object. Again, still and realistic art pieces have never been my strong point. I also have a tendency to outline my pieces really dark and then include the detail. Which may be the reason why they didn't come out too well. I started out just drawing because I didn't watch our outline video. I learned a new thing with shadowing with helped me tons. Shadowing first was never something I thought about. Now, I feel like I'm gradually improving in art. But I'm also improving on my real life writing so that's always a plus.. 
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C360_2011-11-1013-19-26

Quarter 1 Benchmark Reflection

​My portion:
Campaign Ad and Logo 

https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/a-moment-of-your-time/advertising

​Entire Project: 

https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/a-moment-of-your-time/


We at first brainstormed on what was one of the biggest issue on why there were significantly low percentage of voting turnouts. And we thought because, Tuesdays are rather busy days. It's after monday but not even the middle of the week. So we came upon a decision on weekend voting.

Great change is brought upon by great leaders, one must lead in order to gain followers and bring a revolution in effect.

I honestly didn't have much of a clue of how the electoral college worked along with voting. Instead of an object as you would think it'd be, it's actually a process to go through and as each part of the government has their own role. 

In my group's marketing campaign, I honestly thought the Campaign Ad I made was pretty convincing, it just shows a slow down in our daily lives. Like a busy city, busy streets, and packed up schedule, yet we vote on Tuesday? So weekend voting is less stressful more convenient and indeed more relaxing without bringing so much concern. This would encourage people to vote more. 

Non Discrimination act


​sources 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_Act


reflection:
Why I choose to the the Non Discrimination Act was because I feel that 
it is wrong that  judge people based on looks and their gender 
identity. equality is the most important thing to have. Not everyone 
understands how important equality is.
My method for choosing a flow map was because I thought It would be 
easier way to tell a story 
If I was to do this project again I would choose a different method 
then what I did and also staying more on top of things with the 
organization process.
The research of my bill taught me that it can be either passed or fail. 
In my case my bill kept getting re- introduced and brought into congress. 
As of today they are still fighting to pass the law officially. The 
process was harder then what I imagined.  
EmploymentNonDiscriminationACT
EmploymentNonDiscriminationACT

Food Benchmark: Baklava/ Food, Food, and more Food

Baklava (Arabic Pastry)


Ingredients:

- Fellow Sheets (Flour Sheets) One pack 20 sheets
- Canola oil half cup
- Almonds half pound
- Sugar 4 tbsp
- Vanilla
- Syrup (4 small cups of sugar and 1 1/2 cups of water and 1 tbsp of lemon juice)

Directions:
1. Bring the a rectangular tray and brush it over with the canola oil so it doesn't stick to the pan
2. Divide the 20 sheets into 2 groups: one group for the bottom and one group for the top.
3. Put 10 flour sheets on the tray for the bottom and every two sheets you put down, brush the whole surface with canola oil.
4. Put half a pound of almonds into a food processor and grind until it is in small pieces.
5. Take the almonds out of the food processor and place into another bowl. Then proceed to add the 4 tbsp of sugar into the almonds and add the vanilla in as well.
6. Put in a bit of water and mix.
7. Spread the almonds onto the sheets you prepared and then take the other group of 10 sheets and every two sheets you put down, brush the surface of the sheet with canola oil.
8. Then proceed to cut the whole thing into small square pieces. (you can make the pieces big or small). Then spread canola oil all over the top.
9. Then put the whole tray into the oven on 325˚ for 30 minutes. Then after the 30 minutes has passed, raise the temperature to 450˚ for 5 minutes exact.

(Meanwhile you already prepared the syrup just by mixing the 4 small cups of sugar, 1 1/2 cups of water,  together and then put them on the stove until it boils. Then lower the flame a bit and add the 1 tbsp of lemon juice in. Let it proceed to boil until the mix looks like a honey mixture. Let it cool completely.)
10. Proceed to take the tray out.
11. Right when you take it out, spread the cooled syrup on top of the whole baklava.


Analysis

a. I would say that its approximately 25% processed and 75% whole foods. Everything is whole except the Almonds. The almonds are the only processed.

b. The caloric count is about 250 calories, about 7 grams of sugar id assume, and about 10 g of fat I'd say. My body will store some of sugar that it obtained from the baklava I made and get rid of what it doesnt need to the liver.  Some health issues that would come up if I ate this meal every day would be diabetes because of the amount of sugar it has, possibly get sick because I am not taking in certain amounts of nutrition, just alot of protein, sugar.

c.  About everything came from the United States I'd say, but I would say that it was mostly grown in California, because it is a popular place to grow many ingredients, especially the almonds. The sheets and vanilla traveled far I know because they were bought from an Arabic Store, in which most of the products were made in Middle Eastern countries. It was not organically grown. The processing for the sheets may effect the environment, but on the package it said it was processed in a factory, so the factory probably uses gas and that gas goes to the atmosphere, etc.

d. The meal, not counting everything in all of the packaging (only the amount of ingredients used) approximately costed 10 dollars. It is so much better than fast food because 2 sandwichs from Mcdonalds would cost about 10 dollars while this 10 dollar pastry would last you a very long time because of the large quantity made from the partial amount of ingredients.

Companies:
Fellow flour sheets

Berkley and Jensen

Wesson

Domino

Badia

I would say that Berkley and Jensen and Wesson are big companies and the others are smaller espeicially because they are from middle eastern companies. I believe that there is always a bigger company that controls everything.

e. I'd say that they probably added some preservatives and also grew them in a certain way to make them either grow faster or grow a certain size/ have a certain taste etc. Just like we saw in the movie, how they use different fertilizers and feed differently makes the product different than if you were to grow normally. Many companies say certain things to attract customers. They will say anything to please the people; money over everything basically. Growing the ingredients myself might not give me the best quality that you get from using different fertizlizers and such, but it would still be fresh and "clean".

_________________________________________________________________________

Personal Reflection

If it weren't for this quarter, I definitely would not have known this much about food and the real story behind where your food comes from. I learned things that I really was surprised about, such as the point that 90% of all foods are either made with or from corn, food conditions (how they are slaughtered, treated, etc.), how the food industry has a hold on everyone, and how every single word you say can be used against you. I could keep naming so many more things I learned, but it would make this more of a list, not a reflection. Learning all this information in this unit, making presentations on the Food Inc. movie, presenting all that infromation; it made me think about what I can do to inform people about what is truly in their food and how their food is produced. Many people don't get the chance to be informed like we did, and its a problem. People need to become educated and find out more; do research, do interviews, go the extra step. The government doesn't want us to know about the truth, but if we knew the truth and we spread the word, it would impact the world in a big way, and possibly make change in the food industry. Another problem in our food system is the point that its basically all about the money. If the people don't know about it, then why tell them and possibly lose the money? People have to really fight to put all of this out in the open. After watching and learning so much this unit, it has actually change my eating habits in a big way. I started eating less outside, I encouraged my parents to buy many products from the amish stores around the block and they finally did so, and I even started reading the nutrition facts and trying to avoid the bad stuff like high fructose corn syrup, etc. These choices have really played a great impact. I stopped spending so much money, I'm becoming more informed, and I'm more content with what I'm putting into my mouth. I think that if everyone were to take the same step I took, it would really impact their lives for the good as well. In conclusion, this unit has really taught me alot, and though many people might not think the same way I did after this unit, I'm really glad I learned what I did. From Food Inc. to organic/non-organic foods, this unit was a great learning experience.

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Food Rules Slide


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Screen Shot 2011-11-09 at 10.18.48 AM

Art Q1 Reflection Journal

​1. Full Figure
2. Clear Object

This Art quarter Ms. Hull assigned us a project to draw a still life drawing human body - which was modeled by Gabriel. Since I had experience with this in other art classes this appeared to me rather easier than it came to most less experienced artist but I also learned many new things that I didn't know before about drawing this still life figure. With this assignment I used some of the artistic skills I was used to such as shadowing and shading to give it more of a realistic feel. The clear object drawing I was more familiar with because I enjoy using the shadowing method a lot when it comes to creating artwork so it really followed through with this assignment.

For the next quarter, I plan to work more on the outline of things instead of just focusing on the shading and shadowing of them. Also I want to learn how to work with my facial expressions and structure like the eyes, nose, and smile. I would also be interested in learning how to draw landscapes and more in deft drawings. 


nyjiwdj
nyjiwdj

Science and Society Benchmark 2011

Personal Reflection​

In the Food unit we watched “Food Inc,” a documentary about the food industry. We also read several articles by columnist Michel Pollen and discussed the problems and practices about the food we eat.

            I noticed we were rather biased as group against the food industry and no one tried to defend them. I also noted everyone acted with emotion but failed to come up with a reasonable solution. Also folks tend to blame big corporations on all the world evils that are every ones fault and no ones fault.

            We read a little too much of Michel Pollen I would have liked to read some one else. I am sure others have written on the topic and would want some different viewpoints.

            What I liked was the style of presentation how we learned one little thing at a time and head to answer questions that would help us retain that information.

            And of course I liked the feast. It was tasty. 

            I’m rather disappointed that no one listened to my solution, which I thought was brilliant. What we could do is everyone (in America) puts in five to twenty dollars and we collectively sue the big food corporations. That we even the playing ground and make sure they can’t say, “this is what are costumers asked for.”

            I think we would do much better if we didn’t have other things to think about then the food industry because we were all to busy to do any thing about it.

            All in all a good unit but it could have been better.


Food Recipe

 

Salad

Lettuce

Baby Tomatoes

Cucumber

Carrot

 

Wash Vegetables break the lettuce pieces in half and put in a large bowl. Though baby tomatoes in bowl and toss well. Skin Cucumber, cut it into little pieces, and dump in bowl. Skin carrot, cut it into little pieces, and dump in bowl. Toss well.

 

Salad Dressing

One part vinegar

Three parts olive oil

A pinch of parsley

A pinch of basil

 

Get out a small bowl. Put in vinegar and oil; add a pinch of parsley and a pinch of basil. Shake well before stirring.  

 

Salad is a traditional healthy choice when overloaded with salad dressing, bread, and meat. My dad always puts salad out with every dinner. Usually comprising of lettuce and some other vegetables. I bought the ingredients to this salad at whole and they cost too much. I would have bought them at the ninth street market it closed at the time and ninth street market food doesn’t last long.

BMQ1 Reflection

position paper: https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1A-9YO5mGVkaaZr13rfIuodWbF9bVFtpOSlRlotzH0vw/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1 

actual site: https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/don-t-have-a-cow-vote-by-mail/ 

-How did your group go about making a decision for what to focus on for the project? 
My group went about choosing our topic by sorting out what problems were brought up in class. We came up with mail voting. We thought this would be te most interesting because is only used in a few states so we were able to compare the data from those states and states that don't use mail voting.  

-11th grade Essential Question: What is the role of the individual in creating and sustaining change? 
The individual has to be a leader in the change and be able to commit to whatever they feel passionate about. To create change they must research and defend their opinion and they must commit to the cause in order to sustain it. 

-How did you decide to best relay a message to a national audience with your marketing campaign?  
We decided to create a Twitter page. We thought that through social networking we would be the best way for people to get to know what our focus was and how it could benefit all of the US. 

-How has your understanding of the electoral process and whether or not the US is a democracy evolved during this unit?  My understanding of the electoral process has changed drastically because before I didn't really know anything about voting nor the process. I definitely have a better understanding after this unit. Through this unit I noticed that since there was low voter turn-out the US as a democracy is not very accurate because not everyone votes so it makes it less of a democracy than it was before. 









Science and Society Benchmark 2011

​Personal Reflection
In this unit we have looked at many different things including organic food vs. conventional food we have looked at how animals are treated and raised before they are killed, we looked at big businesses and small businesses and we also have taken a look at fast food places and how they like to have their food replicated the same way. The one thing I think was most important about all of the discussions we have had about what we can do differently ourselves to make a difference in the our own communities. some people suggested that they would become vegetarians some people suggested that we stop buying from bigger businesses and start eating from smaller more healthy places. Another big deal that is going on is that we have talked about health insurance and obesity in the country. I personally think that the biggest problem with food related issues in children is that it is very accesible and cheap. I think if corner stores were not on every other corner in almost every section of the city than the obesity rate would drastically change just from that. Some changes I can make are to eat more healthy I have already eliminated soda from a regular diet and I do not eat after a certain time but I can make more conscious choices to pick out organic foods specifically or read labels and ask more questions. I think in making some of these choices I would feel better maybe be more energized and maybe lose weight . I think if I really wanted to I could make this change
Slide1
Slide1
Recipe and Analysis

Ingredients: 
2 cans of Tuna 
half a box of elbow noodles or any noodles that you prefer 
salt 
pepper 
Miracle whip or Mayo 
Relish 
2 boiled eggs(chop them up fine)

Step 1: put water into a pot and wait for it to come toa boil 
Step 2: Once the water comes to a boil put the about a half a box of elbow noodles into the pot 
Step 3: when the noodles are done place them into the strainer and drain all of the water from the noodles 
Step 4: place the noodles into a bowl big enough to mix in other ingredients 
Step5: place another pot on the stove with water in the pot and place two eggs into the pot let this come to a boil 
Step 6: take the eggs out and peel the shell off of the eggs, then chop up the eggs 
Step 7: Then put the eggs into the bowl with the noodles 
Step 8: next open up the two cans of tuna(In water) drain the water out of the cans and then put the tuna into the bowl with the noodles and the chopped eggs 
Step 9: then the next thing is take a tablespoon and a teaspoon of relish and place this into the bowl 
Step 10: this step is based off of skill and eyeballing and feeling now salt and pepper into the bowl
Step 11: mix everything together  
Step 12: taste everything and make sure it taste good  
Note:  the amount of each ingredient depends on how much you are making. so amounts may vary. 

Analysis: 
Even though this dish is not the healthiest it is delicious and tasty. As long as I can remember my dad has been making this dish and it has always been my favorite thing to eat. This is why I decided that I would make this dish for the class. 

As far as each ingredient goes it really depends on what you want to make it you can make this dish more healthy for example instead of using regular noodles you can use wheat noodles and you can change the meat that you put into it, relish has some kind of syrupy type of liquid into the relish, you can put whatever kind of eggs you want to put into it. 

This dish can come from anywhere most of the ingredients are processed and ready to go, I had trouble trying to find exactly where all the ingredients come from but we can produce some of the ingredients on Philadelphia farms also. 


This meal did not cost that much we have most of the ingredients already but if I were to guest I would say an maximum of  20 dollars. Overall the project was fun and exciting it is nice to not only see people bring in cultural foods but foods that mean something to them.

Food


Analysis:
The food was organic and none of it was processed. Since the food was organic my body should fair well with the ingredients in the chicken. There is some fat in the chicken, not much though, so my body should be able to burn off the fat. If I were to eat this everyday a health issue could be high cholesterol and I could become fat. My rice came from Wisconsin or some western state so that is pretty far. I'm not sure where the chicken came from but the rice was also organically grown. The environmental impact would be the flight from there to here. The chicken was about 10 dollars. However in comparison to a McDonalds chicken sandwich that is great. A chicken sandwich at McDonalds cost around 6 - 7 dollars. This was enough chicken for 4 sandwiches. This was chicken from Trader Joes, I don’t think I can get a chicken, maintain and grow him to eventually eat him. So socially I don’t think there would be any ramifications because I don’t believe the chickens were abused and mistreated, however even if it was, most of society doesn’t care about who did what with the chicken, they just care about the fact they are eating it


What I learned:


I have learned a fair amount from this food course I seen most of the movie we've watched so I didn't see anything really new, however I did discover some new things or paid more attention to things that I haven't done so in the past. One of the larger problems I believe is the dominance of the food industry and how they effective they are within the government. Government isn't supposed to have industrial interest because they are the government. So seeing how many government officials has something to do with food or other things like that it kind of put me on edge and question the actual stability and how corrupt is our government in reality. SO one of the things I think I can actually do would be to actually change the way I eat. For a while I cut down on beef and other meats, however in the house that I am in now it would prove to be difficult because I come from a family of meat eaters. Not to mention that my favorite food is a nice old fashioned cheeseburger. However anything is possible and I wouldn't say I couldn't but it would be hard, but I am willing. At least until they stop feeding fish corn, I would feel a lot better if they stop feeding fish corn and take the cows out of the cow concentration camps.





















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Q1 Benchmark Reflection

Link to entire project: https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/amending-the-constitution/

Link to my individual portion:
https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/amending-the-constitution/rebuttal-paper-shamarlon-yates

________________________________________________________________
Reflection
: Each member of your team must post an individual reflection at the end of the project (SLATE):

How did you group go about making a decision for what to focus on for the project?

My group
brainstormed numerous ideas about how we can improve voter turnout and then we decided to pick repealing the Electoral College since this was very influential during the 2000 elections. We thought that this was an important aspect of our voting system since it affects voter turnout.


11th grade Essential ? - What is the role of the individual in creating and sustaining change? 

Great change have been created throughout history though the role of one individual. An example of this is Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation. Change can start with one person but an individual has to initiate that change first and then other people will relate to this change and become part of it.


How has your understanding of the electoral process and
whether or not the US is a democracy evolved during this unit?

Before this project, I did not even know about the Electoral College and the role it plays in Presidential elections. I thought that the president was elected through direct popular vote. While conducting research and reading my group member's proposal paper, I learned about the history of the Electoral College and why it was created. I also learned about the pros and cons of both the Electoral College and the direct popular vote systems. I think that the Electoral College is very democratic since the direct popular vote method is used in each individual state to decide which candidate gets all the Electoral College votes in that state.


How did you decide to best relay a message to a national audience with your marketing campaign?  

We had a commercial and a print had to promoted why the Electoral College should be repealed. The commercial could go on TV and the print ad and the proposal could be printed in newspapers around the country.




Marina Pyfrom Q1 BM Reflection

​My Part (Print Ads):

https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/got-democracy-be-your-government/home/print-ads-got-democracy-be-your-government

Our Whole Project:

https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/got-democracy-be-your-government/home

Well we all answered the journal question and as a group we each shared our ideas. Then talked about each idea and then all came to an agreement on which one would our benchmark. Collectively we chose Combining National Popular Vote and Instant Runoff as our focus topic. 

If we all as humans come together, positive change will happen. All age groups can benefit from one an other. In order to create and support change we need to get rid of all the negative energy and replace it with positivity. 

I realized with the electoral college it does not benefit the people from small states which means every voters' voice is not being heard and that is not a democracy. That is exactly why we chose slogan "got democracy? … Be YOUr government" We want voters from all ages to feel as though their vote is valuable. 

Our marketing scheme was to mimic the successful "got milk?" campaign. As a group we all decided a print ad's slogan needs to be one thing and that was universal. A universal slogan is appealing to all age groups. The best thing about using a universal slogan is that it will always be remembered by your audience. Because we wanted to target an older and younger audience we chose to have a slogan that could be used as an entire phrase or broken into two separate ones with the same amount of impact. 

Our Slogans:

"got democracy?"

"got democracy?… Be YOUr government!"

Quarter 1 Benchmark Reflection

  • How did you group go about making a decision for what to focus on for the project?
    -Our group began with a ton of ideas that covered multiple ways of addressing the voter turn out problem in the United States. We debated for almost two day about the direction that we wanted to move forward in and ultimately it was out slogan that helped us finally decide what we wanted to do. Our slogan, "got democracy?...Be YOUr Government" lead us to the decision of combining National Popular Vote with Instant Run-off Vote to provide more of an incentive for voting and create a more educated or aware voter. 

  • 11th grade Essential Question - What is the role of the individual in creating and sustaining change? 
    - I believe that the role of an individual in creating and sustaining change is fully understand the change that is occurring and be active in its continued existence. In order change to be instituted, it must have support from the individuals that it will be effecting. If not then the change will be challenged and sustainability decreases. Change also requires supporting individuals to be active because if/when the change is challenged or active support decreases, the effectiveness of the change falls.

  • How has your understanding of the electoral process and whether or not the US is a democracy evolved during this unit?
    -Prior to this unit, it was my understanding that the because it is the international symbol of democracy, we must be pretty well off as a democratic nation. After the unit i have come to understand that although we are the international symbol of democracy, we do not live up to that international standard. I have also learned and formed my own opinons about the electoral system based on the research done during this project. Through research I learned the original reasons behind created the electoral system and that the US was created to be a republic not a democracy. I found this to be quite interesting because democracy is something that most if not all Americans value most.

  • How did you decide to best relay a message to a national audience with your marketing campaign?
    - Our group chose to target three specific groups at the national level. We chose to target youth, older Americans, and minorities. To do this we created a slogan that could be used three different ways. Each element of the slogan would appear in different forms of communication. For example the "got democracy?" portion of the slogan stood for the print add so that it would be mor accessible to an older audience and because older voters were more likely to correlate this ad with the successful "got milk" campaign. The "Be YOUr Government!" portion of the slogan targeted youth an minorities in the audio ad because it put the individuals at the center of attention and used music from an artist popular amongst youth and minorities. The combined elements of the slogan were used in the video ad. They were intended to be create a universal and unifying campaign.

    My individual work can be viewed here.
    Our group's final product can be viewed here.

Sophia Henninger Benchmark Reflection

The link to the whole project.

This
is the rebuttal paper I wrote.

  • How did you group go about making a decision for what to focus on for the project?
    It was not very difficult because we just chose what we collectively felt the strongest about which was the effectiveness of the Electoral College. There was also some discussion about concentrating on how voting is always on Tuesday, but in the end we decided the Electoral College is a more pressing issue. 

  • 11th grade Essential ? - What is the role of the individual in creating and sustaining change? 
    An individual must be committed to a change to sustain it. Say one person decided not to support a change, they could influence others do the same, then no one would be trying to change anything. An individual can quickly expand into a majority, thats how changes begin. People must stay committed to an idea to make it a reality. 

  • How has your understanding of the electoral process and whether or not the US is a democracy evolved during this unit?
    Before this unit I had almost no idea of how elections worked in the US. All I knew was that people went to polling places, stood in a booth, pressed some buttons and then they were done. I did not know about any of the regulations or processes of voting. Since then though, my knowledge on the subject has grown exponentially. Learning about the processes, like the Electoral College, and other things, has truly sparked an interest in me. All the laws surrounding voting in the US are interesting and some of them are still useful, but certainly not all of them. It makes me wonder why people havent tried to change them yet but then I remember that many people are as clueless about these things as I was before this unit. If everyone is to have a fair say, they must first be educated on the subject and this isn't happening. Things like that make this nation seem less free then it did before I knew these things. 

  • How did you decide to best relay a message to a national audience with your marketing campaign?
    In our marketing campaign we tried to emphasize that not many people even know what the Electoral College is. Showing that the people it is apparently trying to serve don't even know about it. By doing this we not only educated people on it but showed how dated it is. If more people knew about it, it may not as much of a problem because when voting, people would know what they're getting into and where their vote is going. I believe this was a very effective way to relay our group's message. 

Courtni Matthews Science & Society Q1 Benchmark

Vegetarian Lima Bean Soup !

Ingredients:

·      2 One pound bags of large dried lima beans

·      1 very larger or 2 medium Vidalia Onions

·      1 large green pepper

·      1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

·      2 heaping tablespoons minced garlic

·      ½ pot water

(For Taste)

·      Onion Powder

·      Ground Black Pepper

·      Mrs. Dash (Onion & herb)

·      Essence of Emeril Seasoning

·      Crushed red pepper flakes

·      1 tablespoon Agave Nectar



Procedure

1.     Soak 2 bags of Lima Beans in a full pot of cold water

2.     Sit aside for 8-16 hours

3.     Once soaking is complete Rinse lima beans in cool water in a large colander or strainer ( remove any discolored beans or empty shells)

4.     Chop onion and green pepper in small cubes (diced about ¼” )

5.     Heat large vegetable stock pot over med/high heat

6.     Add ½ cup of olive oil when pan is hot (heat until olive oil is hot )

7.     Add diced onion and green pepper

8.     Add seasonings and minced garlic

9.     Sauté onion, green pepper , garlic , and seasonings until vegetables glisten and start to become translucent

10.  Turn heat up to high

11.  Add very hot water until pot is half full

12.  Cover w/ lid and bring stock to a boil

13.  When liquid / vegetable mixture begins to boil Add 2 lbs of lima beans

14.  Allow to come to a second boil

15.  Reduce heat to low or simmer. Add agave nectar

16.  Simmer beans for 2 hours or until tender and liquid starts to thicken.

17.  Stir every 15-30 minutes with wooden spoon. If beans start to stick add water and reduce heat. 

18.  Taste beans in last ½ hour of cooking Add seasonings or Agave Nectar to taste

 

 

Recipe Analysis

When thinking of a “healthy meal” to share with the class I thought Lima Bean Soup was the perfect dish simply because it is a meat less, non-processed meal. Everything from the beans to the seasonings and vegetables to make the meal is whole and tasty! The lima beans used to make this meal were very cost effective and for families on a budget the brand of beans can be purchased with WIC and food stamps. This reminded me of a discussion we had in class when the issue of healthy food being too expensive came up and how it affects families’ decisions w/ purchasing food and cooking meals. Well there is no excuse for this healthy meal, if you can but things like pop tarts, different meats, and chips, you can without a doubt pick up a bag of beans and some peppers! Although this meal is time consuming, the way it is prepared allows time to get homework, housework, and daily tasks done while waiting. When meal is complete Lima bean soup becomes a quick throw and go meal. Great for packing a lunch or a quick dinner heat up ! Also, the packaging and preparation of the meal does not involve a lot of material. The material they do involve can be recycled. With all of this being said this delicious meal is great for a meal to last a few days and feed the whole house! You can put your own spin on it by adding hot sauce, throwing it on rice, and even vegetables. No matter how you like it, if you love beans it is a great healthy choice your body will be happy with!

Self Reflection

            This section has opened my eyes too so many different aspects of my health and also the health of my family members. It was definitely disturbing to see the truth behind different meat companies and how they deal with the animals. It made me feel somewhat helpless as a person who is not a vegetarian. To keep a steady diet it seems impossible to make the best choice in meets to create a balanced meal. Though I don’t see myself or my family members becoming vegetarian any time soon, we have taken extra steps to pay attention to where we buy our meat and checking the different labels so we can get the best meat possible. The other sections of the unit like Fracking for instance allowed me to educate my friends and family on what exactly it was. I have shared this information with my family to the point where it became annoying. After a while lunch and dinner time became very uncomfortable and I was just a nag when it came to shopping trips according to my family . I do not regret it because after all of the nagging something stuck with each one of them!




 

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