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The history of evolution shows us that when there is a pressure change that threatened the survival of an organism, the organism evolves to continue living.  That shows us that for future evolution, for example, homo sapiens might start to have more and more hair due to the recent climate change and issues of global warming, so they can continue to live and keep warm throughout the decades to come.  If the world where to become flooded, leaving very little land but enough for people to migrate and find new sources for food and shelter etc., then we would have to find another alternative to the way we live now. If people had to swim from point A to B, I don’t think that we would necessarily grow gills, but I do think that our lungs would grow larger and bigger. If you were to look at a mammal that lives in the water, such as a dolphin, whale, or sea lion, they do not have gills. They need to resurface from time to time to get oxygen. So, if  the world did start to flood you could only imagine that people would start to hold their breath longer and probably have webbed fingers and toes to help swim in the water.

I don’t think that evolution can be determined by looking at history and seeing what has happened.  I believe to see the future in evolution you have to look to the present and see what is happening now in front of you.  If there are no selection pressures maybe evolution will just start to get rid of what we don’t need, like the pinky toe or the male nipple.  The problem with the theory of evolution is that there is nowhere near enough data to say this is how evolution works.  The reason being for that, even though evolution is amazing on its own, it takes centuries for it to occur. 

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If there's trouble with that the link to school tube is below:

I liked the first slide I made, but I couldn't fight the feeling that there was something missing. I added a picture of myself. I thought that the contrast on the old slide was an overload of color, so I toned it down some. I made a more unique font, with a single poppable color. I took out the pie chart because it was just too much information at once.

I used contrast in the yellow words on red background. I used empty space where there is nothing in the upper-left and kinda rule of thirds in my picture. I used 3 different colors not including the picture.

Top: after   Bottom: before

This is a video that I made to tell the story behind the historic John Bartram house and garden.

Here is the link to my project script:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b58Ei8yxcquHR4XO8GUSBmBdYWpzO-ObUnYFbrKuUWM/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMul9vcG

Here is the link to my annotated bibliography:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Faexpbh2hRhEgJpquB8JVQ2F1JwPiDNPe_3359_cyao/edit?hl=en&authkey=CKfEyo4H

Natalie Sanchez 

For our first benchmark in Ms. Laufenberg’s history class and Mr. Chase's English class, we were assigned to tell the story of a building's history. This building had to be named after a person, and in some way, we were supposed to intertwine the stories of the people that influenced the name of the school and the history of the building. I chose to research the building at the intersection of 8th and Lehigh. This structure looks a bit like a castle, and I have always been fascinated by it. I was raised right across the street from this place. My personal memories of the building seem very distant, but I am flooded with good memories whenever I stop to remember my childhood on 8th and Lehigh. I remember playing on the side of the school with my cousins and taking walks with my father around the building just to talk about things. I remember the huge walls of the school and how I felt so microscopic when standing juxtaposed to this huge artifact. This is the impression that the building has left on me. This is why I chose to research, what many have referred to as, the "castle" at 8th and Lehigh.

When I first began my research, it was pretty complicated to find any information on the history of the school. I could find pictures of the building and of the people that the school was named after, but I couldn't find any historical dates and facts about the actual history of the structure. I then started speaking with some of the people that I know that have worked or studied at the school and could give me a more personal view of the school. One morning when I arrived to school, I started speaking with Mr. Paul, the security officer at Science Leadership Academy (SLA), about my project. He told me that he used to work at the school and that he knows some people that work with the school district and that know about the school. I got a lot of information from Mr. Paul. I also researched on the Internet, and found a lot of information on the school's history here and there. I went through the "digging-for-research" stage for about two weeks.

After this, I started to put my research into presentation form. I was going to originally make a documentary, but the videos that I took of the school were not compatible with imovie. Desperate to begin my presentation, I decide to make an iweb instead. I built the frame of my iweb by putting all of the research into the site first. I then gave up on all attempts at converting my video files, and decided to wait until I got to school to receive some help from Ms. Hull to convert my files. Luckily, I had art before English the next day, where I asked Ms. Hull for help converting my files. She showed me how to convert them, and then I was able to put the video files into my iweb. After a couple of clicks and waits, my iweb was finished.

My history and English Benchmark was definitely a challenge for me, but the feeling that I received when I finally found the information about the school was unlike any other. I felt so satisfied and excited, as if I had just made a new discovery. I enjoyed the process of making my history project. It definitely took me back to my roots at 8th and Lehigh Ave.

To see my iweb, click here.

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1_mRg2UbItjpAFkDIOUG83gkpQdu4crC0tic7u6QOKl0/edit#

For citations click here.

This project was to take a building named after someone and find the history behind the building and the person. We needed to find out why that building had the person'd name on it. It was also a project that helped our teachers get a sense of where we all were from because my school is so diverse. 

For this I decided to do Prince Hall Elementary School located in the northwest region of Philadelphia. This video is a description of who Prince Hall the man was and what made people name a school after him. 

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1_mRg2UbItjpAFkDIOUG83gkpQdu4crC0tic7u6QOKl0/edit#

Source: http://www.claramuhammadschools.org/welcome-to-scms.html

Ali Muhammad

Hidiah Muhammed

Other Members of the Sister Clara Muhammad School

In this new slide I did various things to make it a better slide. Something’s I decided not to change.  I changed the size of the pictures and the font. I also changed the placing of the pictures and making sure they fit together.  

I changed the font to make sure it was legible from far away. I also made the middle part that says my name is, Goldie so it was big and so people focused on it. I made everything come out the middle because when I look at billboard I am not looking at the left side or the right side, I am looking in the middle. When I look in the middle I see the whole billboard and what’s on it. I wanted t make sure everyone would get the feel I do when I look at a billboard and also to think that since everything is not on one side, which makes it nice a bigger. When I made the improvements that the class told me to make, which was make the font bigger, I thought I had to add a little more. I made the font bigger and also made my pictures bigger, so there was an awkward space at the bottom. Over all I think the change is better then the first one  and I am glad I had the chance to fix it.

Still under construction:

Link to Annotation 

For my building history project, I decided to research my local hardware store, which is located on 5th and Porter streets in South Philly. The store has recently turned 100 years old and I decided that it would be nice to create the one and only website (or record of history accessible to the public for that matter) for the store since it has been around for so long. While doing this project, I have learned a lot about the building and the family history through interviews and photographs that were provided by the owner (Irvin Bruskin). After completing several aspects of the project and reviewing my sources, I learned a lot and gained insight as to how neighborhoods change and why it is of utmost importance to keep our history alive today. The links below are to the website that I created, which contains the complete history of the family owned business as well as the history of the building. The website include photographs, videos, and a slideshow that can easily be accessed on each page.  

Here is the website that I created.

Here is my annotated bibliography.

Evan, Jeremy, Anthony and Charlie's 1st Qtr Dig Vid project

http://americangove.wikispaces.com/

here is the published link to the google doc where my project is at.  again

http://abday.wikispaces.com/History+of+Anna+B+Day

www.philadelphiabuildings.org/faids/aaup/Day.pdf

The audio file attached to this post is my English/American History Quarter 1 Benchmark; the project is titled BuildingHistory. My project was about the history of the Edgar Allan Poe Historical Site, which is located at 7th and Green St. In the podcast I talk about the physical history of the building, the symbolism of the site, and what the actual tour was supposed to entail. The link below will take you to my sources.

Through difficulty with uploading an mp3 onto the site, the iTunes file podcast will be present on a different post under the account of Maxime Damis but with a tag of Sam Sirochman.

Written Version:

Life

Painfully given easily taken

Easily taken, Easily taken

How can 

                                                            dying

Be something easily taken.

Being wound up in death’s 

darkness robe, struggles to be free

But yet it 

                                                             captures

Rapes you. Beats you.

Kills you. And you can do nothing

Now who would remember,

miss, think, of 

                                                           the life

Of Aimee Willard. How can I

Be remember. As that man welcomed 

Himself into my body. I felt my felt 

wilt away. I felt my heart 

                                                                 and soul

Melt and die under the pain 

of being take. By this stranger. 

For a reason I don’t know

Is this the pain of those young girls

 I never truly took seriously. 

                                                                      Of those

Young soul that never had 

a chance to truly experienced life 

to it’s full extent. To real to explain fully

To harsh. To understand To much of 

                                                                           that

If could. I’d save you all. If I could

I would be your knights. Ladies of

 the forgotten if I could I would remember

 you even when you gone. If I could, 

if I could, God, if only 

                                                                            I could

Explain to those who miss me that life

Is something you shall never 

take for granted again but how many 

times have you heard that one before

And before you know it. You

                                                                        never realize

Never forget Death is once in a life time.

Rape is the felling of losing your strengthen

Being beatings gives you that feel of lost hope

Pleas don’t let that control you

                                                                               in life

That’s only heard for so long.

Bibliography

"In Memory of Aimee Willard: Home." In Memory of Aimee Willard. BCE Internet Services, n.d. Web. 12 Nov 2010. <http://www.aimeewillard.com/>.

"Aimee Willard." Find A Grave. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov 2010. <http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Willard&GSfn=Aimee+&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=8634995&>.

"June 2004 Executions." Pro Death penalty. Charlene Hall, n.d. Web. 12 Nov 2010. <http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/pending/04/jun04.htm>.

"Aimee Willard." Bonnie’s Blog of Crime. Web. 12 Nov 2010. <http://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2006/06/20/aimee-willard-murder-62096/>.