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Justice for Animals

Posted by Sarah Son on
     Hello! My name is Sarah Son, I attend Science Leadership Academy. My English project, called You and the World, is focused on one important topic, which in my case is animal cruelty. Towards the end of the project, I chose my Agent of Change in order to improve this issue. I had many ideas in mind but I decided to choose two, which are donating money to PSPCA and hanging up posters in my English class. 
In blog post #2 and #3, I introduced my topic, animal cruelty, by researching online and doing my own research, which was an interview that I did with a volunteer at SPCA. If you’d like to listen to the interview, click here! In my original research, I have found out a lot more shocking facts about animal cruelty. The interviewee told me," “... SPCA had raided a home in Frankfurt and we found about 241 cats, pretty much everywhere in the house. Just so you guys know, the limit for animals in Philadelphia you can have in your home at once is 12.” It was crazy to find that out. On the other hand with the online research, there were many charts and graphs I have found that showed different ways animals are abused as well the percentage of what animals are often abused, dogs being found the most abused. You can look at the Commonly Abused Animals here. Also, you can check out the Animal Abuse Classifications in the U.S. here.
     ​My Agent of Change, which is an action was the highlight of the project for me. I was thinking about volunteering at PSPCA but I couldn’t because I was under the age of 18. It made me upset that I couldn’t do so. I had to come up with new ideas and it all popped into my mind when I was speaking to a classmate that had a similar topic. That is when I decided to create posters and hang them around Ms. Giknis’ English room. For the design, I wanted it very simple and something that is eye catching. While looking for some ideas on Google at home, I saw many, many anti-animal cruelty posters that were very powerful to me. It tells me that people in the world actually care about this topic. This is where I found the posters. It gave me some ideas and I would like to thank them for that. The photos on this website do make me sad, but it is the truth and people should open their eyes to see what these poor animals are going through everyday.
    I made four posters and they can be found all around Ms. Giknis’ English room. One is on the door so when people come in and leave, they can take a look at it. Also, I put another poster on the wall next to the little couch. Another place I put my poster was near the trashcan, Ms. Giknis actually suggested this to me! It was a good idea to put the poster there so that when people throw away their trash, they can glance at it. Finally, I put my favorite poster in front of the classroom next to the poster that says “Words Mean Things.” That poster is eye catching, so when people look at that poster, their eyes will feast upon my cute little poster.
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Photo of my poster that I put in front of the classroom. There is also a little hashtag that says #stopanimalcruelty
    Instead of doing just one Agent of Change, I decided to do two. After making the posters, I thought about donating money to PSPCA. The money that I donated was from another fundraiser that was for me to go to study abroad in China but because of personal reasons, I had to change my mind. On the website, there are options to where you can donate it to. I decided to donate money ($50) to the option that says, “Where Needed Most.” I think that it was a good decision. I’m quite proud of myself. (If you’d like to donate and help animals, click here!)

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Another photo of one of my posters and I! This one can be found hanging on Ms. Giknis' door.

I am glad that we were assigned this project. It taught me a lot about others and it taught me a lot about myself. Instead of being assigned a topic, we had an option to choose one. I am thankful for that because if we were assigned a topic, I learned that I wouldn’t have been as interested if the topic was already chosen for me. I feel like this topic should be spoken more about, that is one reason why I decided to choose animal cruelty as my main topic. Also, I had a connection that I had shared in one of my previous posts. I just hope people will be able to look more into animal abuse and try to do something to stop it. Make a change today!

 

Annotated Bibliography


Jaime Vaquero-Garcia's Capstone

Posted by Jaime Vaquero-Garcia on

ABSTRACT:

Kids are the most important in the world reason being that they are the ones that are going to be continuing out the legacy that the parents had left behind. Before any of that happens, kids become mature and grown/all those good things parents want their kids to be. Kids are kids, meaning being reckless and chaotic and loud, cute but annoying and etc. through living those moment with the kids, many adults don’t take them serious enough, and only when they get injured. Kids are exactly more intelligent than what most adult expect them to be. As years go by, kids are becoming more aware of what is going around them. Each year is becoming better then the last one.  

For my capstone, I was going to a daycare and was, in a way, testing kids the intelligences through some social and strategic games and their behavior. The first couple of days were just a little complicated because for one, was only at the daycare on fridays and saturdays and two, they had a lot of freedom for the only three ladies. In the long run, the kids slowly but surely adjusted to me. The kids behavior and creativity slowly changed which showed me as student,  as senior student at science leadership academy, felt that instead of them learning from me, I learn from them.  In a kids first 6 years of being born, they show more intelligence than what is expected from them.


PRESENTATION: https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/presentation/d/14KwE-YP4AWjv0VaCS_SM56vxvLI3sgloavH9EeAaIcA/edit?usp=sharing

Artist's Slideshow Q4

Posted by Zoe Andersson on
Artist's Statement:
All of my final pieces this quarter show my improvement from the beginning of the year. My first pieces, the photo edits, depict three different edits I made to a picture of a beluga whale. These were very fun to make and not too difficult. The second project this quarter, Figure drawings, shows three different sketches of a human form in the same pose. The final sketch is a full size drawing of the same woman. My third project is two line drawings done using Adobe Illustrator, without raising my hand to move the pen. The fourth piece of art was my digital drawing, made using the painting app Paint 2. The piece is an abstract geometric design featuring a color gradient. My fifth and possibly favorite piece is an outline of the Upsal Train Station in Mt. Airy, made using Adobe Illustrator. This piece really shows the depth of the train track and provides perspective. My sixth work of art was my Practice Texture Drawing of a still life. The piece, drawn with colored pencil, depicts a group of fruits and vegetables on a table. My final piece of art, my elements of art painting, incorporates all of the skills and techniques I have learned this year. It is a painting of a girl done with oil paint on canvas. 

I' M AL L S MI L E S

Posted by Naeem Goins in Creative Writing · Giknis · x2 Band on

Tape Files

 

Part 1

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4ZOPdiMlTOkQnVkekU4OXJqZnc

 

Part 2

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4ZOPdiMlTOkTEJBYlBhaXFCdkk

 

Part 3

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4ZOPdiMlTOkcjhEV0hXUHJrb3M

 

 

 

“I’m all smiles”

The story of the 18 years old Cameron who had an summerfling with his celebrity crush and found out months later that his ex boyfriend had HIV.

 

 

Characters and background story:

 

Isaiah- The 18 year old boy who is openly gay. He just started having sex once he turned 16 and only got tested once. It never occurred to him that he could ever get an std because all the men he been with looked clean. He went to a football game and got backstage passes to meet the team. He lingered towards one of the teammates who kept giving him compliments. They exchanged phone numbers and became a fling. Isaiah thought they would be more. Once he found out he was HIV positive, he had to figure out a way to tell this professional basketball player. Finding out the basketball player has a family and been lien to him this whole time, Isaiah  tries to break the news to him without sounding too bitter or sorrow.

 

Thomas- The 25 year old basketball player with a family and a secret relationship with Isaiah.

What is their correspondence about? Their communications must:


E2 U6 Doniesha, Sean, Jake and Sashoya

Posted by Sashoya Dougan in Spanish 2 · Hernandez · D Band on
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Changó era un Dios espíritu, confianza conocido por sus fiestas salvajes y actitud directa. Todos amaban y admiraban, tampoco querían ser él o estar con él. En cualquier momento él lanzó un partido que cada uno demostraría para arriba, beber bailar y pasar un buen rato. Todos ellos pensaban que sabían, todos pensaban que eran sus amigos pero no saben la primera cosa acerca de él. Changó era un solo Dios, puso en una saliente fachada feliz pero cuando todos sus invitados volvió a su triste estado natural. Changó no tenía familia había nadie para llamar a su propio cuando él estaba distraído por su partido animado estaba constantemente feliz y satisfecha pero cuando estaba solo, se le recordó de la pesada soledad que estaba sentado dentro de él. Por otro lado, Oya fue independiente y fuerte dentro de su independencia. Ella era una diosa que reconoció su responsabilidad y nunca abusado o abandonado. Con el tiempo esto se convirtió en ella, le consumían, y cada uno se convirtió distante sin interés. Ella encontró que la única manera de recuperar su interés arte! 
Cada noche ella mostrar los pernos silenciosos de belleza que se disparó por los cielos, amaban y ella. Ambos de estos dioses durante siglos y siglos agradar a la multitud sin verdaderamente agradable a ellos mismos y con el tiempo que necesitan destetados. Estaban perdidos, no sabían quiénes eran y mucho más. que vagaban y vagaban en busca de sí mismos y finalmente encontraron uno al otro. Crecieron juntos y aprender juntos, cada noche chango una fiesta festiva, oyó tocar la batería y trajo la multitud y oya su arte y su pueblo la amaba otra vez. Eran uno y fueron felices.

Final Slate Post

Posted by Kishara Erwin in English 1 · Giknis · A Band on

Hey guys its my final slate post on my You & The World Project. If you can recall my topic was suicide. If you would like you can reread slate post 1 and slate post 2 here now. My previous slate posts talked about the rates that suicides have occurred in the u.s every year. This last slate post is to kind wrap things up on my project overall. Hope you enjoy your reading.

The next transition of my project was Agent of Change. I am proud to say my agent of change was a success. I did a powerpoint on suicide and showed my advisory. That was my way of raising awareness. A compliment I received from my classmate is “ I’m proud of you for doing this and remembering that suicide is an important issue and not taking it as a joke’’. The powerpoint included ways to prevent suicide, and preventing suicide.

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The decision to raise awareness as my agent of change was easy and thoughtful. I wanted to remind students that suicide is a very serious matter in our world. Everyday we make jokes like I wanna kill myself because of school. However some people say I wanna kill myself and they actually take their own life. People don’t think about that when they repeat  the joke everyday. I reminded my advisory that this topic is important and affects people around us.

Next, I found a website to provide additional information on suicide. The information I came across is helping a person who may be feeling suicide. The way to help them is to simply be there for them when they need you. If they need a shoulder to cry on or a person to talk you. You are that person. More importantly do not judge the person. Also I found ways to prevent suicide from happening. There are four steps for this process. First to remove any access to lethal weapons. Secondly, if you decide to see a therapist never miss your session. Third talk to someone and let them know how you are feeling. Fourth pay attention to the warning signs so that the thought if the thought triggers in your mind again.  

Furthermore, I also learned about the reasons people commit suicide. The reasons are due to domestic violence, bullying, incarceration, etc. Some people are diagnosed with disorders. Types of disorders are schizophrenia, bipolar, personality disorder, depression, and etc. Depression is usually the main and most popular one. People believe that suicide is the only way to end the pain. That’s not true at all, receiving help is the best option to ending your pain.

Lastly, My You & The World is something I am proud of. This project is personal to me because I almost lost my friend due to suicide. Doing this project made me realize how important life really is. I want to let people know that they are never alone, even if you think you are. A lesson I learned was that life is too short to worry about what others think of you.
Check out my annotated bibliography!

Freeze

Posted by Tarleton Williams in English 3 · Pahomov · A Band on

I was 14 when I first realized what I was capable of. I was in the middle of 8th Grade at the time and I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Monday and as usual, I had spent my weekend gaming and ignoring my homework. Little did I know I had a quiz that day. I walked into math class and was confused when I saw everyone reviewing their notes. I located my best friend Coltrane in the corner and sat next to him.

“Whats everyone doing?”, I said to him,

“they are studying for the quiz.”, he replied.

I had completely forgotten about the quiz and this wan no ordinary quiz, it was a call-out quiz. This meant that the teacher would say something like 2 squared or 14 squared and we had to write down the answer as soon as they said it. “2 minutes to prepare!”, my teacher shouted as she handed out papers. I always hated how she yelled in class everyday for no reason. All it did was make me more worried about this quiz and by the time it was about to start I was very upset that I forgot about it.Then the teacher started calling out numbers to square and that's when I lost it. I started yelling in my head as the teacher kept calling out questions. “Why can’t time just freeze!”, I yelled in my head, furious at the situation. And that's when it happened; time just froze. It wasn't for long, but somehow I knew I had 5 minutes.  Don't know why I knew this, but I could feel it. I tapped my friend Coltrane and he didn't move. The clocks had stopped ticking. I tapped everyone in the classroom including my teacher, and nothing. So I decided to give my quiz grade a boost. I went up to the teacher and got the answers off of the paper she was reading from and wrote them on my quiz. Once I did this, I felt the urge for time to start up again, even though it hadn't been 5 minutes. In my head I was trying to harness this power and make time start again, but it took some hard concentration. Long story short I passed the test, and every other test, quiz, homework assignment, and project for the rest of that year. Whenever I froze time, I became more skilled and could do it for longer periods of time. For example, the first time was only for 5 minutes, and by sophomore year I was able to freeze time for an hour. The only downside to freezing time was that the longer I froze it for, the more exhausted I would be when it resumed. This ability was the only reason that I passed in school and it was the best thing I could have asked for. I remember my first time using my powers to steal something. I was in 9th grade and I had been working for about a month at this coffee shop. It was nice there and I made a solid salary of 9 bucks an hour. I had been saving up for this $1000 dollar Drone that I really wanted. I had been eyeing the drone since last Christmas when it used to cost $2000 dollars, but it was half off now. Even with it being half off, I still didn't have enough for it, so I froze time and stole it from the store. I felt odd after doing it because I knew it was no right for me to do this. I ended up returning it and waiting until I had the money to buy it. If there's one thing these powers have taught me it's patience. Things actually take longer for me than other people. For example I could freeze time for an hour to do an assignment and when I unfreeze time it's resumes from the point at which it froze. This means that no matter how long I freeze time for, it all happens in the blink of an eye for everyone else. But back to the story. The truth is, I don't really know how I got these powers. I’ve come up with many different theories, but none of them really make sense. So I just stopped trying to figure it out. My life is truly one of a kind, but in everyone else's eyes, it was normal. I had a few good friends all through high school, my best friend being Coltrane from middle school. Now usually friends are always there for you during tough times, but my life so far didn't really include tough times, so I was always there to help my friends. Whether it was homework, or relationship problems, I was always there for my friends, and if I knew if I ever did fall on tough times, they would be there for me. However, there were also many times when I had to get my friends out of trouble. One time, I was walking home from school, and I saw my friend Coltrane arguing with these 3 guys. It wasn't long before he swung on one of them and then all 3 went after him. I sprinted up to the fight and dropped the guy on my right with a quick right cross while Coltrane dropped the guy on the left with a massive uppercut. The last guy just stood there and looked at us with his hands raised.

“You guys messed with the wrong kid”, he said.

“Oh yea? And why’s that?”, Coltrane replied.

He pulled out a Pistol and fired right at my chest, and luckily I was able to freeze time before the bullet made impact. I grabbed the bullet and tossed it to the ground. Then I grabbed his gun and unfroze time with me pointing the pistol at him.

“Don't mess with me or my friends again buddy”, I yelled at him.

Then Coltrane hit him with a hard jab, knocking him out.

“You okay bro?”, I asked him.

“Yea i'm fine, but how did you do that?”, he replied.

“It's a long story bro”, I said

We never spoke about that day again, and I glad, because that would be really hard to explain to him. There have been other times that I took care of my friends that didn't require my powers. In fact the hardest part of my life was accepting the fact that I couldn't use my powers for everything. That's the one thing I always failed at. Let's fast forward to the darker times in my life. One of my darkest days was when I lost my best friend Coltrane. It was all my fault, I tried to make things better with my powers, but I only made them a lot worse. It was a cold Monday night, and believe it or not, I was having actual problems in life. My other friends all thought I was crazy, but my friend Coltrane actually believed me, because of the incident we had years ago. I kept uncontrollably freezing time. I called Coltrane and told him to meet me at out old middle school at 7 pm. I needed a mutual area where I knew no one would see us and since the old middle school had been shut down, it was perfect for the occasion. I met up with Coltrane outside of the abandoned building.

“Let's go in”, I said

“Ok bro, but make this quick”, he replied. When we went in, the school looked so lost to me. I couldn't believe how a place like this that held such happy times in my childhood could have turned into such a mess. It was awful, the lockers were topples all over the hallways, graffiti was everywhere and the place reeked like nothing I had ever smelled. We were walking through the halls when it started happening. I started glitching with time. For some reason it only happened when I thought about or visited a place from my past, almost like time was urging me to go back and re live the memories, but I knew it was impossible.

“David, what's happening to us?!”,

Coltrane yelled. And then, just like that, he was gone.

“Bro where are you!”, I yelled, then I had a flashback to the call-out quiz that I was taking right before I passed out. And when I woke up, I was there taking the quiz. But something wasn't right, time was frozen and there was nothing I could do about it.

 

Pulp Ghibli

Posted by Brandon Jones in Reel Reading · Giknis · Y Band on
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For our project, Jaiye and I decided to recreate a scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, in a Studio Ghibli art style. Some other examples of Quentin Tarantino films include Kill Bill, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight and Inglorious Basterds. Tarantino is famous for having similar tropes in all of his films. One trope that Tarantino uses is called “Bad ass in a nice suit” which is basically having a hitman wearing identical black suits and skinny ties. These black suits would later appear in films such as Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs. Another trope that Tarantino is famous for is called “Speech-Centric Work.” “Speech-Centric Work” is basically large examples of dialogue that occur right before an action scene. This can be found in the scene of Pulp Fiction where Jules and Vincent interrogate the three young men in their apartment. Some examples of Studio Ghibli films include Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. One common trope that Studio Ghibli films incorporate is called “Grey and Gray Morality”. Basically “Grey and Gray Morality” is when the director of the film either sets up characters or the story in a way, that makes the viewer sympathetic to both the protagonist and the antagonist. This trope is shared with Tarantino films like Pulp Fiction in the sense that Jules and Vincent are hitmen, which are morally ambiguous, and are portrayed as the protagonists. Another trope that Studio Ghibli is famous for is called “Green Aesop”. “Green Aesop” has appeared in many films because it incorporates scenery. They use the world around them to shape the setting and environment of their films. Studio Ghibli animators have been known to go out on trips months before drawing, to find inspiration. However, Hayao Miyazaki claims to never acknowledge environmentalism.For our storyboard, we took an early scene from Pulp Fiction and incorporated Studio Ghibli’s tropes into it. We drew the characters to resemble anime-esque characters because that is what Studio Ghibli is known for. We also used many different colors to capture the scene in respect to both genres. We portrayed Jules and Vincent in a way that made them appear to be morally ambiguous since that’s how they are in the movie. We didn’t want to make them too menacing because no main character in a Studio Ghibli film looks overly menacing. We also didn’t want to make them appear to be too friendly because they strike a sense of fear into every other character in the room, especially Jules. This project has allowed us to learn more about the films we love watching. We used the lessons taught to us in the Auteur unit and applied it to create the storyboard. These techniques will have an everlasting effect on us and future movies that we watch.

ABC's of Death - T Redo

Posted by Ian Fay in Reel Reading · Giknis · D Band on
Ian Fay & Myi Harte

The movie that we picked to redo a scene for is the ABC’s of Death, it is a movie that 26 directors worked on to tell 26 different stories of 26 ways to die from letters of the alphabet. That means that every scene corresponds to a different letter and that is the title of the scene, One way to look at it you have the letter A and A is for Apocalypse. The movie falls under a Comedy and a horror, All of the directors working on the film had free rang to do all that want for the final scene that they had. Showing that when looking at the movie we saw that all scenes open with a pan from something red and ends panning in on something red. People say that the ABC’s of Death takes you into snapshots of modern day horrors. When working on this scene redo we want to work this a scene that doesn’t really have a set death in it but something that was left open and up for the audience to think of what was it really the end and did they really die.

The scene from the Letter T is done with claymation, the change made to our redo scene is that it will be live action, this makes the scene really different do to we can't cut someone in half and put them in a toilet. Also in the scene the claymation has the toilet in the child's dream transform into a monster that eats his mom and dad after they throw out his toilet set. The toilet scene is first used in the scene as the start of the red and pans out to show that the set has a face on it. Also the set is used at the end to pan back in and end the scene.That is how every scene in the movie starts and ends.

The changes to the props and how it would work in a live action scene would be the kid is in school and the bear that he had in the claymation scene would be his book bag. Another prop that would need to change would be fake blood and just leave it up to the people watching to think on the death.

The redo of the scene-

The scene opens up on a kid in school who is just getting out of his class and is heading to the bathroom. He sees two of his friends walking there as well and the two kids begin to joke about how the main kid keeps wetting his pants. The two kids continue to bully him about there rumor as they head into the bathroom ahead of the main kid. All of the sudden, he hears screams from inside and rushes into the bathroom and as he opens the door to the bathroom, he that the two kids are being murdered by a monstrous toilet that came to life, close to when the child in the scene sees his parents get eaten by the toilet. They will both get killed of in similar ways to the parents. The main kid stands terrified at what he just saw as he mauled by the toilet as well.

It will then cut to the kid waking up from a nap at school, looking up trying to find out what is going on. (get other actes to scream as they enter the bathroom and the door closes, child walks in to see friends are dead.) After looking around kid gets his bag and walks to the bathroom with the same two kids before and he is afraid because of the scene before. He goes into one of the stalls plays the monster sound. The door opens the kid is dead on the toilet like Elvis Presley. The dad in the claymation scene talked about elvis so it would be fitting to have that in the scene then a head in the toilet. The two kids see the death and the last shot includes them screaming in the bathroom in horror of what they just saw.