Be Concise - We didn't use too many words, but relied on using pictures and graphs to relay the information.

Be Visual - Similarly, the majority of the info-graphic is comprised mainly if pictures, graphs, and keys to demonstrate the facts and information gathered.

Be Smarter - I'm not necessarily sure how "smarter" we could have made it, but as far as information is concerned I suppose we did a "smart" job. 

Be Transparent - Similar to being concise, it's just specific data without too many words that shows the information we've gathered.

For our 3rd quarter history benchmark, the students of Ms. Laufenberg's class all participated in the National History Day. The idea behind NHD is that each student researches a famous part of history, gathers both primary and secondary sources, then completes the project in however they see fit. The theme of this year's NHD was, "Revolution, Reaction, Reform." Therefore, each student had to take a part of history that had to deal with somewhat of a revolution, a reaction, and then the reform to see where it is now. And I took it from the perspective of one of the influential people in the United State's history; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and how with his nobel leadership, discriminated minorities were able to overcome the struggle, and become equal to everyone else.

The first week of January has just dawned upon us, and I was once again by myself working in my kitchen. Like any other morning, I ordered a cup of coffee from the automatic coffee maker. “Medium extra/extra, on the way!” it replied with a robotic voice, and I began the day's work on the project I was sure would win the science fair. It was an amazing machine that was capable of switching the minds of any two beings into each other's bodies.

     As the coffee maker began pouring my coffee into a styrofoam cup, I was nearing the end of the project’s completion. So I went and got the mouse and and the canary, I had previously bought from the pet store, and prepared the machine for its first testing. Once ready, I gazed at the perplex items spinning and whizzing in front of me, holding the coffee I was too excited to drink, and prepared the switching process. To my relief, the machine whirred and hummed into action, my grin stretching from ear to ear.

     The machine rumbled, and began to glow a vibrant yellow in front of its targets. The bird, though, startled by the sounds, began to flutter around. The bird flew into the air, flinging itself onto the machine. I watched in horror as the laser-like gun swung towards me. And with a terrible trippy whirl of colors, I felt my body fall to the floor and everything go black.

     When I awoke, what I assume to be a few minutes later, I first noticed that I was almost 5 feet shorter. Then to my horror, realized that I also had no arms... nor legs. Then finally it dawned to me, that I was no longer myself... but my automatic coffee maker. Instantly, I knew something horrible happened. But I knew how my object worked, and it could certainly be reversed with the switch of a toggle.

     So instantly I began to set up a rescue plan. I began to teach myself how my new body worked. The boiler, the cream and sugar inserter, the speaker and the pouring spout. Through the device's motion-sensing detector which I could use as an eye, I could see my cell phone sitting on the counter. Aiming carefully, I began shooting packets of sugar at it. Obviously, I like to keep a lot of sugar inside, so I was quite in luck. Yet as more and more bounced pathetically off the phone, I began to feel exhausted.

Soaking the packets in cream before launch proved a smarter idea. A soggy packet of sugar finally knocked my phone to the floor, but it had just occurred to me that I had no way to dial someone for help. I had to wait for one of my parents to come home. Surely this couldn’t last for too long.

After hours of misery and guilt gave no progress, I was left with a terrible regret for the day's events. Determined not to give up hope, I began to pour cups of coffee to maintain my entertainment. I fought not only my own freedom, but also still maintained the thought of also winning the science fair. I soon found my sugar and cream dispenser to be empty, and sank again into a deplorable depression.

     A large bang shocked me from my unaware slumber. Before me, having fixed himself up from the floor, stood my own body. It looked me with a slight happiness. “I have been upgraded.” it announced in a slightly concerning monotone. The kitchen was silent as I struggled to understand the situation. Then it said, “Would you like some coffee?'”

     The idea dawned on me, and I wasted no time in seeing the possibility of this revelation. I told the coffee maker, which was now in control of my body, that I really needed help. It observed me cautiously, then asked if I would like that with extra cream or sugar. Maintaining patience, as difficult as it was at this point, I explained the instruction more detailed. I watched with great anticipation as my body of seventeen jerked its way out of my kitchen. It rounded the corner down the steps, and there was a hopeless crash. It had tripped down the steps. But to my relief, I heard it continue on its way out the door.

     Minutes passed... then hours. I entertained myself shooting expresso packet projectiles at the bird. On the morning of the third day, the day of the science fair, I accepted that the coffee maker had failed in its control of my body, and that help was unfortunately not on its way. Grasped by the despair of one who must solve the puzzle of coffee maker suicide, I accepted the situation, and unfortunately my fate.

     Driven on by an unrelenting hatred towards my creation, I began expelling the entire amount of water in my boiler. As the floor filled with boiling hot water, the first hints of deadly steam flickered in my mechanisms, I began the acceptance of my coffee-suicide as the water would soon be reaching the counter.

Once the plumber had visited and cleaned my kitchen, I was identified as the fault, unplugged and sent away to a repair shop. The owner there, finding nothing to remove but a faulty speech chip, soon put me up for sale. I only know this because, on being reconnected to the power outlet, I found myself in a shiny, open room, which looked very similar to that of the teachers lounge at my school. Missing my electronic voice, I could only listen to the conversation of the teachers, discussing the odd conduct of their participants in the fair. The end of their discussion stopped at his arrival. I gazed at the door in silent misery, as my body stepped vibrantly into the room, displaying its newly designed poster-board. At the top of the list I could only make out, “Medium coffee, extra/extra.”

Centelleo centelleo pequena estrella

Trabajo de Trader Joe's es muy dificil,

Ellos no tienen remuneracion adecuada,

y recoger tomates durante todo el día

Espero que las cosas cambien muy pronto

Porque me encanta Trader Joe's!

El trabajo en Trader Joe no es justo.

Deben hacer más que ellos.

Me encanta la comida Trader Joe's.

En realidad es demasiado barato

Recogiendo tomates durante todo el día

Es muy caliente cuando lo hacen

Pero a pesar de que no es justo

Alguien tiene que hacerlo!

Era una broma,

Yo no soy esa media,

Pero esperemos que Trader Joe's fija su problema pronto,

Porque yo tengo hambre de unos tomates...

 - What it's like to work as a tomato picker in Florida?

Es muy dificil porque es trabajo mucho. Hace mucho calor y no es que mucho dinero. (The people are forced to work in the heat to lift very heavy barrels of tomatoes for very low prices. This is a very bad problem that can hopefully be solved).

- The problem with buying tomatoes from Trader Joe's?

Si ousted compra los tomates, que apoyan de trabajo. Pero es difícil a evitar. (If you buy tomatoes from Trader Joe's, then you support the work that the people are doing in Florida. Or it simply shows your ignorance towards where the tomatoes are actually coming from).

- What we can do about it?

Podemos hablar con los gentes, y mostrarles el problema. (A lot of people aren't aware of the problem happening in Florida, so maybe if they knew, then they could help change things with us and spread the word).

Rebuttal Paper - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13041242/Final%20Rebuttal.pages

Group Page - https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/weekendvotingact/

• How did you group go about making a decision for what to focus on for the project?
  - Well after coming up with a few options (all equally good), we cut the ones we felt were reoccurring around the class, and went with the least popular option. That being extending the voting days to one day during the weekdays, to the weekend. After deciding, everything else went pretty smoothly. 
• 11th grade Essential ? - What is the role of the individual in creating and sustaining change? 
  - In regards to the project, we all wanted to change the voting turnout to have more people in the United States. My position in this process was taking a good idea, and finding the flaws within it. Because if I didn't, other people would exploit it during conversations. With proper knowledge about the flaws with voting on the weekend, when someone else tries to find a flaw, we've already found a response for it.
• How has your understanding of the electoral process and whether or not the US is a democracy evolved during this unit?
  - Absolutely. For my portion of the paper, I had a lot of percentage rates and population counts. And after finding exact numbers for voting turnouts for the past few years, I'm really disappointed with how we've been doing things. Where other countries have 98% turnouts, the United States is still struggling with a measly 29%. And after seeing that only 1/3 of the United States votes, it was pretty shocking.
• How did you decide to best relay a message to a national audience with your marketing campaign?
  - I'm not necessarily sure if I'm answering this correctly, but within the final project we made it very "cheesy." It's still professional nonetheless, but the cheesy factor is clear. With information easy to understand with a funny little slogan, I have a feeling people would be interested after hearing about what we want changed.

And here's a few examples of my work relating to the topics previously mentioned throughout the course of the year:

September 16^th, 2010. I hear someone enter my room at 6:00 am, when I usually get up. I thought it was my dad so I really didn’t care. But then the character started to come up to me. I’m facing my wall so I can’t see them, yet I don’t want to turn around. I hear them pick up my phone, which is lying on the white drawer next to me bed. Am I being robbed? After I hear them typing and playing with the buttons on my phone, they walk to my dresser and I hear the change on the top moving. So I think to myself, “Dude…who’s taking my money?!” But still, I do not turn around. For some reason, I was afraid of what I may see. As the footsteps dawn closer to my bed, I feel the sudden lifting of the covers on my bed. Instantly, I turn around to see who’s in my room so early, and it was none other than the marvelous and wonderful Cecelia Baez, come to greet me every so graciously on my 16^th birthday.

I always told Cecelia it was one of my favorite dreams to have her wake me in the morning. But as to most dreams require, it was a little hard to do. There’s about a 20 minute distance between our Northeastern Philadelphia houses, 7 by bike (I ride fast), and 5 by car. She gets up at 4 am to prepare herself for the day, which means that she’d have to get up at 3:30-ish to be able to walk to my house. She doesn’t own a bike. And her parents are way too stubborn to give her a ride. Though on some days I occasionally wake up earlier so I can meet her at her house before school. But today was the exception. It may have been a little scary because I thought I was being robbed, but in the end, I’m super glad she did this for me. My dad even went out of the way to pick her up at her house and ride her to mine, crazy right? But in the end, that’s one more dream I was able to experience in my time.

“Dude, what’s Lulu holding?!” Said a curious Olivea at the lunch table with Jenn and I attending.

“Ugh…It’s my birthday present…” I grumbled, knowing it was just one more wackjob ideas of Cecelia. Long Nu, was holding a blue box, approximately the size of her. Wrapped, in blue Christmas wrapping paper. With her, was Bee Noi, filming Long Nu with the camcorder on my black iPod Nano. It seemed they were looking for me…but didn’t see me. I laughed and just waited.

“Dude shut up no it’s not!” Olivea said doubting my statement.

“Alright Liv suit yourself…”

“Gabriel!” Long Nu exclaimed as she finally found me. “Here! It’s a present from Cece! Open it!”

“Oh…you weren’t joking…” Olivea said, obviously feeling a little salty at that point. But regardless, I wanted to open the present. Before I lacerate the wrapping covering my prize inside, I read the notes on the front. Both reading, “I’m sorry it’s Christmas paper…it was all I had <3” and “In hur, had rush” which Jenn later explained to me said, “In a hurry, I had to rush.” So as Bee’s recording, I dig my way into the Christmas paper. And behind the wrapping, was a box, a cardboard box.

“Oh a box! It’s what I always wanted!” I said, obviously jokingly sarcastic. Removing the tape sealing the box, inside the box, was another box. And inside that box, was yet again another box. By the time I opened the 3^rd box, the whole lunchroom had formed a large circle around my lunch table. Box after box, wrapping after wrapping, tape after tape. The opening seemed like an eternity. Until finally…the last box. I unwrapped it and felt…disappointed. “Suede Shoes” was written on the front, and thought it was seriously a pair of shoes. But I was mistaken. Because inside the shoe box, was the final birthday gift… Turtle Tuck from Wonder Pets. I turned bright red, and the large group around me, even bigger from a few minutes prior, was now in stitches about the embarrassing turn of events. To think, I spent 5 minutes unwrapping 10 boxes, all smaller than the last, just for a little Beanie Baby turtle. It may have been embarrassing beyond all recognition, but one thing remains. I’ve slept with that turtle every day since, and I’m glad I had to go through a million and a half boxes to have it!

What is this? Creativity? Stupidity? Love? What is it that one single person can strive so hard to make me so undoubtedly happy? The things she can think of simply baffle my mind. I would have never expected the idea of the whole “box in box” theme. But rest assured, Cecelia did. But why is one person going so far out just to ensure that I’m happy? It’s the feelings she has for me… and that she’d do anything she could, just to make me smile even a little bit. And that’s why she’s made me the happiest person this past year. Random, crazy events are exactly what Cecelia Baez is known for. From enormous cards with my picture tapped to the front. To a box the size of Long Nu with something as unique as a Beanie Baby turtle inside? Something only Cecelia Baez would imagine in that little goofy head of hers. But in the end, that’s exactly why Cecelia Baez, is my favorite person in the whole wide world.

One day in eighth grade, we were in English class. Mr. Crain, my teacher of the time, started off the rainy Wednesday with a warm up for everyone so they can wake up. The warm up? It was a class wide game of Brainquest, and there were two options. The class could split up into two, or it can be the class against me alone. They went against me. It was the English version so the majority of it was spelling and grammatical questions. 

“Gabe, spell… dessert. As in, I just got done dinner and I’m hungry for dessert.” All I could think to myself was is he really serious?

“D-e-s-s-e-r-t” I spelled out loud to the class.

“Correct! The next word towards the class, onomonopia.”

“OH C’MON MR. CRAIN I CAN’T SPELL THAT!”

“GABE GOT THE EASY WORD!” So Mr. Crain offered a truce. 

“Alright, then how about this. If Gabe spells onomonopia right, then he wins. But if he spells it wrong, you guys win. But if he wins, you all have extra homework except him!” The class huddled in agreement, and then offered a question.

“And if he spells it wrong?”

“Then you all get a piece of candy, so all that’s left is Gabe. Gabe, spell onomonopia.”

“O-n-o-m-o-n-o-p-i-a?” Mr. Crain got a big grin on his face, 

“Sorry guys, extra homework for you!” 

“That’s not fair! Gabe’s smart cause he’s white!” said an angered student because of the extra homework. Mr. Crain got a disappointed look on his face and asked the student to step out in the hall. So in the end, it looks like my talent for spelling words comes from me being white. 

At first I really didn’t understand the situation. These were the same people I’ve been in school with since 2^nd grade, and now I’m starting to see how they really feel about me? Not that it was ever a problem, but I was one of the few white kids in my class, but also one of the smartest. But I felt my intellect just simply came from how hard I was willing to push. Vocabulary was something I was very proud of for as long as I can remember. But when that student said what they said, I didn’t know how to react. The other students laughed and just moved on… but for my perspective it was completely different. 

I was offended because people stereotyped me and no one cared. “He’s smart because he’s white.” It may have only been a simple joke but that’s incredibly hurtful. So than I began to think to myself, if I try to lower my high use of vocabulary, then possibly people wouldn’t judge me as much. So that’s what I did. I purposely started doing a little worse in class in hopes that people notice. 

“Hey Gabe, how come I scored higher than you?”

“I guess you’re just smarter than me, huh?”

“Nah you’re white, you probably just had a bad day!” And so my suffering continues. The everlasting struggle for the need for code switching is still ongoing. But I needed a different strategy. More and more I became like my fellow students in the way they spoke, acted, and worked. Their mannerisms because clear and soon after I was able to perform for myself.

 My high-end vocabulary became lack luster due to extended periods without challenging it. I started picking up more and more of this different dialect so I would simply “fit in” and not be that white kid. And eventually, things were able to settle out. Though they not have necessarily been the results I expected, it was better than being singled out every time. 

“Yeah! My boy Gabe!”

“Gabe’s my boul!”

“Gabe’s like one of those reverse Oreos, white on the outside but black on the inside!” But more importantly, because the over-abundant code switches were taking place, concern started to rise. My teachers and parents became worried that I was trying too hard to meet the expectations of everyone around me. And after listening thoroughly, I understood what they meant. There was indeed a very good line between code switching, and I was soon learning what that was. Soon, my well-rounded vocabulary started to rise from the depths, and I used more of my proper English dialect. But with certain friends, it’d be too taboo to speak in proper English, so therefore I would speak in tongues by using more of a dialect. I felt comfortable knowing I was only making other people comfortable with the way I spoke. Code switching is a very essential part in language because since language is meant to communicate between two individuals, you want to make it as comfortable as possible for the other person. Whether it be showing certain signs of respect, or saying a word or two differently. I became a master of the code switch. I would show respect to those of a higher authority like teachers and parents. I would be a little more free and loose with friends and not worry too much about language. And by doing an even amount of both equally, I was no longer viewed upon as “that white kid” because I had made my own name for myself. I became who I am, and I couldn’t have done it without learning to code switch languages in society.