A Dog’s Purpose directed by Lasse Hallstrom is a fantasy/drama film that follows the story of a dog who is reincarnated several times until he ends up with his original owner. This film definitely falls under the umbrella of a feel good, family movie. We decided to recreate its trailer as if it was a horror film that could make even the strongest and fearless person scared of a chihuahua.

The first choice we made was to start the trailer in color and change to black and white when the scary and evil side of the dogs started to come out. This choice was made based on how older horror movies were made, like Psycho and Night of the Living Dead. The black and white gives the previously colorful trailer an eerie and lifeless vibe. The color change alone helped make this children's movie a lot spookier.

We used shorter shots when showing the dogs to confuse the audience. This way, there would always have something to look at but not enough time to completely react to what they just saw because the next shot would already be on the screen. By having these quicker shots, people aren’t focusing on the details in the shot as much. This gives a sense of urgency and suspense. Horror movies are known for being liked by “adrenaline junkies,” so that’s what we attempted to do with this. Some shots of the dogs were also reversed to mess with the audiences head. Even the slightest change, although not noticeable, could still catch someone's eye and be the shot that is remembered.

We also decided to keep the original song but gradually slow it down. This made it sound like the slowed down childrens lullabies used in a lot of horror movies. In general, deeper and more negative sounds increase the fear in people. The gong like sound that occurs when the audience first sees the dogs become evil is used throughout the trailer to bring the viewers back to that original fear of when they first heard it and didn’t know its meaning. We did the same thing with the line, “Maybe you should teach him some manners,” but instead made it come back in a more echoey sound so that it was like a memory. Having the change of shot on beat with this sound as well, connects what the audience is seeing and hearing. We added extra dog barks over top of the slowed down music to make the dogs seem more ferocious and gruesome because they originally were not. It makes it seem like there is more of a threat and something to look out for.

Website link: https://empresselona.wixsite.com/theempressline

Link to annotated bibliography: https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1KqZpXuhPPNbYim1XowsFBjSkMPE3rpAd7rtsNZG_NXE/edit?usp=sharing

At the beginning of writing this paper I was struggling with what I should focus on as my main question. When looking back at my annotated bibliography I found that I really liked the third image that I chose to describe. I decided to use that description to help form my wider question. That gave me my goal, which was to be able to connect all of my ideas to that one picture description. Like always I wanted to write something that I was proud of as well as something that I thought covered my thoughts on how war and violence affect people, based on environment and situation. I think that I could make this a stronger piece by including more sources that I had in my annotated bibliography. I only focused on two and it would be much stronger with more evidence.

“And just as a cancer patient must at times ingest a poison to fight off a disease, so there are times in a society when we must ingest the poison of war to survive. But what we must understand is that just as the disease can kill us, so can the poison,” Chris Hedges.  People who believe that war and violence are the only solutions to things seem to turn a blind eye to what comes with them. Lives are always lost, and I don’t just mean casualties. War changes people, the experiences that come along with battle are not easily forgotten, as we learned from the Vietnam veterans who came in. Men who weren’t in actual physical battle have and live with survival guilt. Like with some sort of cure, the side effects of war are glossed over and it is forgotten that real people with very real lives were involved, not robots and not ghosts. For many people involved in a war, there is this feeling of a loss of time. This is one “side effect” of war. It is not only the loss of lives but the loss of time spent with family and friends. War messes with these men's minds, yet it seems that for many, if they pretend that these soldiers are problemless than in their eyes they actually are.

There is an image in black and white of a little girl who looks like she’s walking towards something passed the camera. She has her right hand up. Behind her are the wreckage of some buildings. They look like they are on the verge of collapse and there is debris everywhere. A crane is reaching towards the top of one of the buildings but it looks old and not strong. Something bad obviously happened here. Either an explosion or some type of bombing. There’s a woman slightly farther back than the girl who is looking at the little girl and looks like she’s trying to say something to her. Possibly telling her to come back or something along those lines. There is also a man standing in the background just looking at the girl. This image shows how violence blinds people from things that really matter. It is a perfect example of the overlooked and forgotten side effects of war and violence. Those buildings could’ve been that woman and child’s home, or her school. That little girl will always have this image in embedded in her mind and it will most certainly be more real than just viewing the picture.

People's environments affect how they act. It’s like how if you grew up in a city, you’re used to the city, but if you grew up in the suburbs you’re used to the suburbs. When you are put into an environment that you’re not used to, you never know how you’re going to react or what kind of person you’ll turn into. Like in the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. One of the men, Azar, always talks about killing and death. He’s not afraid of it, and it’s more than a fascination. He enjoys it. If Azar was not brought to Vietnam, I think that he would be a very different person but since this is the only setting we see him in, this is the only version of Azar that we get. When another member of the platoon, Kiowa, died, all of the men searched for his body. During this time Azar kept making jokes about Kiowas situation that the other men didn’t find amusing. They were jokes that you didn’t make about someone who just died. Once they found Kiowa's body, Azar’s comments completely changed, he apologized and took back all of the jokes he previously had said. You can see how war makes people react to different situations in certain ways and if Azar was not in the Vietnam war he wouldn’t make these jokes. In a way, they are a type of coping mechanism.

War and violence numbs its creators and the people that are roped into it. It makes humans forget what really matters. It’s like a drug, dulling human's thought process and emotions. I think it’s important for people to realize this. Important for the people who are directly affected by war and violence but also to the people who do not realize that it is not only these people's faults. It is also the fault of the higher ups, the people who couldn’t care less about the men and women that are sent to fight wars that for some, they don’t even believe in. The same people who are putting their lives on the line just to please someone who has more power are not given what they need to live as good of a life as possible after their experiences. Even after the fighting and the violence is over, for many, the war still rages on in their heads.

Work Cited

"Interview: Chris Hedges." Interview. Religions and Ethics Newsweekly 31 Jan. 2003. PBS. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2003/01/31/january-31-2003-interview-chris-hedges/13987/>.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway, 1998. Print.

My goals for this project was to interview someone who's ideas and experiences I wanted to hear about, along the lines of identity and belonging. I also wanted to see if I could incorporate music that actually went with the piece in some way, instead of just putting some random music on in the background. In general I wanted everything to tie together well, in a somewhat story like fashion or at least chronologically. Finally, I just wanted to make a project that I was proud of and that I thought sent a good message. Hopefully I achieved that but I am proud of my interview and what I put together, even though I know there are places that need improvements. I wanted to make sure I didn’t procrastinate on this project either because creating a decent podcast is a lot of work.

I found that the easiest part of this project was doing the interview. I thought that it was fun and interesting. The interview felt like an easy conversation so it flowed very well. It was really hard to edit down the 40 minutes to only 8-10. I felt like who I interviewed said a lot of good things and to choose between them was very difficult. I also found it hard to make it sound more like a story rather than an interview. I wanted to make it flow very well too, so that the different topics weren’t choppy, they each connected. I could've done better with time management while doing this project and I know that if I had given more time to it, it could be improved. I’m still proud of my work however, and enjoyed doing the interview for my podcast.

My main goal for writing this paper was honestly to express something that I had not ever really expressed to others but felt very strongly about. I wanted to write something that I could be proud of and that other people could read and hopefully understand what I had previously struggled so hard to say. When I started writing this paper I had thought that I would just talk about how society shouldn’t be allowed to affect your identity but as I wrote I realized that that’s not the case. My original opinion on societies affect on identity became a little different, and I now think that society and identity can go hand in hand, as I explain in the paper. I’m happy with the outcome of my essay and think that I did reach my goals from the beginning.

Final Draft

As a child I never understood why people from school who I had known for years would be surprised when my dad came in for parent teacher conferences. “Your dad's black?” Their face would be contorted with shock and disbelief. This would always confuse me. I never thought of my dad as black or mixed, or any race really, he was just my dad, but as these situations grew more in frequency I also grew to expect the shocked expressions. I would stand proudly next to my father, my broken elementary school smile there for all to see, and when conversations of ethnicity came up I was more than happy to state that my grandfather is from Jamaica. It suddenly seemed like for all of the previous times the question, your dad is black? were asked, there was an equal, if not greater amount of comments along the lines of, “It doesn’t count because you look white,” or “He’s light skinned anyways, you’re not really mixed” What does that even mean? I remember thinking. But as these phrases were drilled into my mind by my peers I started to wonder if I was mixed. I tried to correct people at first, but they would roll their eyes, say “Yeah, ok, but since you look white I’m just gonna say you’re white. It’s easier that way.”

Recently I have wondered how you get your identity. Do you receive it? Or do you create it? For most of my short life I have been under the impression that what others say about you, is what is true. Convinced that other people knew something that I would never be able to understand about myself, their words rang true in my mind, opinions turning to facts. In this way, society creates your identity and you then, receive it. This is not a bad thing; it can be helpful to get insight from others on who you are. It only becomes a bad thing when society refuses to acknowledge what you’ve decided is a part of your identity. So perhaps it’s the opposite, perhaps you create your identity and society is then the one who receives it. How they receive it, is not up to you.

What I notice more and more is that identity is influenced by both oneself and society. It is a give and take relationship, a balance that more people should understand. In a TED talks by Thandie Newton she says, “But the self is a projection based on other people’s projections.” I find that this quote has two meanings. The first being that you can show and express who you are, but you can also be shown parts of yourself that you didn’t even know existed. The second, that your identity comes only from what others have told you is your identity. The latter is what I experienced as a younger child. So many other people telling me what I am and what I am not that I accepted their opinions as correct and forgot my own.

Just because it’s a convenience for you to remember, and to put me in a box, doesn’t mean that you can. I am proud that I’m biracial. I love every part of my ethnicity and I am not ashamed to say that when you look at my family, you’ll see people whose skin contrasts their strong, dark brows and whose shoulders and cheeks turn a rosy pink in the sun. But that you will also see faces of cocoa and coffee, hair that twists, turns, and coils in the most intricately beautiful way. I am proud that when I stand with my cousins on my mother's side people say we have the same eyes and that when I stand with my grandfather on my father’s that no one can deny the resemblance. The shape of my brows, and placement of freckles a near replication. It is not just these physical similarities that connect me to all sides of my family, but our inner likeness, mostly overlooked. Little quirks that are more embedded in my DNA than any race. I know who I am and for anyone who tries to take away my identity, you can sure as hell bet that I’ll tell you, that I am a special breed of proud.

Introduction

I knew from the beginning that I wanted my essay to have really strong scenes of memory. It was important for me to have this because I felt like it would be what made my thesis the most convincing. While writing my scenes of memory I tried to make them have a lot of description so that someone reading it would be able to visualize it. I think that my favorite part of my essay is the paragraph about having writer's block in middle school. This is probably because I had a personal connection to this part, which is funny because that’s one of the main points of my essay, that people write their best work when they’re writing about something they have a connection to and are passionate about. I think that if I can analyze my quotes in a stronger way it will make my writing stronger in general as well as make it flow more and just make for a better essay.

Advanced Essay

Up until the fourth grade I wasn’t a good reader. I remember picking up one book, Tuck Everlasting, and finally understanding what the big deal was about reading. It was just a normal Thursday. Forgettable really. The sun could have been reaching its rays through my classrooms 3rd floor windows or thunderclouds could have been sitting heavily over the buildings. I can’t remember. I do remember that my teacher had told us to bring a book to class because we were going to be doing independent reading. The book I brought was of no interest to me. Just looking at the cover made me grit my teeth. My friend, Nina, looked at me. “I have an extra book if you want, it’s one of my favorites.” I looked at her as she rummaged through her backpack and finally produced her paperback copy. Hesitantly, I took it from her. I heard the teacher say to start reading and went to lie on the carpet. The book sat in front of me, I dreaded opening it to the first page. With a final sigh I began to read. My eyes scanned the lines of each page and before I knew it, the time was up. To my surprise, I was upset that I couldn’t finish the chapter. I walked up to Nina. “You don’t mind if I borrow this right?”

In a lot of schools, the books that students have the option to read are not something that they are interested in. This could cause someone to never get into reading because the only things that they have read have been chosen by their school system. This can even be seen in writing. Structured essays and stories make it hard for individuals to show and express their themselves, and therefore their identities. The best writing that someone can produce will always be when they’re writing about something they have a connection to, whether that connection is a strong opinion, or a prominent memory.

Writer’s block. I would always get it at the worst possible moments. It was 7 o’clock the night before my first english essay of 7th grade was due and the only thing on my document was my name, which was funny because the essay was about our name. My name. I thought back to all the times it was mispelled and pronounced, how when people would ask me what it meant I had to tell them that I had no clue. I couldn’t count how many times I had said “No not India, it’s just Indee,” and “Yes, that’s the whole thing, it’s not short for anything.” As if my name wasn’t good enough, because it needed to be longer. Without even realizing it my fingers started hitting the keys. I didn’t know how much anger and annoyance I had for this topic. All of the times I remember hating my name and then loving it were forming on the page in such speed that even I was surprised. I heard my mom call up the stairs. “Ind! It’s time for dinner!” Without taking my eyes from the screen and my fingers from the keyboard I yelled back, “I’m not hungry!” There was no way I would stop myself now that I was completely focused.

"Reading can offer richer, broader, and more complex models of experience, which enable people to view their own lives from a refreshed perspective and with renewed understanding," This quote from the article, How Changing Your Reading Habits Can Transform Your Health, talks about how reading can give someone “complex experiences.” Complex experiences can contribute greatly to a person’s identity. With each story, the number of the readers experiences grow. A book can be a different experience for two people. One person could view it this way and the other a completely different way. These different views give others insight into who the individual is. Depending on how someone interprets something can show what type of thought process they have.

The books that someone reads affects how they view the world as well as how the rest of the world views them. A piece of literature can make you notice things you never thought about, and make the readers opinions sway from their original thoughts. The reader can have so many diverse experiences from books and how these experiences imprint on them can vary. The books someone reads and the topics they write about are as important to someone’s identity as their own fingerprint. Unique, unlike anyone else's.

Work cited

Grothaus, Michael. "How Changing Your Reading Habits Can Transform Your Health." Fast

Company. Mansueto Ventures, LLC, 27 July 2015. Web. Nov.14, 2015.

Digital Story

My goal with writing this paper was to write something that I was proud of. I wanted to really enjoy my writing and connect with the topic that I decided to write about so that it could be the strongest piece of writing possible. I also really wanted my essay to have a nice flow. I think that I was really descriptive in the situations I was describing and how I was feeling. My conclusion was strong and tied everything together. I think that I could’ve really gone in to make sure everything worked well and it would make sense to people who aren’t just me.

Monologue #1

Patrick R. Linton Monologue

(Patrick walks into his bosses office looking very nervous.)

Hello, yes, thanks for seeing me Mr. Ross, I just have a few things to talk to you about.  Uh yes, I am aware that you’re a very busy man but I feel like this issue is pretty important.  Well uh, I don’t know how much knowledge you have on Global Warming and you know the release of Carbon Dioxide...No, I don’t think you’re stupid Mr.Ross I was just curious, anyways, since we work in a factory that contributes to the release of CO2 I thought we could inform our workers about what was going on and maybe see if we could look into making changes in the future... Mr.Ross, I really don’t think it would cause as many problems as you believe.  We could bring in an organization like 350 to explain to everyone what’s going on… I know you think that changing how we do things would cost us a lot of money, but it’s nothing compared to what we’d be doing to save the planet...We’re one of the Countries that are contributing greatly to the release of CO2 in the atmosphere but it’s effecting people in places like India, Malawi, and the Philippines.  Do you remember the Typhoon that happened in the Philippines?  So many people lost their homes and loved ones and it’s because of Global Warming!  This is a repercussion of things that the U.S. are contributing to.  You can’t just sit there and think only about yourself!  Please Mr.Ross, try be reasonable, No I really need my job, I just wanted to see...I understand.  (Begins walking out) You know what, I actually don’t understand. Why are you so against the idea of change? Or the idea of you changing what you’re used to, and might I just add if you don’t want to change now, are you going to feel differently when the weather and environment are?(Pause) You know what Mr.Ross, I’m sorry that you’re so blind to what’s going on around you but I refuse to participate in something I don’t believe in.  So good day!  That’s fine, I was going to quit anyways.   

Monologue #2

Factory

Cough, Cough, Cough,  It sucks to know that you’ve assisted in the murder of thousands of men, women, and children.  It sucks knowing that you were a part of the destruction of someones home and life.  It really sucks that you can’t do anything about it.  There is no one I can talk to, not that I could move from my “beautiful” piece of land in Texas.  My whole life I have been working and working, creating coal and spewing out smoke.  The smoke is awful.  It causes so much sickness and death.  I am literally a disease, and no one likes diseases.  I see what’s going on, all the other coal factories are releasing the same disease that I am.  But no, shut me down, and guess how many people will lose their  jobs?  Too many, shut me down and “how on earth will we find another way to supply our coal? because this is the way we’re used to doing it.”  Oh, I guarantee you that you’ll find a way.  Humans need to think more along the lines of, “Shut me down and how many people’s lives will we save?  Shut me down and the future generations could see what it is like to live in a world with no pollution, less sickness, and more happiness.  I am in no way a human being but at least I can act like one.  I’m done hearing about families who have to send and sell their children to factories because after the flood or after the drought, they didn’t have enough money for food.  If I can sacrifice myself, then you should be able to sacrifice your comfort zone too.  I’m ready to be shut down, you just need to be ready to do it.

Monologue #3

Schooling

Mom! I’m home!!!  School, was fine.  Mr.Johnson gave us a pop quiz in math and we did an experiment in science class! Oh, and Ms.Smith taught us some really cool stuff in social studies.  Did you know that were violently killing the planet?!? No really, I’m serious, we’re murderers (draws out murderers.)  OK mom, you obviously don’t understand, carbon dioxide, which is CO2, we learned that in science class, gets all in the atmosphere and that would make our planet go from livable to not so livable.  Yeah, isn't it crazy!  Oh, and apparently, hang on, let me check my paper(rummages through book bag)  Apparently to keep the planet livable we have to keep the amount of CO2 below the level of 350 parts per million but right now we’re at 400 ppm!  That’s at least 50 parts per million more than what it should be at.  I thought the same thing mother, what a great question, what exactly will happen when too much CO2 gets into the atmosphere?  Well Ms. Smith said that we’re already seeing some of the outcomes.  Like the drought in California and the Typhoon in the Philippines.  If you don’t know what a Typhoon is, it’s just a hurricane that happens in the Northwest pacific.  I found that one out all my myself.  But a lot of people in the Philippines during the Typhoon lost their homes and families.  Isn’t it! It’s so sad, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose our house or you and dad, even losing Grace would make me upset and she’s a terrible sister.  Dad is home!  Hey dad wanna know why you’re a killer?

(Video is Monologue #1)

Project-Science Fair Project

Research- We used websites that gave information about how to clean your phone and what type of bacteria can be found on phones.  

Collaboration- Imani and I worked together on doing the experiment and creating the board.  Also, by doing the science fair we got our information out to our peers.

Presentation- I think just our project was effective because teens could relate.  Pretty much all teens have cell phones that they use all the time, so it makes people curious about what’s on their phones.

Welcome back to my third and final blog post!  This blog post will focus on my agent of change which was a presentation to my advisory.  In my first blog post from way back when I introduced my You and the World topic, Women in Engineering.  I talked about some possible reasons that there was such a large difference between the men and women in this field among other things.  In my second blog post I used quotes that were said in my original research to see what others thought about the problem.  I also included new research I had found.  For instance, how more girls participate in physics in single sex schools than in co-ed schools.

When we were asked to think about our agent of change projects I didn't know how I wanted to go about it.  Finally, I decided that the best way to help my issue was to make people aware of it.  From doing my original research I saw that there were a lot of facts and people having to do with women in engineering that weren't known.  While making my slide show for the class I included the information that more people in my survey were unaware of, like who Ada Lovelace is and even the percent of women engineers worldwide(13%)  I also included the song, Rosie the Riveter, which explained about the fictional character during WWII.  You can learn more about her in my first blog post.

By doing my agent of change project I brought more awareness to my YATW issue.  I think that that’s the most important thing to happen for women in engineering.  Many people don’t know the number of women engineers worldwide to men.  There are also girls and women who are under the impression that they can’t enter into certain careers because of gender bias.  It’s important, for young girls especially, to not feel as though they don’t have the opportunity to be what they want to be and do what they want to do.

Although I am proud of the presentation I gave to my advisory there is definitely some things that I could have done better.  Being a high school student, I know how boring presentations with just a person standing there talking can be.  The videos I included made me just speaking slightly more interesting but I think that it would have been better if I included a more indepth activity to do with everyone at the end.  When teens and kids can get involved with something it sometimes stays in their minds longer and makes it more interesting.  Hopefully the people who saw my presentation will still remember it and will spread the word about the difference between the number of men and women in engineering.  

Negative space is the empty space around an object or the objects surroundings.  It allows the eye to see the main part of the drawing.

In my cut out, I found the negative space by cutting out the pieces that were shaded in darker and using that on the left side of the page so that the blue would be the focus and the black paper was the negative space.  For the other side I did the complete opposite by cutting out the other part and then using the blue as the negative space.  For the stool drawing, I drew the still life first and then colored in all the space around it.

It helps an artist to use negative space because it makes their illustrations more accurate.  It also allows artist to focus themselves and their drawings.

Negative space is useful in creating art because it makes your drawings more precise and accurate.  It also allows you to see what you’re doing in a different way.

One new thing that I learned was that when you draw something like a window or any object, you have to make the part going farther back smaller or at a slight angle because things that are farther away, are smaller.   This made my drawings better because they looked more realistic.  If everything was the same size it wouldn't be or look visually correct.  

If I did this assignment again I think one thing I would do differently is give myself more time outside of class to work on this project so that at the end of the project and during the class periods I wasn't as stressed.  It would also help me from rushing through the project.

My advice for someone who has never done a one point perspective drawing is to always have an eraser and a ruler on hand, because they will be used a lot.  I would also just tell them to not get

stressed out when they mess up because you can just erase it and do it again.  

One of the most helpful resources for me was the slide deck that Ms.Hull made and my eraser.  Sometimes it was hard to figure out what to do next so the slide deck was a big help. There was so many times that I messed up because the lines weren't straight or they weren't the same distance apart, so my eraser was extremely useful.

Hello!  If you remember from blog #1 and by reading the title,  I’m talking about women in the engineering work field and the large difference between the genders.  If you have not read my first blog post, you can view it here.  When I started this project, I researched the reason behind why there aren’t many women in the engineering workfield.  One reason I found was that society puts it into our heads that certain jobs are for a certain gender.  That causes women to feel like jobs in the science work field(which are aimed towards men) aren’t available or offered to them.

“It wasn’t until I was a professional woman mentoring other girls in math and science that I learned that openly liking math and science is unusual for girls,” Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo.

For my original research, I made some open ended survey questions but really wanted to see peoples reactions when they answered.  So I asked 14 people my to answer my survey and wrote down their exact words.  Half of the questions were facts about women in the workfield that the people had to respond to with their opinion.  9 of the people surveyed were female and the other 5 were male.  The age range was from 10 to 55 and everyone gave similar answers for the questions/facts.  The first fact I had everyone respond to was, “ 13% of engineers worldwide are women.”  The answers were either something along the lines of “I expected it to be a higher amount” and “that’s not right.”  One person's response was “It’s sort of unfortunate because the sciences overall are not offered to women in a way that they can be involved.”  Another person said “I don’t think women are encouraged in anyway in that direction.”  That goes back to one of the possible reasons for the gender difference I talked about in my first blog post.  

What I’m still curious and confused about is if everyone agrees,  then why is their still biased?  Males and Females in my survey thought that the fact that women don’t get equal pay and are nowhere close to the amount of male engineers in the world is unfair.  “As a father of two daughters I know my girls can do as well as any guy.  To deny someone's full opportunity is wrong,”  was one of the answers.  

I’ve decided for my agent of change piece that I want to make this issue apparent to others, because I feel like the only way to change this problem is for people to know about it.  From my survey results, I saw that many people don’t know who Ada Lovelace is or that 13% of engineers worldwide are women.  Specifically, I’m going to present my project to my advisory.  I plan on making a slideshow that includes the most important details of my project and then seeing what they think about the subject.  I’m also going to find an activity that my class can do after, that allows everyone to be creative.  Be sure to look for my next blog post!

I found that it was really helpful to get my slide critiqued by the class.  I got a lot of good comments and I feel like the changes I made really helped make my slide better.  The first comment I got was that my words should be much bigger. I increased the writing and it was easier to read than before.  Ms.Hull also showed me how to layer the writing so I decide to include that.  I made the main words a light yellow color and the shadow of the letters a dark blue that was originally the main color.  Also the image I used wasn't edited so I used PicMonkey, and editing site to make my image slightly darker and make the shadows more intense.  

Hello! For this project my group was to focus on respiration.  We had to make a presentation that could be taught to our peers.  By the end of this project my group wanted to be able to explain a diagram of the process of respiration.  We also wanted to know how ATP is formed in more detail.  Something my group learned was about what happens during the major sections of respiration, like glycolysis and the Krb’s cycle. What my team would do differently next time is experiment with voice overs so that the diagrams on our presentation are much easier to understand.   

Hello!  My name is Indee Phillpotts and I am a freshmen at Science Leadership Academy.  For a project in my English class we had to choose a topic that interest us and that we care about.  I chose women bias in the Science and Engineering workfield.  I am a young women, and although unsure of what I want to be when I grow up I deserve to have as many options as possible.  

For years and years women have been considered worthless and less important than men.  It was an unwritten rule that the men had the jobs and the women took care of the cooking and cleaning.  That is not the case now.  In these days women have more rights than they’ve had in the past centuries; but there’s still a long way to go.  For instance, men are paid more than women.  On average a women working full time makes $.70 for every dollar a man makes.  But pertaining more to my topic only 11% of engineers in the world are women.  Leaving the other 89% to be men.   

It’s unfortunate that such a small amount of women are in that workfield when women are as capable as men at these jobs.  Like Ada Lovelace for instance.  The majority of people have no idea who she is and what she has done.  That is insane because Ada Lovelace was the worlds first computer programmer.  Without her we wouldn’t be where we are with computers.  If a man was the first computer programmer he would probably be considered the “father of computers.” Which coincidentally when googled is Charles Babbage, Ada's lifelong friend. Charles Babbage actually enlisted Ada to translate a french memoir by mathematician Louis Menebrea, to which Ada added incredibly important notes that would be used by Charles. I'm curious to know if Ada was living in more recent times if her talents and accomplishments would have more recognition then they did back then.

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) First Computer Programmer.

During World War II when all of the men went to fight in the war, women got to show that they are capable of working too.  Since women were never really introduced to the jobs that they could temporarily have, the government  created a fictional character named “Rosie the Riveter” to inspire women to get jobs.  Women were inspired all right!  Before the war only 1% of people in the aircraft industry were women.  That number jumped to 65% during the war.  Women who had never worked with large machines or engines were doing equally as good a job as the men.  Sadly when the war ended women were replaced with men in their jobs and everything went back to the way it was.   This probably contributed to why the women rights movement came into action.  Once women got a taste of those jobs they wanted more.

Rosie the Riveter, A fictional character created during WWII to motivate women to

get into the workfield.

There’s proof that women are as able as men to do “man's” work.  But then why in present day do less women study for these professions and aspire to be engineers?  It is said that by the age of 4 children are conditioned to think that boys have trucks and build things and girls have dolls and play dress up.  Before children are even taught to multiply and divide they already have it put in their minds that girls can’t do certain jobs.  Because of that conditioning it’s a given that boys will dominate in those fields. This puts girls who want to work in those areas in hard positions.  It’s hard to feel comfortable in an environment when you’re the only one of your gender.  Girls in single sex schools even have a higher participation in physics than in co-ed schools.  Probably due to the lack of competition.  The bias in these work fields is impossible to ignore; especially from a woman's standpoint.  If women and girls are informed about this topic, then maybe we can move toward a more accepting and less biased future.

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