My capstone originally started out as a maneuver to receive grant money from organizations in order to help out Science Leadership Academy with sports equipment. As the year went on I quickly realized that equipment was not the real problem. The school district of Philadelphia has actually funded baseball teams this year so they could get three regulation bats and bases (along with a pitching mound). Our real problem was finding a home field. The purpose of my yearlong project was to find a field for the baseball team that was somewhat close, while making equipment more affordable for students on the team.

Here's a poster promoting savings on sports equipment.

Click HERE for the project if the embedded presentation fails to work.

      The two countries that I selected were Greece and Hong Kong (not actually considered a country). Greece has recently been through some hard times with its economy and Hong Kong has had a thriving economy because of the help it readily receives from its homeland of China. Hong Kong has a host of trade partners though its connections with China, but that also leaves it with a large amount of enemies as well. Greece, while not having many trade partners, which hurts its economy is not bombarded by hostiles as much because it is so low key when compared to other countries in the area.
     My process was fairly simple. It took a while to gather research and other information regarding the economies of both of these countries because they both have such a rich history. Hong Kong has always had a strong economy and getting to the bottom of why this is true was a challenge because many wondered whether staying true to China would be a good move for them. Although the "country" wants to break away from China, they really have no choice but to stay with the homeland because their big corporations and banks keep Hong Kong's economy thriving. It was a bit easier finding information on Greece because of their recent economical mishaps. The five points of framework were somewhat difficult to apply to these countries because I couldn't tell if I should apply them to just recent events or things that had happened far back in the past.
     If there was anything that I could change about my project it would be to choose a form of presentation that could get my information across better than a keynote. I feel like I could have said a lot more but restricted myself because I wanted the keynote to look a bit nicer. However, I fell like the keynote got the point I was trying to make across to the viewer well enough.

This first graph (above) shows the amount of people in the world that are of certain ages. I believed that if the world was made up of 100 people, most of them would be middle aged. I was right in predicting this, followed by the prediction that the second largest group of people would be young, followed by seniors. All of my predictions for this category were correct and this seems to make sense because there are many countries that have life expectancies that are below the age of the last category (65+).

This second graph showcases the amount of people that speak each language throughout the world. In this category, most of my predictions were way off when compared to how languages are actually split up within the globe. My prediction for the amount of people that speak Chinese was more than 1/5 of the Earth, while in actuality, the amount is much lower. When I looked at Chinese, I must have grouped it together with Mandarin and/or Taiwanese which would have made the number much larger. For the other languages, besides English, I actually just had no clue as to what amount of people would be speaking each language because I never really thought about the topic. I just assumed that every language that seemed Asian would have had a larger population of people speaking it. 

The last graph shown (above) is comparing the amount of people that live in urban areas as opposed to rural areas throughout the world. I am not exactly sure why I thought about 3/4 of the earth lives in an urban environment. I guess I thought that most of the world was made up of a city environment like China and much of the United States. However, I was not thinking about the majority of Asia and Africa that vastly add to the percentage of the population that lives in a rural environment.

The majority of my answers were close to the correct answer but there were others that strayed very far from the correct numbers, especially in the language category. I think this assignment gives me a clear view of how I perceived the world, along with my class. Having lived in a city my whole life, it's hard to picture what the rest of the world could be living in/going through when only really seeing one point of view.

             The hydraulic fracturing company that has stepped into the waters of Pennsylvania, Marcellus Shale has only been in business for about four years now. “We have had enough time to perfect our technique. Our coalition takes special precautions when it comes to harmful chemicals and our drilling process.” After a twenty-five minute holding period because of busy lines over the phone, a representative of the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) had assured me that there were major precautions taken in the drawn out drilling process in Pennsylvania.

Contact the Marcellus Shale Coalition at (724)-745-0100

 “…But you do use harmful chemicals when drilling, right?” I asked when on the phone with the representative.”

            “There is no reason to be alarmed, our machines are top of the line and we have very experienced workers”, she said, without answering my question.

            For a company with such an assuring logo, the MSC seemed to be dodging each question that was asked over the phone with an almost automated response. It was as if the representative had a paper of frequently asked questions in front of her to look through while I drilled her with not so pressing questions.

           The biggest contribution MSC makes to the economy are the jobs that it creates because of drilling for natural gasses. They also advertise how clean their natural gases burn, effectively leaving less of a carbon footprint than so many other materials that are used in today’s market. When looking at the following graph, we can see that natural gasses do produce significantly less harmful chemicals than other energy sources, which is great…

           However, what they don’t tell the public, and instead releease secretively to the state of Pennsylvania is a record of over 300 chemicals that are pumped into the ground along with pressurized water.

TJ Nicolella, Amber Altomare

Click HERE to view our documentary or watch below

Our documentary outlines some of the confusion and different interpretations of the 4th amendment and how that causes more problems than it solves.

          ​Amber and I chose this topic because it was something that has been coming up a lot in news these days. There have been stories of search and seizure incidents around Philadelphia and in places like airports and train stations. This topic even relates to me in some ways. Every weekend, if me or other people are outside past ten o'clock, cops will stop us and ask to search the bags we are carrying without giving us an explanation why. This project was great because it allowed us to be creative and make a video that explores different parts of the amendment that we wanted a provision for. Each person that looked into the same amendment had a very different outlook on the outlines of that amendment and talked about different things within it. The most challenging part was the editing of the video and finding actual C-Span clips that made sense for my video. The most interesting fact that I found when researching the fourth amendment was that I had the right to refuse searches if they breach my fourth amendment rights. There really needs to be no improvement to the project, but maybe add some checkpoints throughout the duration of the benchmark.
          We ran into trouble when attempting to find C-Span footage that would work well with our video because a lot of the downloadable footage was composed of two people debating with a moderator talking between them. Some things that went well include our ability to outline a valid problem within the amendment and how it could be interpreted in many different ways by different people. If I had to do this project again I would start much earlier than I did. I would also film some interviews about the topic of interest. Throughout this process, I learned that much of the language in the constitution is left to be determined differently by courts and in some cases is very outdated by today's standards.

National Meat Association vs. Harris:

In this supreme court case, the National Meat association of California is going up against Federal law. In this particular case State law is being challenged by federal law, which usually comes out on top in terms of supreme court cases. California state law dictates that a sickly animal must be destroyed immediately while federal law outlines that the animal must be quarantined and observed so an illness can be pinpointed to see if the rest of the slaughterhouse animals could possibly be affected by the disease. The animal would also be quarantined to find out the symptoms of the disease or infection in order to find it in other animals (pigs in this case). Part of California's argument included that leaving a quarantined animal to die from a horrid infection or illness is a form of cruelty while those backing the federal law stuck to their argument that finding the root of the illness and preventing an outbreak of disease among a group of animals bound for the slaughterhouse has a much greater reward than risk. Since the case is relatively straightforward, officials will most likely come to a decision in the early months of the upcoming year after the weigh the pro's and con's of each dictated law.

  
    Hydraulic fracturing is being opposed by 78 percent of elected officials who have had a say in what companies are going to drill in our waters. Although this is the case, these companies are still drilling. How could this be the case? That is what Iris Marie Bloom, director of Protecting Our Waters has asked numerous times. Unlike many politicians, Bloom has a clear following and is pushing forward every possible obstacle at the drilling companies to get them out of Philadelphia's waterways. Iris Marie Bloom has held steady protests throughout the city since July of 2010 to get her point across, averaging a turnout of nearly six thousand people each protest.
    At each of her protests, Bloom brings together nearly sixty five organizations that have their targets set on removing drills from waters around Pennsylvania and other states. While the protesters realize that these companies have contracts within the city and would lose large amount of money by withdrawing from their projects, they still refuse to acknowledge any environmental or health risks. In the case of hydraulic fracturing, the cons vastly outweigh the pros and no matter the cost of the drilling companies, the drilling must be stopped soon enough.
    While big name protestors like Iris Bloom and Tracy Carluccio have important roles in removing drilling companies like Marcellus Shale and others, the real influencers of these drilling companies are the citizens that come out to these protests and have felt the affects of fracking.

Click Here to send a delightful postcard to Governor Tom Corbett.

    Many students, including in this class are focused on putting a stop to tracking within Pennsylvania's boundaries. Ali Ahmed and Rashaun Williams are just two of the students who are taking a stance on the fight against fracking. Together, we would red to influence Governor Tom Corbett and even the White House to fight for our cause to get something done about the pollution in our waters. So far, millions of petitions have been sent to Barack Obama's federal representative demanding a "No" vote against fracking.
    We are already out of time, as tracking has been polluting our waters for nearly fifty years now, and while it has more recently inhabited Philadelphia it has plunged the city's drinking water from the fifth on the leader board to dead last in terms of cleanliness. In the past three years the water in Philly has been utterly destroyed by chemicals. Meanwhile, we're all drinking it.

If you still don't understand hydraulic fracturing, this great song should help you out.

Click here to view our "Steps to Divorce" Flow Chart.

The bureaucratic process that Amber and I detailed with a flow chart was the process of getting a divorce. In the simplest form, a divorce is the process of ending a marriage and contains many different factors that can quickly escalate the process into an expensive, time filling process. Things like personal property and custody of children almost always extend the process along with numerous disagreements between the two spouses. The paperwork that Amber and I filled out was straight forward only because we filled out the form that did not require us to inquire about children or the split up of property between the two former spouses. If there was one thing I could change about the bureaucratic process it would be the never ending loop of paperwork that would have to be filed if disagreements are made between the two spouses that would result in a stand still for quite some time. I think the systems have become so complicated because of many other laws that have passed that present obstacles for these processes. Also, these obstacles are present to prevent exploits of the system and to provide checks and balances.

Our Vietnam War Prezi Presentation:

DADT Policy Prezi Presentation, By: Thomas Nicolella

Reflection:

           I chose the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy to talk about because it is a policy that has had such a large impact on a large group of America's population. Ever since 1993 there has been outrage about the DADT policy and although it was made out of good intention by President Bill Clinton, it ultimately held back homosexual and bisexual military service members. I thought that a Prezi would be the best way to present this data without being boring because a Prezi presentation is thrilling to look at just because of how smooth it operates. This way of presenting made it easy for me to tell a story of the policy as it unfolded and eventually got repealed earlier this year.
          Some of the biggest challenges for me were included with the research process. At first, I couldn't actually figure out how the policy was started, as there were many attempts at starting a policy like this one that would take away the total ban of homosexual service members. If I was able to do the project differently, I would make the presentation into more of a story as opposed to a linear procession through the major events in the policy's timeline. After researching thoroughly, I found out that all of the attempts at this policy before Bill Clinton's intrusion into the topic were shot down fairly quickly. Congress even wanted to shoot down Clinton's policy when he proposed DADT. He eventually got his was and ratified the policy with a great amount of opposition from many in congress. The project basically went along as planned. I knew there was going to be a lot of information, unlike many other bills that were chosen because the DADT policy was closely monitored throughout it's life and has recently made a big splash in the media because of its repeal.

Bibliography:

Belkin, Aaron. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Is the Gay Ban Based on Military Necessity?." Parameters: US Army War College 33.2 (2003): 108. Military & Government Collection. EBSCO. Web. 30 Mar. 2010

Fuller, Andrea. "Colleges Await End of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. (Cover story)." Chronicle of Higher Education 56.25 (2010): A1-A21. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 30
Mar. 2010

Grice, Michael D. "Leading Through Change." Marine Corps Gazette 94, no. 1 (January 2010): 43-45. Military & Government Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed March 30, 2010).

Kilgannon, Corey. "At West Point, Hidden Gay Cadets" Early Bird, August 25, 2010.

McMichael, William H., et al. "How troops really feel about gays serving openly." Army Times 70.31 (2010): 10-14. Military & Government Collection. EBSCO. Web. 30 Mar. 2010.

McMichael, William H. "Mullen: Dropping 'don't ask' is 'the right thing to do.'." Army Times 70.31 (2010): 11-14. Military & Government Collection. EBSCO. Web. 30 Mar. 2010.

McMichael, William H., et al. "Service chiefs: Don't repeal gay ban during war.." Army Times 70.34 (2010): 21. Military & Government Collection. EBSCO. Web. 30 Mar. 2010.

Moradi, Bonnie, and Laura Miller. "Attitudes of Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans toward Gay and Lesbian Service Members." Armed Forces & Society (0095327X) 36.3 (2010): 397-419. Military & Government Collection. EBSCO. Web. 30 Mar. 2010.

Prakash, Om. "The Efficacy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." 2009 4th Quarter, Issue 55, p88-94. Military & Government Collection. EBSCO. Web. 30 Mar. 2010.

"The Palm Center; Summit Announced on Gay Service In Foreign Militaries. " Defense & Aerospace Business  24 Feb. 2010: 38 ProQuest Military Collection, ProQuest. Web.  30 Mar. 2010.

            ​In the past five years, Philadelphia’s drinking water has gone from the top five cleanest bodies of drinking water to dead last. Many officials this is due to hydraulic fracturing since fracking has recently started in Philadelphia in the past couple of years. Many feel that the chemicals used to break through bedrock and go through a pipe that is plunged through are drinking water are leaking into the bodies of water, infecting what we drink on a daily basis. However, this cannot be found out entirely because companies that practice hydraulic fracturing will not release a full list of chemicals that are used in the process. However, many of the chemicals that they have told the public about are cancerous substances.

Officials from the Philadelphia Water Department are some of the most avid fighters against fracking. They have realized that hydraulic fracturing in the Delaware River is a major factor in the quality of drinking water in Philly, as about 60 percent of the city’s residents get their drinking water from the river. The water department also realizes that drilling is only one of the problems that plagues our city’s drinking water and Christopher S. Crockett, director of planning and research at the water department of Philadelphia says that the company is going to take a scientific approach to the situation as apposed to jumping out of their seat and being sloppy about it.

Other officials against fracking are taking a quicker approach to shutting down hydraulic fracturing in Philadelphia. The executive director of PennEnvironment, David Masur has frowned upon the Water Department because of their lack of urgency when it comes to stopping hydraulic fracking in the Delaware River.

 

For more info on PennEnvironment’s approach on the halt of fracking (http://www.pennenvironment.org/drilling/water)

Detailed Fracking Information

Hydraulic fracturing has been a big part the contribution to chemical infested water in the United States for fifty years now. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking is a process in which workers send highly pressurized water and chemicals to propagate a fracture in a rock layer to release petroleum and other natural gases for extraction. In order to extract these natural gases, tracking companies must pass their drill through our states drinking water, and the chemicals (which have not all been named) are slowly seeping into our drinking water, causing many health concerns. Some chemicals that have been named that are used in the tracking process are carcinogens.

For a detailed description of hydraulic fracturing click HERE.

Many communities in Pennsylvania, especially Philadelphia have been staging protests against fracking...

There are countless protesters against fracking as well as lobbyist fighting to abolish it in our states, but there are the few who are looking to ensure their short term political wealth by lobbying for hydraulic fracturing and disregarding the welfare of those who drink the chemical infested water.

Click HERE to view my project that details the alternate events that could have occurred if America decided to use nuclear weapons during the Korean War in the 1950's.


Reflection:

This project actually took a lot of time when compared to the other benchmarks that we've done throughout the course of the year because changing one thing meant we were changing the course of history. That one change could drastically change the future and it was a challenge thinking all of that through. However, that is also what I liked about this project. It let us be creative, while also challenging our changes to reality. I had investigated many events but I would have to say that the most interesting would have to be the relationship between North and South Korea as well as the Korean war because of the conflicts that were going on at the time. The actions of America mostly impact my alternate timeline negatively because our government felt entitled to drop bombs on other countries simple because they had done it before without thinking of the ramifications, which usually were on the negative side for both America and the country they nuked. For the most part, the most systemic changes in my alternate reality involved communist countries switching over to a democratic approach, which was good for the citizens and the world. One person can be very influential, the mere signing of a paper can authorize the death of millions of people, like in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. This project could have possibly been improved by completing it on some other format other than a website. If I had to do this project over I wouldn't wait until the last week to really start working to end up with a better, more polish final product.

​          I was thinking about making some type of acoustic guitar for this project because a guitar is the only instrument that I have at least a little bit of experience with. I do know that guitars have been around since the 1500’s and can vastly differ from one another. However, most acoustic guitars have six strings varying in width and mass that are laid over a hollow body to emanate a louder sound to be heard at a further distance. On a regular acoustic guitar, strings become thicker from bottom to top of the bridge of the guitar, so the higher the string on the bridge, the thicker the string. When the strings are plucked they actually make little noise but this disturbance makes a disturbance in the air around it that also vibrates the bridge of the guitar. The strings can also make different noises based on how you work them whether it be plucking or tapping them, etc.

Resources:
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/guitar/guitarintro.html
Allen Collins

Thomas Nicolella

Español 4, D Band

Maltrato Infantil

El Bola, Q4 Proyecto

 

pruebas compiladas:

moretones y cicatrices

miedo de volver a casa

tímido, no habla mucho sobre la familia

Desaparecidos de la escuela por una semana

deprimidos, evitando amigos

se escapo de casa porque su padre lo azote

confeso a la policia: insultar, azotar, escupir por el padre

 

Posibles preguntas de las autoridades:

 

¿Como puede usted estar seguro de estas cicatrices so de su padre?

 

Son de su padre porque era evidente que él estaba tratando de esconderse de la gente y finalmente admitió que su padre era abusivo y lo golpeó varias veces.

 

¿Es su madre también la culpa?

 

No tanto como el padre porque ella no golpeó al joven. Sin embargo, ella no hizonada para detener la violencia sólo porque ella pensó que haría más daño y, posiblemente, conseguir hacerle daño también. Toda la situación era peligrosa.

 

¿Por qué esperar tanto tiempo para informar a las autoridades de las acciones del padre?

 

Esperamos informar a las autoridades ya que fueron instruidos por un consejeroque esperar hasta que tuviéramos la evidencia real de los abusos y no solo es peculaciones de los hechos.

 

¿Qué se debe hacer con el niño en términos de refugio?

 

Bueno, ya que es muy amigo de mi hijo y he llegado a pensar en él como un hijo, Lo llevaré a mi casa como su tutor legal.

 

Evidencia / argumento contra el padre de Pablo:

 

En primer lugar, El Bola ha sido un buen amigo de mi hijo desde que comenzó ir a la escuela igual que Pablo. Definitivamente tienen una buena relación y si el niño vivía con nosotros, su relación podría crecer como la de hermanos. Además, mi hijo notado muchos moretones y cicatrices en Pablo cuandoregresamos de nuestro viaje a las montañas.

Cuando Pablo le faltaba a la escuela por una semana de clases, mi hijo fue elque trajo esto a mi atención. Pablo estaba bien antes de que él desapareció de la escuela y mi hijo sabía que algo andaba mal. También fue a guardar el padre del niño para ver qué le pasaba a Pablo. El hombre estaba claramente mentir cuando contestó a mis preguntas.

El colmo llegó cuando Pablo llegó corriendo a mi casa hace un par de noches, llorando de miedo porque su padre acababa de pegarle. No tenía más remedio que huir de su hogar y buscar refugio en mi casa. Estaba cubierto de hematomas y cortes y rogaron que se quedara en mi casa para pasar la noche. Siento que él confíe en mí mucho, y yo sería la mejor opción para ser su tutor legal. Si se envía a un hogar de crianza temporal que podría sufrir la misma suerte que él hizo con su padre.

 

Autoridades:

 

Hemos visto en este caso muy bien y es muy evidente que este chico, Pabloestaba siendo golpeado por su padre. La mayor cantidad de evidencia provienedel propio niño, porque él nos dijo a todas las cosas horribles que hizo su padrey le dijo en los últimos años incluyendo insultos y los golpes / golpearlo. Hemosdecidido colocar José, el padre de Alfredo en la custodia del niño y el cambio éla su tutor legal, porque los padres de Pablo no son aptos para cuidar de un niño. No se sabe qué se hará con el padre, sino que se llevará a cabo en la corte muy pronto.

 

 

 

 

 

Rigoberta Menchu:

Ella es la minoria.
Herencia Maya.
Venia de una familia pobre.
Su familia fue asesinada.
Ella Exiliado a Mexico.
Ella escribe los libros.
Ella viva hoy.

Robert Kennedy:

El asesinar.
El corre para la presidencia.
El Fue muy rico porque el familia.
Luchar derechos.

TJ Nicolella, Emma Hersh, Nailah Adam
 click picture below to see it larger

​        



          Escogí este ilustraciones porque me gusta la contraste con los colores en esta obre del arte. Esta pintura es obra de Juan Gris y fue pintado en 1917. Contiene un copa de vino, sifon y tablero de ajedrez. Elegí esta obra de arte porque no sé nada sobre del pictura. Es muy tranquil en la obra, pero haber otras cosas pasando que no puede ver en la pintura.

           Soy Father McEnroe, Yo soy el ex director de una escuela en Chile. La escuela era sólo para chicos y fue reemplazado por el ejército cuando el general Pinochet envió a sus hombres.  

 

Objectivamente:

 

          Esta obra de arte es soló blanco y negro en colór. Contiene un copa de vino, sifon y tablero de ajedrez. Los colores contraste a la perfección con su entorno, y parece que todos los objetos se mezclan. A pesar de este cuadro sólo se compone de tonos de negro, gris y blanco, parece que cada objeto en la pintura tiene muchos colores debido a la forma los colores se mezclan. Las sombras en esta obra de arte también se bien hecho. Se componen de muchas líneas largas y rectas. Además, las líneas rectas de las sombras un buen trabajo con las líneas curvas delos objetos como el sifón.

 

Subjectivamente:

 

          Esta obra de arte no tiene título, pero si yo fuera Juan Gris yo el nombre de "La calma que precede a la tormenta", porque la escena parece muy tranquilo. Aunque la pintura es muy tranquila, al igual que las casas de muchos ciudadanos de clase alta en Chile, podría haber tantas cosas que pasan fuera de la confunde de está dentro de la frontera de la pictura. Los que son ricos y pueden permitirse los objetos en la pintura son ajenos a lo que sucede a su alrededor mientras que hay una guerra en la parte pobre de las ciudades y barrios.

Link to our project: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16324814/MusicandPolitics.zip


Reflection:

To choose a topic for this benchmark project, Tim and I decided to somewhat join our two topics together in order to be able to use each previous set of research and information that we each used in the paper that was written for our quarter two benchmark. We figured that the best way to effectively combine our information would be in a website format because we would be able to include media as well as a wealth of words to get our point across. 

The project went pretty smoothly throughout the time that we worked on it, however it was a hard task to merge the two topics because they were similar, but required some re-working to get them to fit properly together on one website that talked about the affects of music on politics and vise versa. 

Paginas de Libro y vídeo (abajo) :

​

    La película "Mar Adentro" se trata de la vida de Ramón Sampedro, un tetrapléjico que quiere morir. Él escribe poemas y libros, pero no es feliz. Él siempre está en la cama pensando o escribiendo con la boca. Se convirtió en un tetrapléjico cuando se rompió el cuello mientras nadaba. Ramón piensa el no tiene propósito en la vida y piensa que el es una molestia para su familia.

    La vida es realmente un privilegio? esta película nos hace pensar en la vida. ¿Tenemos realmente una opción? Ramón Sampedro es tan profundo con su expresiónes y escrita  me ha convencido.

    Para mí, entiendo lo que Ramón está pasando porque no se puede mover. Estoy totalmente de acuerdo con la opinión de Ramón y lo apoyó en la película. Yo respeto la decisión de Ramón, pero no respetan la forma Ramón decidió morir. Él utilizó la ayuda de otros y era muy hábil con la forma en lo hizo y él era muy astuto (crafty).

    En mi opinión, la película fue excelente. La narración fue increíble y la forma en que retrata Ramón era bueno. Otros personajes tenían personalidades bien y la película tuvo un final muy dramático con Julia. Me encantó la película por la historia y me puso triste al final.