Energy and Place
Essential Questions-
1. How does energy production impact* place?
2. How does your sense of place**, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions regarding energy production.
1. How does energy production impact* place?
2. How does your sense of place**, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions regarding energy production.
Artist statement:
My art piece represents my sense of place because my sense of place is I can be anywhere and be happy as long as I have friends and music. My art piece is a mosaic. The main image is a photo of Durango, my home, a place where I know I will always belong. The rest of the photos are made up of all the different places that I have been like New York, Disney land, all of the places I have been.
I didn’t really have to refine anything because I had one idea, and I went with it and I was very happy with the outcome. On my project week, I took a lot of photos being in nature to emphasize that nature is my favorite place to be.
I was trying to think about a way that I could show my sense of place. And right away I had thought about a mosaic because I could take one photo that captures where I really belong and I could use photos from everywhere I have been to show that I could be anywhere and be content. I was very happy with how my art piece came out.
My art piece represents my sense of place because my sense of place is I can be anywhere and be happy as long as I have friends and music. My art piece is a mosaic. The main image is a photo of Durango, my home, a place where I know I will always belong. The rest of the photos are made up of all the different places that I have been like New York, Disney land, all of the places I have been.
I didn’t really have to refine anything because I had one idea, and I went with it and I was very happy with the outcome. On my project week, I took a lot of photos being in nature to emphasize that nature is my favorite place to be.
I was trying to think about a way that I could show my sense of place. And right away I had thought about a mosaic because I could take one photo that captures where I really belong and I could use photos from everywhere I have been to show that I could be anywhere and be content. I was very happy with how my art piece came out.
For our Energy and Place project, we did a lot of different tasks to develop our creative writing skills and find our sense of place. My favorite exercise that we did was our Inspiration Journals. I was having a hard time trying to figure out my sense of place. For the journal entries, it would ask us questions to write about how we were feeling where we were and I went camping when I did mine and I was able to figure out my sense of place.
When I was writing my essay, I had a really hard time trying to figure out what stories I should use for my sense of place. I had rewrote my essay about five times before I had found one that I felt worked really well. I really used perseverance when I was writing my essay because I didn’t give up. I persevered to get a essay that showed my sense of place, my environmental ethic, and my beautiful work.
I was very proud of my visual piece because it looked really good and represented my sense of place very well. My essay was okay to me. I think if I had a little more time, I could have made my essay perfect. But for the time frame, it was okay.
I really enjoyed this project because I was really happy when I found my sense of place. It made me very happy when I did because I knew what I needed to feel a sense of place wherever I was. I thought the project overall was awesome. I had a great time reflecting on myself and writing an essay and creating a visual piece that represented my sense of place.
Link to Chemistry Energy and Place Project-http://trsdp.weebly.com/chemistry.html
When I was writing my essay, I had a really hard time trying to figure out what stories I should use for my sense of place. I had rewrote my essay about five times before I had found one that I felt worked really well. I really used perseverance when I was writing my essay because I didn’t give up. I persevered to get a essay that showed my sense of place, my environmental ethic, and my beautiful work.
I was very proud of my visual piece because it looked really good and represented my sense of place very well. My essay was okay to me. I think if I had a little more time, I could have made my essay perfect. But for the time frame, it was okay.
I really enjoyed this project because I was really happy when I found my sense of place. It made me very happy when I did because I knew what I needed to feel a sense of place wherever I was. I thought the project overall was awesome. I had a great time reflecting on myself and writing an essay and creating a visual piece that represented my sense of place.
Link to Chemistry Energy and Place Project-http://trsdp.weebly.com/chemistry.html
Happiness and Meaning Project
Essential Questions:
a. What is the purpose of your existence?
b. What is happiness and what makes you happy?
c. What does it mean to live a meaningful life?
d. To what extent can literature shape your personal philosophy on happiness and meaning? Inspirational Quote:
Well, if you want to sing out, sing out. And if you want to be free, be free. 'Cause there's a million things to be. You know that there are. And if you want to live high, live high. And if you want to live low, live low. 'Cause there's a million ways to go. You know that there are. You can do what you want. The opportunity's on. And if you can find a new way. You can do it today. You can make it all true. And you can make it undo, you see, it’s easy, you only need to know. Well if you want to say yes, say yes. And if you want to say no, say no. 'Cause there's a million ways to go. You know that there are. And if you want to be me, be me. And if you want to be you, be you. 'Cause there's a million things to do. You know that there are. Well, if you want to sing out, sing out. And if you want to be free, be free. 'Cause there's a million things to be. You know that there are.
"If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out"
Cat Stevens
Link to the project description handout: https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/file/d/0B5ktO3NLUDlcems1NU1kbjZudWM/edit
The Stranger Seminar Prep:How does camus illustrate the absurd? He accepts death and his life has no meaning near the end of the book.
What if anything could you learn about living your life? To live everyday like its your last. Live everyday in the present and not dwell on the past or the sad things in life.
Discuss the changes in M. “There are some things I have never liked talking about.” Pg. 72
“Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours. It doesn't mean anything. Pg. 3 “It was as if i had waited all this time for this moment and for the first light of this dawn to be vindicated.” Pg.
New Insights:
I learned a lot about different philosophy's and I would take the best parts of each of them and would make them into my own philosophy. I was able to know that I wanted to have a perspective on life and it consisted of a few different things. I think that people that should believe what they believe, but they shouldn't force what they believe on other people. Treat people how you would want to be treated. And do what makes you happy. I had really enjoyed this project because I was able to have a broader look on life and what I could do to make mine better. I really liked the poem the lesson of the moth. I liked how the moth had so much passion to such a meaningless task, but he was happy about it. I really enjoyed this poem because it is better to do what makes you happy than be miserable.
Further Questions:
There was one major question I had and it was, If I want to do what makes me happy, why do I take certain classes in school when they don't interest me in anyway nor do they make me happy because of it. And if I should be able to what I want as an individual, why cant I choose what classes I want to take? Or how I think finals or tests like the SAT or the ACT are unnecessary and make me unhappy, why do I have to do them to determine my final grade in a class or it determines what college I get int?. This project definitely made me realize how unnecessary certain things are. And I think it is great that I have been open to a whole new perspective on life.
a. What is the purpose of your existence?
b. What is happiness and what makes you happy?
c. What does it mean to live a meaningful life?
d. To what extent can literature shape your personal philosophy on happiness and meaning? Inspirational Quote:
Well, if you want to sing out, sing out. And if you want to be free, be free. 'Cause there's a million things to be. You know that there are. And if you want to live high, live high. And if you want to live low, live low. 'Cause there's a million ways to go. You know that there are. You can do what you want. The opportunity's on. And if you can find a new way. You can do it today. You can make it all true. And you can make it undo, you see, it’s easy, you only need to know. Well if you want to say yes, say yes. And if you want to say no, say no. 'Cause there's a million ways to go. You know that there are. And if you want to be me, be me. And if you want to be you, be you. 'Cause there's a million things to do. You know that there are. Well, if you want to sing out, sing out. And if you want to be free, be free. 'Cause there's a million things to be. You know that there are.
"If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out"
Cat Stevens
Link to the project description handout: https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/file/d/0B5ktO3NLUDlcems1NU1kbjZudWM/edit
The Stranger Seminar Prep:How does camus illustrate the absurd? He accepts death and his life has no meaning near the end of the book.
What if anything could you learn about living your life? To live everyday like its your last. Live everyday in the present and not dwell on the past or the sad things in life.
Discuss the changes in M. “There are some things I have never liked talking about.” Pg. 72
“Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours. It doesn't mean anything. Pg. 3 “It was as if i had waited all this time for this moment and for the first light of this dawn to be vindicated.” Pg.
New Insights:
I learned a lot about different philosophy's and I would take the best parts of each of them and would make them into my own philosophy. I was able to know that I wanted to have a perspective on life and it consisted of a few different things. I think that people that should believe what they believe, but they shouldn't force what they believe on other people. Treat people how you would want to be treated. And do what makes you happy. I had really enjoyed this project because I was able to have a broader look on life and what I could do to make mine better. I really liked the poem the lesson of the moth. I liked how the moth had so much passion to such a meaningless task, but he was happy about it. I really enjoyed this poem because it is better to do what makes you happy than be miserable.
Further Questions:
There was one major question I had and it was, If I want to do what makes me happy, why do I take certain classes in school when they don't interest me in anyway nor do they make me happy because of it. And if I should be able to what I want as an individual, why cant I choose what classes I want to take? Or how I think finals or tests like the SAT or the ACT are unnecessary and make me unhappy, why do I have to do them to determine my final grade in a class or it determines what college I get int?. This project definitely made me realize how unnecessary certain things are. And I think it is great that I have been open to a whole new perspective on life.
Korematsu v. U.S. (1944)
The Korematsu v. the U.S. project was a very well researched project. Our class had started out by reading a book called “Snow Falling on Cedars.” The book was about an Asian American man who was arrested for murdering a man in the 1950’s. The book describes the racial profiling that had happened to the Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor. It gave us an idea about what it was like For a Japanese American in the 1940’s. After finishing the book, we learned about the constitution and the rights for American Citizens and how it related to the rights of the Japanese Americans in 1940. We then started to read the facts of the case from the side of the prosecution, the defense, and historian’s perspective on the case overall. We then lastly were assigned roles for the case. I was the Supreme Court judge for the case, and as my position, I had to learn about my character, write a paper on the facts of the case, and after the actual case, write a court ruling on the final verdict of the case.
After getting assigned our roles for the case, we had been put into our teams, judges, lawyers, and witnesses for either side. Me being a judge it was mostly independent work until we wrote the court ruling. We had just each individually annotated the facts of the case as well as we individually wrote the summary of the case. But the court ruling was really the only part that we did as a team. We had had gone overall the evidence that was submitted at the case to determine the final verdict. When working as a team, I felt that we had done a good job making our decision for the case.
When doing the research for the case, I had found it interesting reviewing the different ways that the Executive orders and Exclusion orders were unconstitutional. I really enjoyed writing the Summary of the case because I learned a lot about what was deemed constitutional and unconstitutional, and it helped me, as a judge of the case, to look for from the defense and prosecution lawyers and to reach a final verdict of the case.
Overall, I had really enjoyed the project. I really liked learning about the unconstitutional side of the internment camps, and to go into court and do an actual case. Things to improve would be more in class rehearsals to have it be less scripted and have it flow much better. For my role, I wish I would have had a better understanding of what the judges said for each part of the trial. But besides that, I enjoyed the project.
After getting assigned our roles for the case, we had been put into our teams, judges, lawyers, and witnesses for either side. Me being a judge it was mostly independent work until we wrote the court ruling. We had just each individually annotated the facts of the case as well as we individually wrote the summary of the case. But the court ruling was really the only part that we did as a team. We had had gone overall the evidence that was submitted at the case to determine the final verdict. When working as a team, I felt that we had done a good job making our decision for the case.
When doing the research for the case, I had found it interesting reviewing the different ways that the Executive orders and Exclusion orders were unconstitutional. I really enjoyed writing the Summary of the case because I learned a lot about what was deemed constitutional and unconstitutional, and it helped me, as a judge of the case, to look for from the defense and prosecution lawyers and to reach a final verdict of the case.
Overall, I had really enjoyed the project. I really liked learning about the unconstitutional side of the internment camps, and to go into court and do an actual case. Things to improve would be more in class rehearsals to have it be less scripted and have it flow much better. For my role, I wish I would have had a better understanding of what the judges said for each part of the trial. But besides that, I enjoyed the project.
This I Believe
What do I believe? I believe that every moment should count. this means i believe in living my life as best as i Possibly can.
A Toast to making it Count
Life should not be taken for granted. You should always live every moment like it is your last. Have you ever had the feeling that you’re not doing enough with your life? Or that you’re doing the same boring task everyday where you feel no joy towards it? That’s how I felt everyday when I was younger. I was a boring kid who did everything he was told. I had no opinion in anything; I just went with what I thought my life was. I played two sports, hockey and lacrosse. I hated the fact that I was being forced to play these sports. And that’s when I had a realization that I hate when other people make decisions for my which was making my life boring and dull.
I knew that I had to change my way of living to enjoy it as much as possible. So I had started to do things the way I wanted to, most of these decisions were against everything my parents wanted me to do. For example my parents never let me just hang out with friends; I had to have a plan. This usually consisted of walking around downtown which is the biggest waste of time. So I decided to start hanging out with more interesting people which brought me to start doing things I probably shouldn't have been doing, but besides that I was finally starting to enjoy my life.
As I started to become a little more adventurous with things that I found out that I enjoyed, It started to change my personality, the clothes I wore, the way I talked, the way I treated people. I used to be a jerk about everything or not talk to people that I had no interest in, but then I started to talk to everyone because I had a new perspective on anyone in a positive way. Everything about me had started to change. I liked my new friends, the things we did, such as hiking to the top of mountains and just looking around talking about our place in the universe. One of my favorite moments in my life was last year on 4/20. I say this because I had spent the whole day with my closest friends on top of Animas Mountain taking in the moment, the heat, and the mountains that surrounded all of Durango. This was when I had realized that the choices I had been making had made me happy to be alive.
The reason why I titled this essay “A Toast to making it Count” is because if you’re living a life where you are not happy, change your life. Why live in misery when you could be happy, all you need to do is make every moment count. Don’t make it a waste of your time, take chances, and do what you want to do and your life will be much better. This I believe.
“It’s funny how you find you enjoy your life when you’re happy to be alive.”
Reflection
For this project, we had to write a lot of starters related to what we believe in. Then we had to write a credo. A credo is a very short statement of what one believes. This is when we really started to go into detail about what we believed. At first I chose to write about music because it was a passion of mine but I wasn't able to tell the difference between being passionate or believing.
I had a difficult time trying to figure out what I believe in. I was having trouble trying to figure out the difference between being passionate about something and believing in something. I am passionate about music but I don’t believe that music does anything. It took me a long time to reflect on something I believe in. But once I figured out that I believed in living in the moment. I then was able to write my essay very easily once I had my idea.
The part that I am most proud of on my essay was being able to write about my beliefs. I thought I did a pretty good job on writing my beliefs in a way that was understandable.” Life should not be taken for granted. You should always live every moment like it is your last.” This quote really describes my entire essay. I thought that I had done a pretty good job on following the rubric and giving specific examples relating to my beliefs changing the reader’s perspective.
The part that I could have refined my essay on was making it have a good, consistent flow throughout the essay. I plan to try to have a few more review sessions before completing my essay.
My respect for Animas High has grown even more just from hearing the idea about this essay. I love the fact that we are able to write about our beliefs as students and exhibit them to the public. I never would have been able to think that I would have the chance to talk about my beliefs and show what I believe in by using specific examples about my life to give the reader a visual perspective on my beliefs. I enjoyed this project a lot because I could express myself when I know that in certain places you can’t express yourself.
A Toast to making it Count
Life should not be taken for granted. You should always live every moment like it is your last. Have you ever had the feeling that you’re not doing enough with your life? Or that you’re doing the same boring task everyday where you feel no joy towards it? That’s how I felt everyday when I was younger. I was a boring kid who did everything he was told. I had no opinion in anything; I just went with what I thought my life was. I played two sports, hockey and lacrosse. I hated the fact that I was being forced to play these sports. And that’s when I had a realization that I hate when other people make decisions for my which was making my life boring and dull.
I knew that I had to change my way of living to enjoy it as much as possible. So I had started to do things the way I wanted to, most of these decisions were against everything my parents wanted me to do. For example my parents never let me just hang out with friends; I had to have a plan. This usually consisted of walking around downtown which is the biggest waste of time. So I decided to start hanging out with more interesting people which brought me to start doing things I probably shouldn't have been doing, but besides that I was finally starting to enjoy my life.
As I started to become a little more adventurous with things that I found out that I enjoyed, It started to change my personality, the clothes I wore, the way I talked, the way I treated people. I used to be a jerk about everything or not talk to people that I had no interest in, but then I started to talk to everyone because I had a new perspective on anyone in a positive way. Everything about me had started to change. I liked my new friends, the things we did, such as hiking to the top of mountains and just looking around talking about our place in the universe. One of my favorite moments in my life was last year on 4/20. I say this because I had spent the whole day with my closest friends on top of Animas Mountain taking in the moment, the heat, and the mountains that surrounded all of Durango. This was when I had realized that the choices I had been making had made me happy to be alive.
The reason why I titled this essay “A Toast to making it Count” is because if you’re living a life where you are not happy, change your life. Why live in misery when you could be happy, all you need to do is make every moment count. Don’t make it a waste of your time, take chances, and do what you want to do and your life will be much better. This I believe.
“It’s funny how you find you enjoy your life when you’re happy to be alive.”
Reflection
For this project, we had to write a lot of starters related to what we believe in. Then we had to write a credo. A credo is a very short statement of what one believes. This is when we really started to go into detail about what we believed. At first I chose to write about music because it was a passion of mine but I wasn't able to tell the difference between being passionate or believing.
I had a difficult time trying to figure out what I believe in. I was having trouble trying to figure out the difference between being passionate about something and believing in something. I am passionate about music but I don’t believe that music does anything. It took me a long time to reflect on something I believe in. But once I figured out that I believed in living in the moment. I then was able to write my essay very easily once I had my idea.
The part that I am most proud of on my essay was being able to write about my beliefs. I thought I did a pretty good job on writing my beliefs in a way that was understandable.” Life should not be taken for granted. You should always live every moment like it is your last.” This quote really describes my entire essay. I thought that I had done a pretty good job on following the rubric and giving specific examples relating to my beliefs changing the reader’s perspective.
The part that I could have refined my essay on was making it have a good, consistent flow throughout the essay. I plan to try to have a few more review sessions before completing my essay.
My respect for Animas High has grown even more just from hearing the idea about this essay. I love the fact that we are able to write about our beliefs as students and exhibit them to the public. I never would have been able to think that I would have the chance to talk about my beliefs and show what I believe in by using specific examples about my life to give the reader a visual perspective on my beliefs. I enjoyed this project a lot because I could express myself when I know that in certain places you can’t express yourself.
The Morality and Politics of Justice
Op- Ed-https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/document/d/1dT-QsWaXCI06rmohPrcT_Ok6NScfJl3TE5fRrH9Bm6A/edit
Artist Statement-https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/document/d/1-1WgZQU1CMXPKxqi7HxO8uIaA7Cs4wddgRkwCsFSXvM/edit
Artist Statement-https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/document/d/1-1WgZQU1CMXPKxqi7HxO8uIaA7Cs4wddgRkwCsFSXvM/edit
Project Reflection
For this project we had to pick a political issue that could be argued to express something that we believed in and could write an article about
it. I chose to write about where American education places on a world wide scale. I was interested in this topic because I have heard about where America places on a broader scale in education and I wanted to go more in depth with it. We had to research our topic and find articles that explained our topic.Then we had to write an article discussing our issue and create a visual piece that represented our topic while using ethos pathos and logos.
My personal growth through this project was mainly putting a lot of effort in to a paper that I was writing to make it the best that I could. I
spent a lot of time rewriting my Op-Ed because I wasn’t satisfied with how it was turning out. At first it was a research paper that had a lot of statistics in it. Next it was an article that didn’t have a conclusion. And after spending time on getting set with an Idea I finally created an article that I was proud of.
I think for my final article, I think it is strongest in the category of Evidence. I did a lot of research for my topic and used a lot of
statistics that gave evidence for my article. I mainly used Sir Ken Robinson who had come up with the idea of using divergent thinking to refine public education. And since his idea is what mine is about it was very good evidence. The least strong part of my article was Rhetoric and Argumentation. I say this because my topic wasn’t something that you could really argue with in a since. It was something that was easy to discuss but to argue about, it wasn’t that great. I don’t really think it had that great of rhetoric because it wasn’t something that was really strong writing.
I would spend more time in the beginning of the project I would have finalized my idea and spent less time working on my research because I
would spend less time rewriting my article and would have more time on my artist piece.
For this project we had to pick a political issue that could be argued to express something that we believed in and could write an article about
it. I chose to write about where American education places on a world wide scale. I was interested in this topic because I have heard about where America places on a broader scale in education and I wanted to go more in depth with it. We had to research our topic and find articles that explained our topic.Then we had to write an article discussing our issue and create a visual piece that represented our topic while using ethos pathos and logos.
My personal growth through this project was mainly putting a lot of effort in to a paper that I was writing to make it the best that I could. I
spent a lot of time rewriting my Op-Ed because I wasn’t satisfied with how it was turning out. At first it was a research paper that had a lot of statistics in it. Next it was an article that didn’t have a conclusion. And after spending time on getting set with an Idea I finally created an article that I was proud of.
I think for my final article, I think it is strongest in the category of Evidence. I did a lot of research for my topic and used a lot of
statistics that gave evidence for my article. I mainly used Sir Ken Robinson who had come up with the idea of using divergent thinking to refine public education. And since his idea is what mine is about it was very good evidence. The least strong part of my article was Rhetoric and Argumentation. I say this because my topic wasn’t something that you could really argue with in a since. It was something that was easy to discuss but to argue about, it wasn’t that great. I don’t really think it had that great of rhetoric because it wasn’t something that was really strong writing.
I would spend more time in the beginning of the project I would have finalized my idea and spent less time working on my research because I
would spend less time rewriting my article and would have more time on my artist piece.