Humanities – Kankan’s Blog

Category: Humanities (page 1 of 2)

2022 Capstone Project: Sustainable Practices

Many of us know the earth is slowly declining… it won’t be long before it becomes a floating ball in space, with jewel blue oceans becoming brown and dead, lush green lands clogged with fumes. But luckily, if this problem is solved soon, our earth will endure. It is up to our generation to do so, to prepare the earth for the future generation. We won’t ever have a completely sustainable world. There is no perfect picture of sustainability, more like our personal interpretation. But we can try to get as close as possible, and people like you and me, people that aren’t in positions to make powerful decisions that will impact our earth in a good way, can help a lot. Sustainable practices have three main facets: environmental (the one we associate the most with “sustainable cities”), economic (the way we trade goods, our carbon footprint, our economy basically), and social (our government, our new society, our community). Of course, there are many facets alone branching off from their main topic, but the overall way is simple. Consider: if many people do the exact same thing for their earth, contributing to a bigger cause, it’s just a matter of time until we’re all doing it. After all, a city is made up of its people.

Shows the three main facets of sustainability, how they overlap, and a general definition. (ConceptDraw.com)

One of the most important aspects in our lives is our diet. Some have special dietary restrictions, like not eating meat or special requirements in their religion. But our diets have more sway in the future of our earth too. Our diet, consisting mostly of meat (with the exception of the vegetarians out there), is slowly releasing carbon emissions that add to the growing mass of toxic clouds covering our planet. It does not help that the way meat is being processed is adding to that cause. Many of the modern farming methods (although efficient), including tilling the soil, release the carbon embedded in the soil into the air instead of the plants absorbing it (Pitchfork Farms). If we didn’t, the carbon in the soil would have been happily absorbed by the crops, and the number of carbon emissions from farms would have reduced drastically. Of course, these carbon emissions don’t just come from the soil. Burps from cows alone release hundreds of carbon particles. Farmers cannot deal with that entirely, but they have found the cause, and therefore a solution. The food being fed to all animals are not reminiscent of their diet in the wild. This world has a precise cycle, and we are disrupting it.

To fix this problem, many farmers, including the ones from Pitchfork Farms, have let loose their animals in their fields. The animals will nibble on the insect-bitten crops, getting rid of the need to use pesticides, and, since they’re eating the food they were meant to, the gas in their stomach will lessen. In turn, their waste is a natural fertilizer, and it leaves the ground bare and already ready for new planting. This way, most of the carbon emissions coming from farms (as that is what produces many of the world’s annual emissions) will be lessened. So, even though this helps tremendously with the decrease of carbon in our atmosphere, some of the meat in our diet must go. According to “Project Drawdown”, a project launched by the government for regenerative agriculture, plant-rich diets help the earth more as meat and dairy industries releases a lot of carbon emissions and eating plant-rich diets allow us to get close to “net zero,” meaning giving the earth back what we took, having an equilibrium. “$1 trillion in annual health-care costs and lost productivity would be saved.” (Sustainable Jungle). Numerous studies all echo the same truth: meat, at least the way it is farmed today, is unsustainable (not to mention inhumane).

Shows the differences between regenerative farming and modern farming. (Thomas Kloepfer)

Sustainable living is another facet of sustainable practices. More simply, sustainable living is a method of reducing one’s “carbon footprint”. (Sustainable Living) One of the simplest ways to do so is to use clean energy. Clean and reusable energy is derived from unlimited natural resources, like from the sun, wind, water, geothermal, and biomass. This is especially useful, as it prevents the most negative repercussions on the earth and allows us to use it indefinitely. This solution is probably the easiest, and we already hold the knowledge and materials to do so. We have solar panels, turbines, and the most commonly used: windmills. In fact, we have been informed that ISB is entirely powered by wind energy (Paola). Unfortunately, some governments reject the use of reusable energy. The problem with this is that since renewable energy is, well, renewable, some fossil fuels and factories dealing with our carbon-emitting energy will be pushed out of business. And while that may not seem so bad; a small price to pay for our Earth’s wellbeing, it doesn’t seem this way to those people working, and the decrease in people paying for that energy will also decrease the taxes, the money, going to the government. Of course, some countries already are well into this phase, and as of right now, there’s nothing we can do short of marching up to them and making them change their minds.

But we already do have some changes. Public transportation is getting more and more common, even though we don’t use it as much due to covid, but like in China, public bikes and rides are not unusual. More people are purchasing electric cars, even though that electricity is coming from fossil fuels. And if we do put available clean energy out there for people to use and get if they want, some most likely will, as people want to do things for their earth, they just don’t know how. “In a nutshell, to live a sustainable lifestyle you should try to have as little of an impact on the Earth as possible, while also trying to replace the resources you do use.” (Wessexwater). Spending time reading or playing outside with your friends can move your entertainment methods to an eco-friendlier place!

There are many types of sustainable economies, one of which is the capitalist economy. A capitalist economy is a market system that produces and sells goods for profit. (Econation) This is most similar to ours right now. But an ideal sustainable economy is when “the overall demand for natural resources (also known as an ecological footprint) must be less than nature’s renewable supply of resources (also known as biocapacity).” (Econation), also called net zero. A constant drive for new economics is already unneeded, more than that, it’s damaging. “The economic drive in most countries (measured in the GPA) is more than enough to provide a high standard of living and well-being for everyone.” (Sustainable Economy).

It’s not as complicated as it sounds. All we really need to do is to stop and think – do we really need this? Can we use this for a long time? Will this be beneficial to our family? And will the cost be worth it? Using everything we have to its fullest extent allows us each to decrease our carbon footprint. Again, if everyone does it, it builds up to the entire world. Also, by not taking as much, only what we need, factories and companies will stop making so much and therefore saving a lot of resources that can go to the poor. Less outcome, less demand, and net-zero becomes ever more achievable. Although equality can never be fully achieved, we must strive to provide the same opportunities for everyone. Some people cannot afford to buy electricity, and some do not have good educational opportunities, or good job offers simply because of their skin color or background. Children all around the world are being abused and bullied because of their preferences in people. But places like ISB and many other schools are doing their part, encouraging those children and providing a safe, welcome community. We can be understanding and patient with our friends; don’t push if they won’t tell you yet. Respect their pronouns and become Allies to the LGBTQIA + community!

Now that we’ve gone over many aspects of sustainable living, we can see that this future is very close – in arms’ reach. For sustainable living, each person just needs to reuse everything they can, eat less meat, and shop from eco-friendly places with products that are durable and easy to recycle and use. We don’t need to donate, or contribute to global scale projects, like stopping deforestation and stopping microplastics from reaching the ocean; do their own thing, and if everyone does their own thing, well, that’s everyone! Make different friends, put aside our differences and make a welcoming community for everyone! In the end, we’re all human beings. Every life is sacred, don’t waste it on pitying yourself, and the notion of “making the world a better place” seems closer than ever and easy to achieve! We just need a bunch of small solutions to make the world a better place for our future generation. On a global scale, cities can donate money to building parks, and in Milan, Italy, a project by the government was launched, focusing on a “vertical forest” (Weforum)! More and more countries can devote their energy to building better shelters for orphans, free healthcare and food for the less fortunate. Even you can help yourself! Did you know, water from boiling noodles is very nourishing for plants? If you have some left over, make sure to indulge them! Encourage your friends to buy products from eco-friendly places and share your unused objects. Eat less meat and make a welcoming, inclusive community! Together, we can change the world.

The vertical forest in the heart of Milan. (Sustainable Jungle)

Works Cited:

Pictures:

– Sustainable Development. Conceptdraw, www.conceptdraw.com/examples/
sustainable-development-diagram. Accessed 30 May 2022.

Sources:

– Sustainable Living. Sustainable Jungle, www.sustainablejungle.com/
sustainable-living/what-is-sustainable-living/
#:~:text=Sustainable%20living%20is%20a%20practical,reducing%20one’s%20%E2%80%9Cca
rbon%20footprint%E2%80%9D. Accessed 17 May 2022.
– ADEC Innovations (ADEC ESG).” What Is Social Sustainability, ADEC Innovations,
www.adecesg.com/resources/faq/what-is-social-sustainability/. Accessed 18
May 2022.

– Dunn, Andy. “World Economic Forum.” 7 Innovative Projects for Making Cities More
Sustainable, World Economic Forum, 4 Sept. 2020, www.weforum.org/agenda/
2020/09/cities-sustainability-innovation-global-goals/. Accessed 13 May
2022.

– “Econation.” Sustainable Economy, Econation, econation.one/sustainable-economy/.
Accessed 18 May 2022.

– 14 Ways to Live More Sustainably. Wessexwater, www.wessexwater.co.uk/community/
blog/14-ways-to-live-a-more-sustainable-lifestyle. Accessed 17 May 2022.

– “Global Impact.” Social Sustainability, Global Impact, www.unglobalcompact.org/
what-is-gc/our-work/social. Accessed 18 May 2022.

– How to Build a Sustainable City: 7 Practices and Examples. SMD Magazine, 26 Nov.
2021, sustainabilitymattersdaily.com/sustainable-city/. Accessed 13 May
2022.

– What Is Sustainable Living and 25+ Ultimate Ideas for Sustainable Living.
www.conserve-energy-future.com/15-ideas-for-sustainable-living.php.
Accessed 17 May 2022.

– Thomas Kloepfer: pitchforkfarms11@gmail.com

Cuban Revolution Journal

March 28, 2022 / Kankan / 1 Comment

For our final assessment in our choice revolution unit, we had to write a journal starring a character living through the events of that revolution, like what we did in our Russian revolution unit. But instead of just one journal entry, we were allowed to write three. This is my journal in which my character, Carmen Lopéz, lives through the events of the Cuban revolution!

Cuban Revolution Stopmotion Video

March 15, 2022 / Kankan / 0 Comments

For our choice revolution unit in Humanities, our summative was to create a video about our revolution. Ania and I created and edited a stop-motion video about our revolution! This took us quite a lot of time and effort, so it would be appreciated if you could watch it! Cuba is an island south of Florida, and its revolution happened quite recently, and some post-revolution events are still going on. We start the video in 1898 and ended it in 1959. Enjoy!

“Flowers in the Gutter” by K. R. Gaddy: Tracking Central Ideas

January 26, 2022 / Kankan / 0 Comments

In humanities, we got into book club groups, reading literary non-fiction books, which is basically a mash between historical fiction and non-fiction. My book is “Flowers in the Gutter” by K. R. Gaddy, and it’s about World War 1, about the Edelweiss Pirates, teenagers who resisted the Nazis but weren’t considered a real resistance group just because they were teens. These are my notes about the central ideas of their story. The first picture is the first page of my summary page, where I took the character’s feelings and wrote them down according to the chapter/part. The second one is a cause and effect page of events that happened in the book (slight spoilers!). The third and fourth pictures are the pages of my synthesis notes, with two of my central ideas in CER format. This is a really great book, with an engaging plot and touching moments, and is recommended. It’s like a history book in fiction form, with accurate facts! Much preferred to a dry textbook (apologies to those poor underestimated tomes!).

“The Gospel According to Larry” Book Talk

December 16, 2021 / Kankan / 0 Comments

In humanities recently, we started our book club unit. I am in a group with my friend, Jenny, and we’re reading “The Gospel According to Larry”, by Janet Tashjian. For our final summative assessment, we planned and recorded a book talk to explain the theme, characters, and basic summaries (without spoilers!) in the book. Hope you like it!

Humanism Infographic

October 15, 2021 / Kankan / 0 Comments

This is the second post of the year! In humanities, we just started our second unit: learning about the Renaissance. During this unit, we also started learning about one of the most important religions in that period: humanism. This might sound familiar to “humanities”, and that’s because it is! Humanism is the belief in individuals and the unity of all truths, basically the opposite of what the church stood for (more information in the infographic). I hope you like it!

Found Poem: The Fan Club

September 13, 2021 / Kankan / 0 Comments

In my eighth-grade humanities class, we made a Found Poem out of the stories that we had read throughout the past week. A Found Poem is basically a poem that is free, made usually from the text of a story or a passage. Our theme for the poem is the conflict of the story. The story I chose for my poem is called “The Fan Club” by Rona Maynard. I think the conflict of this story is definitely internal, since it’s bullying with words, not physically, so peer pressure and bullying, also the freedom and discrimination of the “free” American people. I also think one of the most important symbols in the picture is a shell because a shell is what represents a person in the story, named Rachel, since her speech is about shells and that’s what brought upon the bullying.

The single shell in the center represents Rachel, even though she is not the main character, she is the person who incites the bullying just because she’s “dumb” and comes from a poor household. She’s a different color because she stands out from the rest of the school, though not necessarily in a good way, and big because I believe she is trying so hard to ignore the bullying and be brave, and is also trying to be kind. So the largeness of her shell represents her personality. The little groups of shells scattered around the page represents the bullies around the school, each in their little group. They are small shells because I think they’re so shallow! In the story, Laura mentions that the “leader” of the group, a girl named Diane Goddard, doesn’t think about her grades at all, and only cares about her boyfriend and her reputation. The medium-sized shell in the bottom right corner is Laura, and I made her red and brown because it’s a mix between the bullies’ abalone, normal, whites and browns, and Rachel’s red. Since Laura, in the end, sided with the bullies after all, even when Rachel’s been really nice to her, I made her a mix. Bystanders are no use if they just stand there, and she chose to side with the bullies.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you like my poem!

Links:

Here is the short story if you want to read it! Click here.

Here is a little more information about the author, Rona Maynard. Click here.

Argumentative Essay Reflection

January 5, 2021 / Kankan / 0 Comments

In Humanities class before winter/Christmas break, we wrote an argumentative essay as an assessment. After receiving marks for our essays today, we are asked to write a reflection about it. So here it is: I think something that I did well writing my essay was gathering information. I had a lot of evidence and knew where to put it and when. I think I also wrote a great introduction, capturing the attention of my reading and effectively stating my points without extra, unneeded information. I think an area that I would like to improve on is my own writing. I’m good at pasting information at the places where they are the most effective in convincing my reader in my opinion, but my writing is kind of difficult to understand, as Ms. Rivera wrote. The only two places where I marked myself and where Ms. Rivera marked me on the rubric (for the assessment) differently was the “establish and maintain formal style” and “describe the roles of political, civil, and economic organizations in shaping people’s lives”, both of which Ms. Rivera gave me a higher mark. The biggest challenge when doing this assessment was actually finding good sources. Some of the sources that I searched up didn’t have very good information. I solved this by not only searching up random sources in the search engines but actually searching up people’s stories in uniforms, which is my topic (Schools should not make uniforms compulsory). This didn’t just reinforce my point my finding people who already agreed with me, but also gave me some expert opinions. So overall, I think I did good, but everything and everyone always has room to improve!

Percy Jackson Informational Blog

October 15, 2020 / Kankan / 0 Comments

In the first Percy Jackson book, The Lightning Thief, Percy Jackson doesn’t have a lot of friends, and by the choices and feelings he has about that topic shows that he doesn’t really want any new friends except Grover. This choice also impacts his other choices leading from it, and not always about friends. For example, after the trip to the museum, Percy’s grades kept sinking and he was “called out into the hallway for almost every class”. I think he could have avoided this by trusting Grover and making more friends. In the article “Why Personal Relationships Are Important”, it says that having healthy relationships can help you live longer, get through school positively, and be healthier. Because Percy only has one true friend and is constantly being bullied by his stepfather and the school bully, Nancy Bobofit, his grades are getting lower and his ADHD is not helping. Percy gets it worse because he has dyslexia and ADHD.

When Percy, Grover, and Percy’s mom was attacked by the Minotaur, an ancient Greek monster, Percy’s mom, Sally Jackson, gets vaporized into golden dust. After Percy saw that his mom was gone, his “fear turned into rage”. In the text, it says that when the monster had just vaporized Percy’s mom into golden dust and it was bearing down on Grover, Percy thinks “ … as if he was going to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too. I couldn’t allow that” and with that, he charged at the Minotaur and somehow killed it with his bare hands when he could have followed his mom’s directions and crossed the borderline where it would be safe. That action proves that he is stronger than he realized and is willing to risk his life for his friend and his mother, though his mother is gone, or so he thinks.

After a few chapters, and after Percy is claimed by his father, Poseidon, Chiron explains to him that something very powerful was stolen and he is suspected. In the book, Zeus “brought this storm to Camp Half-Blood because of me. I was furious.” And then he states that he will “return the stupid thing”. He only had a few weeks of training, and yet he still accepts it and goes to the oracle to get his prophecy and begin his quest. Percy had only a few weeks of training and now he is going to be going on his own with two other people (Grover and Annabeth) to find and return something to a god that wants him dead with several other gods opposing him.

After the threesome left Half-Blood hill, the borderline for Camp Half-Blood, Argus drove them to the nearest bus station and from there, got on a bus to get to their destination. But some trouble just stepped onto the bus. The three Furies, or the Kindly Ones, are hunting them down for their master, Hades. During the fight, Percy took Annabeth’s invisibility cap (with her permission) and hid from the Furies while Annabeth and Grover distracted them, Percy was home free. He could have just stepped off the bus and continued on with his quest, but he didn’t. He saved his friends and gained their trust, making them an effective team, which is really important in the story. This, again, proves that Percy is very loyal to his friends and will do anything for them, even if it means risking his life.

I think these choices so far shapes Percy’s life and affect the people around him and connect them together. Most of his choices in the book so far has been returning for his friends when he could have gone alone, but he didn’t, and so building trust is important, and after he did gain their trust, they became friends and so the article I mentioned, “Why Personal Relationships Are Important”, is coming true! Even though he doesn’t have school anymore, he is still learning, and his friends are helping him get through that. We don’t know whether he will live longer, because being hunted by monsters tend to shorten ones’ life span, but then again, it might. We will just have to wait and see!

Percy Jackson CER

October 9, 2020 / Kankan / 0 Comments

n the book, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, I think that Percy’s main character trait is loyal to his friends. In chapter 1, page 3, Percy tries to stand up for his best friend Grover when the school bully, Nancy Bobofit, throws pieces of her peanut butter sandwich into Grover’s hair, and Percy starts to stand up saying “That’s it.” Grover stops him by saying that Percy is already on probation and that he liked peanut butter, so don’t worry, but the fact that Percy was willing to risk his place in the school by standing up for Grover shows that he is very loyal to his friends.

After a few more chapters, on page 57, Percy’s mom got turned into golden dust by a monster that was chasing after him and Grover, and while Grover was unconscious and the monster was bearing down on him, Percy could of a made it to safety, he chose to instead save his only friend and risk his life in this sentence ‘…as if he was going to make Grover dissolve. I couldn’t allow that.’

In the two sentences from the text, both times Percy was willing to stand up for his friend even if he risked his life and a place in his school. Most people wouldn’t, but Percy’s only friend is Grover, so he wouldn’t want to lose him. And while most people would have run screaming from the scene, Percy chose to overcome his fear and save his friend.

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