Money Trees and Economic Growth

                                                        Money Trees and Economic Growth  

            Hello, my name is K.W and for my final action project of the term, I had to recreate a song for it to relate to SDGs 8 and 9 and create a music video that can be interpreted as the visual aspect of hip-hop. I also had to do this with 2 other group members to learn about creative input. During this term, I have done various amounts of action projects ranging from posters to essays. Although I would have to say this was the most challenging. 

    The challenges in this action project really challenged my brain on a producing aspect. Some of the challenges I faced were coming up with ideas for the video, picking a song, making lyrics that relate to my assigned SDG's, doing multiple takes for the video in public which challenged my social skills, finding time to shoot the video, and editing the video. This assignment pushed me to grow in multiple ways and also taught me new things. I have always had a way with words but this gave me a topic to write from and also build a melody with those words, which was the emceeing element of hip-hop. 

       Morever this was a very challenging yet fun project to do, which I think is a good example of what its like being a GCE student. 

Filtering Water, A Brain Teasing Task

                                  

                                        Filtering Water, A Brain Teasing Task

            Have you ever filtered water or wondered how it gets filtered? If you have I think you will enjoy this blog post. Hello, my name is K.W and for the past 2 weeks, in my water class, I have been learning about filtering water. I have learned the steps and the tedious measures to filter water from the water plant to twisting the water faucet. There are many steps and precautions that happen just to make sure you have potable drinking water. While reading this you may ask yourself, Why is filtering water important? Water filtration is important because at least 2 billion people have dirty drinking water. While people in more fortunate countries waste water every day without even realizing it. 

    The process of filtering water can be similar to trial and error. Before I started my experiment I created a sketch, a question, and a hypothesis. How can I clean water using materials at home and on a molecular level? And my hypothesis was that I can clean the water but it wouldn't be completely filtered. The materials I used were a plastic water bottle, scissors, foam beads, a measuring cup, rocks, minced banana peel, dirty water, a mask, and a TDS measurer. Firstly I cut the water bottle in half and took the top half of the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and flipped it over on top of the bottom half. Then I cut the mask and placed the mesh inside the bottle, next I placed the rocks on top of the mesh, then I took another layer of mesh and placed the minced banana in that layer. Next, I took another layer of mesh and placed it over the minced banana, and covered it with foam beads. Now I was ready to test, so I poured my dirty water into my filter twice and then measured the TDS. To my surprise my TDS was actually higher, meaning my filter didn't work. Before my TDS was 925 and after it was 1028 meaning my TDS went up by 103 and 11.14%.  

    In conclusion, if I were to do this again I would remove the foam beads and rocks and replace them with leaves and activated charcoal. Overall I had fun and I feel more educated on water filtration. 

 before water TDS 925

 after TDS 1028 

Spanish Action Project

                                                        Spanish Action Project 

     Hello, my name is K.W and for the past week, I have been working on writing a letter to my pen pal. I have been explaining to my pen pal the things you can do in Pilsen and describing the holiday Dias de Los Muertos. I also had to make an audio recording of dialogue about this holiday.I asked said hello to my pen pal, asked them how they were doing, with a follow up question of whats their favorite holiday. I feel as though we as global citizens should learn more about holidays of other cultures. Before this action project, I did not know anything about this holiday other than hearing about it in the movie coco. I feel very saddened by the fact that there is very little representation of culture in the media. In conclusion, I feel enlightened on Dias de Los Muertos and I think it is a cool holiday. 

https://soundcloud.com/kaylee-ware-540479237/spanish-action-project?si=9dee9e39f91048e295f4a9b44b64cf81&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Old Generation To New Generation The Struggle We All Face

                         Old Generation To New Generation The Struggle We All Face 

    Hello, my name is K.W and for the past month or so, I have been learning about hip-hop and how it relates to the SDG’s. In my class, I was assigned the task of comparing and contrasting 2 songs that relate to SDG’s of my choice. The songs I chose were They don't care about us by Micheal, Jackson and The story of O.J by Jay-Z. The two SDG’S I compared these two was SDG 1 no poverty, and SDG 16 peace, justice, and better institutions. 

The image being shown is from Jay-Z’s music video The Story of O.J 

Dirty To Clean, The Story Of Water

                                                       Dirty To Clean, The Story Of Water 

Hello, my name is K.W and in water class, we have been learning about empathy in water. We have also learned about chemicals in water which can also be known as total dissolved solids. In my project today I will be filtering and testing the TDS in water. 

My hypothesis was that the water will still be dirty but with less dissolved solids by 15.  The materials I used were 3 cups, dirty water, paper towels, a TDS measurer, a ruler, a pencil, notebook. Firstly I poured the dirty water into the cup and measured the total TDS which was 841. Next, I took another cup and put paper towels over it to make a filter and poured the dirty water over it to filter, then I measured the TDS again. After that I took those 2 numbers and turned it into a fraction and a decimal, I also did the same thing with the TDS of salt water. What I observed was that the TDS lowered and the log numbers were different. 

 log scale 

 before 

 after 

In conclusion, my hypothesis was half correct, the water was less dirty but the TDS was lower by 108. I also feel more grateful that I have access to clean water, because if I had to drink that water I would feel very uncomfortable. 

Water, The Resource We Take For Granted

Water, The Resource We Take For Granted 

Greetings to the person reading, My name is KW, and for the majority of the time Ive been at GCE I have been learning about water. Precisely for this week Ive been learning about water usage globally, percentages, pie graphs, and empathy. We have incorporated everything we learned over these couple of weeks into this project. In my poster, I will also demonstrate the visual aspect of our learning. 

        In class, we watched a video about a girl living in Ethiopia who had to walk nine hours and fifteen minutes for a couple of gallons of water, which wasn’t clean. This makes me feel very privileged because I have an access to water and waste water every day without realizing it. When we went to the Chicago river walk it took 43 minutes for me to carry roughly 2 gallons of water. My closest water source is 3.2 miles away and it takes an hour and 5 minutes to get there on foot. It would take 192 trips to carry all the water I use in just one day.

In my action project, I compared the amount of water the average American uses to the Average Peruvian uses. The average American uses over 300 gallons of water per day, whereas the Average Peruvian only uses about 44.9 gallons of water per day. Also, 0 people in America drink surface water but 2% of people in Peru drink surface water. Which can be filled with a lot of parasites, pesticides, dirt, and runoff. This is unfair and should be a crime, water is a need for life people shouldn't have to drink dirty water to barely survive. 

In conclusion, I think that we can all do a better job at preserving water. Earth is a shared planet and we all as global citizens have to pitch in to take care of our planet. I feel more informed and aware of this global issue and will try to conserve water and not waste it. 

Water, The Resource We Take For Granted

                                         Water, The Resource We Take For Granted 

    Greetings to the person reading, My name is KW, and for the majority of the time Ive been at GCE I have been learning about water. Precisely for this week Ive been learning about water usage globally, percentages, pie graphs, and empathy. We have incorporated everything we learned over these couple of weeks into this project. In my poster, I will also demonstrate the visual aspect of our learning.