GS Portfolio

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for my elective class Digital Fabrication. In this class, we have been looking at all things digital. More specifically 3D printers, silhouette cutters, CNC routers, and laser cutters. 3D printers are machines that can create three-dimensional objects from CAD models by layering filament to create shapes. Silhouette cutters are small electronic cutting machines that can take a file on a computer and cut it out on vinyl, acrylic, paper, and more. I have used the cutter to create stickers on vinyl. The CNC router we used in this class was a machine called the Carvey. The Carvey uses a drill bit mounted on an operating system like a 3D printer to drill into wood, foam, and other materials to create designs or molds. For each of these machines, we learned how to use their programs and later work with the machines to create things we made on the programs.  Last but definitely not least, laser cutters. A laser cutter is a machine similar to the Carve...

 Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the third Action Project of the Humanities class, A Nation's Argument. In this unit, Synthesis: the 1960s, we have been studying the 1950s to the 1970s. We started by taking a look at the Jim Crow era and the effect it had on people of color. We then watched the documentary, Thirteenth , directed by Ava DuVernay. We also looked at the era of lynching in a video interview of Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, from Democracy Now . Because this was a shorter unit, we started getting into the details of the Action Project that would come a bit later. This included the dialectical method of argument created by philosopher Georg Hegel. For Field Experiences, we met with UIC sociologist Andy Clarno, who has done some work looking at Chicago's gang database and the CIA-backed software Oracle . Chicago's gang database was made to have a system where all gang members of Chicago would be identified and kept under watch....

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the third Action Project of the STEAM class Light, Sound, and Time. This unit, Time, has been all about how we perceive time and what it actually is. We first questioned when time originated and why we believe time began directly after the Big Bang. Then, we looked at older methods of telling time such as using the position of the sun for a sundial. We also looked at longitude and latitude and how we determine our position because of it. For determining latitude, you can use the North Star if you are in the Northern Hemisphere or a sextant which is a device that uses mirrors to find the angle of the sun to the horizon. For determining longitude, you can use time zones and Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). To continue our examination of time-telling devices, we spent time studying pendulums and the Foucault pendulum which is a pendulum that can rotate 360 degrees and show how the Earth will rotate beneath it if it were at the North Pole. For Field Expe...

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the second Action Project of the Humanities course: A Nation's Argument. In this unit, we have been investigating how a nation contradicts itself. We started by looking at the United States Supreme Court and valid and sound arguments. We then moved on to logical fallacies and the Scott versus Sandford Supreme Court case from 1857. For Field Experiences, we spoke with Northwestern Law Professor Paul Gowder and met later with 40th Ward Chicago Alderman Andre Vasquez. For Prof. Gowder, we talked about the rule of law in the United States and Critical Race Theory. We talked with Alderman Vasquez about what being an alderperson means and "consent of the governed," which the United States is based on. For this Action Project, we have been asked to look through GCE's student Social Contract in the Family Handbook. In this Social Contract, we are looking for something that we find is a contradiction or want to amend. One section I fou...

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the second Action Project of the STEAM class: Light, Sound, and Time. This unit, sound, was all about how sound is made and what happens for humans or animals to perceive it. Sound travels as a longitudinal wave and is explained as vibrations coming from a source that we perceive to be sound. To start, we examined how the human ear worked and our range of audible frequencies compared to infrasound and ultrasound which humans can’t hear. We then looked at the speed of sound and how it changes based on the medium it travels through. Following the understanding of how sound travels, we investigated traveling faster than the speed of sound or breaking the sound barrier and also the Doppler Effect. Lastly, we looked at stringed instruments like guitars and found how they make sounds. We also had one Field Experience at Guitar Center to look at the guitars and other instruments there. For this Action Project, the task is to create a diddley bow which...

 Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the second Action Project in my Spanish class. So far in this winter term, we have been going over lots of vocabulary for houses such as furniture, rooms, and other pieces of a house. We have also looked at direct and indirect object pronouns as well as the present progressive tense for writing sentences. We have continued to study "ar", "er", and "ir" verbs. For this Action Project, we are creating a floor plan for a house. This house has to have 5 rooms: a bedroom, bathroom, dining room, kitchen, and living room. I also added an office area in my house. For each of these rooms, we could add furniture that would be labeled in Spanish. The whole project requires at least 15 vocabulary words for the furniture. With all of this, we have been asked to write sentences using the "ar", "er", and "ir" verbs about what we do in each room and make use of the present progressive tense and direc...

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the first Action Project of the STEAM class, Light, Sound, and Time. For the first unit, Light, we started by questioning what would our life look like without light. We then learned how light can act like a particle and a wave, how light equals energy, and about the electromagnetic spectrum. This unit helped us understand the importance of light in our lives and all of its uses. We also learned about the human eye and how it takes in light to create an image in our heads. Color was a big part of this unit because it is a very small part of the electromagnetic spectrum humans can actually see. This part of the spectrum is called the visible light spectrum. We used trigonometry to solve problems of waves, the unit circle, and similar triangles. For this Action Project, we were asked to create a pinhole camera and use it to capture an image. My pinhole camera is made from a cardboard box and a lens made out of a soda can. I hope you enjoy reading...

Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the first Action Project of the Humanities class, A Nation's Argument. In this class, we have been continuing our investigation of US history. This first unit has focused on the Declaration of Independence. After reading more of A People's History of the United States  by Howard Zinn and listening to a lecture by Yale Professor, Joanne Freeman, we debated who made the stronger argument about the Declaration. We learned about how arguments are formed and used as syllogisms. We also looked at other countries and how they made "Declarations of Independence" to end their struggles. For our External Investigation, we talked with a Chicago Montessori school principal, Ben Blair, and LA Public Defender, Ace Katano. Ben Blair helped our class learn more about the Montessori school system which is similar to GCE and Ace shared information about how public defenders work and how it has been affected over the course of the pandemic. For ...