Charity Fair Project Blog 12-13-17

      For this year's charity fair, I chose to do the charity All Together Now, a charity that deals with racism. We began the work to do in History class, where we did background research on the charity we chose. In the researching part, I discovered that All Together Now is trying to stop racism in schools, sports, businesses, and everywhere else. Scrolling through the website, I also learned that some of the employees of All Together Now have experienced racism at least once because of the cultural clothes they were wearing or the color of their skin. Then we had to choose a product to make that relates to the topic we are trying to cover. We would make the product and sell it at the charity fair to earn money for our charity. My group chose to make rainbow cupcakes to support All Together Now. Then we needed to find out the cost and profit for our cupcakes. This was a little difficult, since we needed to find out the cost for each ingredient, and then the cost to make one cake, 5, 10, and 100. Then we had to find the profit, and, using that knowledge, we would have to find out how many cakes we have to sell to make $1000 in profit. For one cake we got $0.91 in profit, for five we got $4.55, for 10 we got $9.10, and for 100 we gathered $91.00. We had to sell 1,099 cupcakes to get $1000 in profit. In science, we had to make a map. We needed to find out how far the ingredients traveled, and the amount of carbon dioxide released. I thought it was very interesting. I learned how to find the profit of something, and how to find the amount of CO2 it would take to get all of the ingredients to the retailer, the school, and to me. I Elective, we needed to create an instructable, a step-by-step on how to make our product. I learned about how to properly write it up so that it was readable, and we had to make a trifold. Mine is the picture above.

Backward-Looking:

• How much did you know about the subject before we started?

I have been at AdVENTURE for three years now, so I have attended three charity fairs. I knew how to make it work, and what to do, but there were some changes this year. For instance, I knew we would have to choose a group and a charity to get research done. But I didn't know that we had to choose our groups based on the topics we wanted to address. I thought we would group up with our friends and choose something we all agreed on. Also, we needed to make a map. This was different from last year. Last year, we had to do the Carbon Footprint sheet to find our how much carbon dioxide we released into the air collecting our ingredients, but we didn't need to make a map. This year, we had all of our information on the interactive map instead of just on the document. For the product, this year it needed to be related to the problem we were trying to address. We couldn't just have a charity on homelessness and make slime, it had to be related. One group made mini gingerbread house kits to support their charity on homelessness. I knew a lot about the topic before we began, but there were a few differences.

Inward-Looking:

• How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?

I am proud of my work right now. I feel like I could've done a bit better, but by now I am very proud of the piece of work I have created for the charity fair. I liked the making of the product. That part was fun. I also liked taking a break from the selling so that I could see other people's charities and their products. I bought a lot of cool things, and it was quite lovely to see everyone else's work. What I disliked was the amount of work I had to do. My partner didn't help very much until I asked him to do it. And even then, I had to ask multiple times. I feel that he could've done for work to make it better for me. I had to do too much work. I enjoyed the selling, because lots of people liked the cupcakes' appearance, and they bought them.

Outward-Looking:

• Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar?

I did my work similarly to other people. I did mine a little bit differently, since I wrote the title by hand instead of printing it. I also put Christmas lights around the edges of my trifold to draw people in. There were still some leftovers, but we sold most of them. I did my cost a profit and all of the other work that was required the same as everyone else. Mine was a bit different, because I had a different product than everyone else, but that was obvious. I changed the colors to make it look nicer and brighter. 

Forward-Looking:

• What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?

If I had a chance to do this piece over again, I would choose a nature charity. I wanted to work alone with some sort of 'save the animals' or 'protect the environment' charity, but we weren't allowed to work alone, and the partner I chose didn't want to save the animals or the environment. I would've changed my product, and my trifold, and pretty much every aspect and part of my project, since I wanted a different charity. Next year for charity fair, I'm going to choose the charity I want to choose, and hopefully I'll also be allowed to work alone. 

WAC: Is ecotourism helping or hurting our national parks? 12/8/17

      

      Have you ever been to a national park? They are places of beauty: all natural plants, wild animals, and wonderful sights to see. You can camp there, and tourists often come to visit and have a picnic at these nice preserved places. However, ecotourism is getting out of hand. Most importantly, we want to preserve and protect our national parks so that future generations can enjoy them as well. Likewise, we would also want to protect them for us as well, so that we can enjoy them for a long time to come. But ecotourism should really make us wonder: are they actually helping the national parks? Or are they harming them?     
      
      Ecotourism is bad for our national parks. It harms, and it doesn't really do any good. It has very many cons, and not a lot of pros, as I have noticed, but there are still both sides to argue. Firstly, ecotourism is when humans come into the parks to see exotic things, like plants, or wild animals. People can be very interested in these things, but sadly, they don't seem to want to protect it. Maybe they are just really careless. Whatever the case, tourists tend to come on holidays, so there would be a lot of people there. So many, in fact, that there aren't enough parking spaces for all of them. The parks do want lots of tourists for financial reasons, but this could be a problem. People will want more parking space. Okay, get rid of this vegetation, relocate this family of bears, and BAM! New parking lot. But this isn't so great for the park itself. Why? Well, you had to cut out part of the park to do it, meaning that you had to get rid of those trees, chop away that vegetation, and relocate that family of bears. You got rid of some of the parks natural beauty! By making more space for the tourists, you reduced the size, wonder and beauty of the park itself, which is what the tourists come to see.      
      
      One of the best things about these national parks is the animals. The bears, the deer, the pretty birds. You want to feed the pretty birds. You want to pet the deer. You want to take a selfie with the bears. Don't do that. You have to keep the wild animals wild. The bears and deer are probably not afraid of you, since they see people everyday. They can be quite friendly to you, and they might get to know you. The rangers don't want this. If the animals get used to you, that will take away from the wild character they are supposed to have. They might keep smarming up to humans, and, if they do that, it might not be very safe or healthy for the people or the animals. If you or another tourist drops food, the animals will probably eat it. They will get used to human food and steal for picnic tables. This will reduce the amount of tourists that actually want to visit the park. Also, human food is not safe for bears and deer. It can make them very sick, which isn't very pleasant for the rangers, tourists, or the animals. The birds will eat the crumbs, but it won't harm them as much as it will harm the deer and bears. As has been noted by many of us, we shouldn't feed or be near the animals, for their safety and ours.      
      
      Some people think that ecotourism has a good impact on the national parks. The more tourists there are, the more rangers we will need, which gives more people job opportunities. This is true. Since ecotourism became big, we have needed more nature guides and rangers, thus opening the door for more people to get a job. Some people think that this is a really good reason for ecotourism being good. On the contrary, it isn't. Firstly, let's think about what the parks look like. Well, trees, plants, animals, it really depends on which park you're visiting. Okay, well, every park has animals. Let's have story time. There is always time for a story! And this one has a moral. See if you can guess it. Once upon a time, there was a bear named Harry. Harry the bear is an innocent animal living in a park. He sees people everyday, so he isn't afraid of them. People food is yummy, so Harry welcomes them. But it gives him a stomachache, no matter how delicious it is. Oh, well. People take pictures with Harry and post them on Instagram and Snapchat and other things he doesn't understand. Then one day, there are so many people that he can't believe it! So much food! Now that there are more people coming, there are more strange men and women dressed in a uniform than usual. One day, Harry wakes up, and he isn't at home! He rushes towards his house, but, to his dismay, Harry sees a gigantic expanse of black smelly stuff that is drying really fast. Right where his home was. It's very sticky, so Harry goes away, crying. A few days later, the black stuff has solidified, and Harry really have no chance of getting home now, since those scary multicoloured roaring things the rangers call 'cars' are blasting around. This is stuff that innocent animals like Harry have to face when ecotourism gets out of hand. What if you awoke, and you were in this strange house, and people had ripped away your home to make a mall? Is more money an excuse? Is more jobs for other people an excuse? No. This one reason of giving more people jobs, or having more money is far from being compelling enough to change this. As I have shown, ecotourism is bad for the innocent animals.      

      There are rules that tourists should follow. Those signs, "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS", and "NO WADING" or other signs are put around to protect the park from tourists. Tourists are there to see, to take photos, to make memories, not to wreck the parks. "Tourist: a person who is travelling or visiting a place for pleasure." Tourists are only there to see and be happy at the park's beauty. If they are throwing trash around, at sprinkling food places, and harming the animals, plants, and any other attractions of the parks, they totally wreck the nature idea. We are trying to preserve and protect our parks for future generations, not ruin them any more. If people are going to ruin the parks, there will be nothing beautiful or nature-like in our future. These parks are designed to preserve things. They have rules that we need to learn to follow. Our ignorance (or stupidity) is costing these innocent plants and animals their lives. We must learn to take care of them. If not, than we should just not go to the parks at all. In other words, we must educate ourselves on the purpose of these rules so that we can keep the parks nice looking for ages to come.      

      As I have shown, we must learn what damage our careless acts are doing. If we don't know, we won't try to stop it. And we should find a way to make people care, because if you don't care about a thing, than you won't try to help it. We should start cleaning up the trash and food we drop, we need to be careful about being too close to the animals, and we should learn the purpose of the rules so that we know why we have to follow them. We have to educate each other on what our actions are doing, otherwise more than just the parks are going to be damaged. The whole ecosystem inside them will be too. Our choices and actions make a huge impact on animals, plants and other humans that are innocent. They don't deserve the consequences that we give them without even knowing. We have to make sure that we aren't hurting anyone or anything before we choose something. As I have said before, lots of innocent beings in the parks suffer from our choices, like Harry. If we just tried to take care of the parks and their ecosystems, we might find that we can protect them. In conclusion, ecotourism is hurting our national parks. What do you think? Is ecotourism helping our parks? Or is it hurting them?


Sources: 
https://docs.google.com/document
https://www.npr.org
https://docs.google.com/document
https://www.npr.org
https://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/leavenotrace.htm
https://docs.google.com/document

Charity Fair Journey Map 12/1/17

This week we began our Charity Fair Journey of Item production. The charity fair is a time about halfway through the year when we get into groups and sell thing to donate money to a charity. This year, my group is making rainbow cupcakes to help racism.

For the map, we have to  plot the place where our item was manufactured. We used flour, sugar, unsalted butter, vanilla extract, baking powder, milk, eggs, salt, and food coloring. We had to physically look at the labels of the products to find out where they were distributed from. For example, the flour, sugar, and butter were all distributed from Better Living Brands LLC, P.O. Box 99 Pleasanton CA. We had to insert it on the map. It was a little hard, since the salt was from Chicago and the eggs were from Seattle, but we figured it out.

We had to decide if we were going to use a truck, plane or train to get the items to Safeway (that was where we bought them all, quite handy). Plane was if the items were manufactured in a different continent, train for same continent, and truck for same country. We used truck, and a car to get the things from Safeway to the school.

We used the truck as the mode of transportation. The link to our carbon emissions sheet shows how much carbon dioxide was released into the air during the journey.

S&EP: SP2, Using Models
This week, we were definitely using models. We made an interactive map. You can click on the little marks, and information about the product will appear. We spent the whole week following the directions from the slideshow and creating the map. Eventually, we created a big wonderful map that can zoom in and out and has lots of information about the production of rainbow cupcakes.

XCC: Structure and Function
In order for the factories to create, package and ship their products, they need function. They have to have a working system in order it complete their tasks. In order for the trucks, cars, airplanes, or trains to ship the stuff, they also need to work out a plan in order to get the things across the world or country. Then, the people at the stores need to organize the products to make it easy to get.