CDH GCE Portfolio

 In the last week of my senior year, we looked into what makes a good presentation. Specifically the revolutionization of presentation style. Most of the best information will be held by panel presentations at different conferences. For the longest time most of them consisted of walls of informational text. This style leaves little to interest the mind and even less engagement between presenter and presented. With this in mind we observe a new style that involves a open and simple to understand format. In it we have three main parts. The "ammo bar": a place for the presenter to put in detail charts and visuals that they should keep in mind. The main idea: The main conclusion in simplified language and a QR code to the full paper. And the "silent presenter": a list of bullet points that explain your main points and conclusion in the paper; the abridged version.  For my final post about Frontiers, I am condensing one of my previous papers into this newer format. As yo...

In the last few weeks of Frontiers we have shifted from learning about the deep seas to outer space. We started with the history of our understanding of space. Understanding started when the first human being looked up at the stars but in terms of recorded understanding we viewed the stars as gods; beings to rule over us and dictate our lives. In some ways they were right as celestial bodies do affect the earth in real ways. At this time we had Ptolemy who suggested that the planets and stars had us at the center of the universe under the name “Geocentric Theory”. Far later we have Copernicus who had a hard time suggesting anything else as by that time the church had a firm grasp on sciences in what was claimed legitimate being if anything did not agree with what they taught was fake. Eventually he was able to publish his heliocentric theory which was able to go out as it left room for a heaven and hell. And finally we came to Kepler and Newton and Einstein who figured out the movement...

 Endurance: The first humanities class in my last term. Endurance has been, as the name suggests, about finding how to endure; learning to build resilience in ourselves. We looked at many examples of endurance in the forms of physical, mental, emotional, and political endurance. The first story we looked at was Ernest Shackleton. He led an expedition to go through the Arctic. When they got close to land the ice in the water froze their ship in place so eventually they had to abandon the ship with supplies to look for a way to get help. The plan was to cross the most deadly sea in the world to reach an island confirmed to have people to help. Keep in mind, they went through a sea that had potential for 50-80ft waves while they crossed successfully in their extra life boats. Side note: The ship was recently discovered in great condition. Going forward, we read the book "Night" a personally told story by Elie Wiesel. It was his retelling of his experience in the Holocaust. Thoug...

 Through out the first class in my final term at GCE we have spoken largely about the oceans. The class "Frontiers" is all about the exploration of the unknown which in our "modern" society is limited to our Earths bodies of water, and the vast space above. Going forward in this class we have referenced several ideas like how tectonic plates work, the famous diver Cousteau, and mapping of the land underwater. In this AP we were asked to come up with a research question about how the future of our oceans will look.  I have chosen to once again look into oil, and how we have destroyed much of the ocean due to our own negligence. Oil spills have been a problem since the industrialization and modernization has grow in scale as it has become an extremely valuable resource. I said "once again" because I decided to look into the effects of oil spills in the 6th grade and wish to look back and see my lack of understanding.  My research question is "What are t...

 In my last class of the term we studied relations in the US. We started with race relations, diving into what systemic racism is, microaggressions, and general inequities. After race was gender where we describe feminism as a concept and who it benefits, sexualization, and again general inequities. Finally and most recently we talked about class. Class defines who we can be and how hard it is to get there, but also demonstrates the real implications of having or not having wealth, power, or fame. Throughout this course we had to switch topics from race to class or gender to race and so on because they are all connected thus you cannot talk about one without discussing the others in their entirety. For this AP however, we were asked to imagine some large event that goes on in the future within these relations in the world. How far in the future you ask? One hundred years into the future, 2122, from anywhere in the world. I decided on an event to start the abolishment of the police,...

 This term one of my two lab classes was "digital fabrication". We used the entire term figuring out how these newer technological wonders work. 3D printers, laser cutters, vinyl cutters, CNC routers, and even some power tools, we learned them all.  We started the term still at home and worked with the software for the devices, starting with Tinker CAD for 3D printers. My first design was of a "master ball" from the game and anime series "Pokémon". After that we looked at a program called Cura that will "sliced" the digital design and sends the information to printer. We tried several times to get a 3D model from pictures and came out with a good one for a Lego but nothing else. Next was silhouette, the program for vinyl cutting. We could upload pictures online and have it identify the image to render; or you could create an image with the pre-saved images. All of the programs worked by rendering something online and then sending to the machine t...