One of my two standard courses that I had to take this year is Humanities - a class that incorporates a combination of modern world history as well as literature and English. Taught by Ms.Younghee, we learned about several historical events while taking an emphasis on revolutions. Some examples of the topics we learned about include World Wars I and II, French Revolution, Cold War, Mexican Revolution, and several other major events in the history of the world. We also did several projects throughout the year that helped us interact with the lesson and learn more about the topic that is being taught.
Project Overview - African Water ProjectThis was a double-class project that had both Humanities aspect and Math/Chemistry aspects. For a period of around two months, my partner (Ryan Freeze) and I had to put together a website, poster board, and model that talks about an African nation (Sudan) and water purification, including a phase it went through (Flocculation) and what water problems were present in our nation. For Humanities, we studied European Imperialism that occured in African nations as well as how that effected them throughout history. After we studied the Imperialist history behind the nation, we had to talk about any current political or social problems that might still be affecting them. Once all the research was done, we had to make research papers and publish them on its own website. In the end, we managed to pull a decent presentation with a lot of facts. If I had to say this project taught me something about life, it would be that communication is crucial to any relationshipo - professional or otherwise. To see more on the project, feel free to click below to see the site and other stuff on the project.
Project Overview - Alternative Energy Documentary
Another double-class project, this project put us in teams in of three with the goal of making a documentary discussing a type of energy-production as well as an alternative. With my partners, Brittany Parker and John Holtan, we were assigned the task of making a film on the mining and burning of coal as well as the alternative use of geothermal power. For the humanities aspect, we had to research the history of coal mining, its regulations in the national and international community, and how it is hazardous in the social perspective. This was to show how the government - both national and international - is trying to casually outlaw the use of harmful energy products like coal for more efficient ones like geothermal. In the end, I learned the importance of time-management as well as communication in order to get everything done on the deadline date, or earlier if possible.
Since our discussion of World War I to the Cold War lessons, we have been working with Mr. Pforsich on original pieces of poetry as well as learning about the different types of traditional poetry. As we progressed, we learned about each style (from sonnets to haikus) and produced our own version of each one. In time, we created our own portfolio and launched our own poetry night at a coffee house in San Diego. This project gave me a better understanding of my writing ability as well as reading because it caused me to look at a poem in a different way as well as learn to write to the point where each word had to count. While I do have my portfolio to look at, feel free to look at pictures from the poetry jam below.