Global Collaboration

In the second unit of If These Walls Could Talk, which is an art history elective I learned about murals in the 20th and 21st centuries and how different materials were used to create the artwork. I also learned about different artist that lived during those years and how materials changed over time. Specifically, I learned a lot about contemporary artists like JR and Shepard Fairey, who are two of my favorite artists. For the second Action Project, we were put in a groups and had to come up with an idea of a mural that will be installed in our school’s new space. We experimented with different artistic media and techniques to create materials swatches to help us determine which would work best in creating our final mural. In the end, we chose wheatpaste and mosaic because we all like how they looked on the swatches. I enjoyed creating my swatches and working with the technique I chose. However, working in my group was challenging because we all had disagreements and we had a hard time working with each other. But at the end, we all came together and found what we wanted.

Created by JV, RD, GN, MV, DR, 2015*

Name:JV
Title: Global Collaboration
Date: 12/10/15
Measurement: 3.4 by 11 and 3.4 by 11

The image that my group and I created is a series of three faces created using the facial features from the members of my group. In the background, we incorporated parts of the globe to show how we are from all over the world. This is a tribute mural that represents us as students at GCE, how we are a community and to show us as global citizens. We wanted to create something interesting yet eye-catching. We chose to use JR’s Face2Face idea, which is to print out black and white faces and wheat paste them to a canvas. The swatches that we did all came out good in fact, they came out better than I expected. I worked with wheatpaste also known as flour paste, which is like a gel adhesive made from flour or starch and water. It has been used to create all different types of artwork. It is really easy to work with, all I had to do was apply paste to the surface, put down image over paste. Apply paste over the image this seals the image and protects it. Wheatpaste is my favorite type of medium to work with because of how simple it is to make and how inexpensive it is. I appreciate being able to make it myself with simply water and flour and the glossy finish it leaves on the printed images. 

After completing all of our swatches, my group chose to use wheatpaste and mosaic in our final mural. My group chose to work with wheat paste and mosaic, we choose these two because we liked how the swatches came out and we think the final piece will look good with our combined faces wheat pasted on the canvas and having a mosaic design around the face representing parts of the globe. I think our final mural is going to come really cool and I can’t wait to see it in our new space.

Created by MV, Mosaic.

Created by JV, Wheatpaste, 2015*

The Yellow Fever Epidemic.

In the last unit in the disease class called World, we learned about how diseases can cause an epidemic. For this Action Project, we had to map and graph the path of an epidemic caused by a disease that we picked. I picked Yellow Fever, the reasoning for picking that disease is because I wanted to learn more about it. I have heard about it before but didn't know a lot of information. What I enjoyed most about this Action Project was finding information about my disease. What I found most challenging is graphing information on Gapminder. Overall I enjoyed doing this project, and I also really liked this term.

Yellow Fever. wwnc.cdc.gov. 2008.

Yellow Fever originated in Africa and was likely brought to America on ships during slave trade. The number of Yellow Fever cases has increased during that time because of the rising population cause dense living and not the right sanitation. The climate was also changing causing a rise of mosquitoes.

Yellow fever is caused by the Yellow Fever virus YFV, also called Flavivirus. The virus is transmitted by female mosquitoes, who pick it up from monkeys or humans, then delivers it to a new human when they bite and suck blood. The disease cannot be spread from person to person. Yellow fever epidemic of 1793 started during the summer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The disease was brought by refugees and mosquitoes on ships from Saint-Domingue. The disease rapidly spread to Prot City. About 5000 people died, ten percent of the population of 50,000.

Gapminder. Created by JV. 2015.

Above is a graph that shows a drought and epidemic deaths that occurred in the 1990's in Kenya. This epidemic that is shown may have been Yellow Fever. I picked Kenya because that was one part of Africa that was infected with Yellow fever. Two risk factors for this graph is drought, farms in that area lost crops because of low water continent. That will cause people not getting the right nutrition and weaking their immune system to fight off disease. That will cause an epidemic to spread because if you are weak and than get sick with an illness, you can fight it off. 

In 1853, the disease killed 7,849 residents of New Orleans. The press and the medical team did not alert citizens of the outbreak until the middle of July, after more than one thousand people had already died. The New Orleans business community feared that an epidemic would cause a quarantine to be placed on the city, and their trade would suffer. The steamboats carried passengers and the disease from New Orleans to other cities along the Mississippi River. Norfolk, Virginia 1855. A ship carrying passengers infected with the virus arrived in Hampton Roads in southeastern in June 1855. The disease spread quickly through the community, eventually killing over 3,000 people, mostly residents of Norfolk and Portsmouth.

The symptoms to Yellow Fever is affecting the kidney and liver causing high fever and jaundice. This disease is not curable, but is preventable with the Yellow Fever vaccine. The first vaccine was made in the 1930s and that controlled most of the outbreak. The vaccine coverage reach 60% to 80% of a population at risk.

The R0 for Yellow Fever is 4.1 so for every 1 person 4 people get infected. Vaccination is the only way to prevent the disease. If this disease would happen to break out again, I would say to quarantine people who may be infection because that would stop the spread of the disease. I would also recommend the vaccine because that brought down the infection rate.


Citations:

Gapminder. www.gapminder.org. N.P.N.D. Web 15 March, 2015. 

The importance of climate to global distribution of dengue and yellow fever.climate-services.org. Michael A Johnson. N.D. Web 15 March, 2015.

Yellow Fever.healthline.com. Colleen Story. 2012. Web. 15 March, 2015.

Yellow Fever Epidemic in New Orleans 1853.lafayettecemetery.org. N.P. N.D. 15 March, 2015.

History of Yellow Fever.historyofvaccines.org. N.P. N.D. 18 March, 2015.

The Color Purple.

The last unit in Forbidden books is called Diversity, we learned about why books have been forbidden for promoting diversity. To understand that better we had to pick a book for this class that has been banned. The book that I chose was The Color Purple, I picked this because when I was younger I saw the movie but didn't understand the meaning of it. I also wanted to find out why the book was censored in so many places. For this last action project we had to write a well crafted essay stating a thesis topic on the topic of our book. I picked to do an Literal, ethical, and symbolic level. I wanted to talk about God in my essay because that word was heavy used throughout the book, and so was religion. What was most challenging about this action project was writing it. Since I picked a hard topic it was hard developing my essay. What I am most proud of is how my essay came together and I really enjoyed reading the book.

The Color Purple: A new story for a Familiar Reader. library.duke.edu. 2008. 

Stages.

In the second unit of my Steam course called Mind, we learned about the nervous system, by focusing on one disorder that impacts multiple aspects of the mind: autism. We also learned about different mental illnesses. The purpose of this action project is to create a sensory experience for my classmates to experience for a moment, and see the world through the eyes of someone with a mental disorder. We also had to create a flier stating information about the disease I picked. For my action project I did some research on my Great-Grandmother who is 90 years old and has full blown Alzheimer’s. I picked Alzheimer’s because I like learning more about this mental disease and since I work at a Nursing Home and my Great Grandmother has it I feel comfortable talking about it.

In the DSM-V it says that Alzheimer's is one of the Etiological Sub types, which says that Alzheimer’s is dementia. Alzheimer's is a disease that affects the brain, it’s a disease that slowly kills the neurons in your brains and usually starts slowly and gets worse over time. Most common symptom is forgetting daily tasks. In Alzheimer's, there are four stages to Alzheimer’s, Stage 1 – No impairment. Stage 2 – Minimal Impairment/Normal Forgetfulness. Stage 3 – Early Confusional/Mild Cognitive Impairment. Stage 4 – Late Confusional/Mild Alzheimer's. An Alzheimer's patient’s mood can change for many different reasons. Sun-downing is a condition that affects people with Alzheimer’s elderly usually become confused or disoriented at the end of the day. This can last from 5-8 pm it may prevent people with dementia from sleeping well. It may also make them more likely to wander. Sun-downing is a main cause in Alzheimer's, it causes pain to the patient and also makes them very aggressive. For my project I asked questions to my Grandpa who’s mother has full blown Alzheimer’s.

Grandpa: Son of my great grandmother. “Its hard living with my mother because she constantly forgets how to do certain things. She forgets where the bathroom is, where her room is and even forgets the family members that are taking care of her. She also gets very aggressive when we are just trying to help her, going to bed at night is the worse because she just wants to stay up and walk around the house but she can’t because she ends up getting in the wrong things. Its so hard seeing her going through this but I know we are doing our best to keep her healthy and most importantly keeping her around.”

My lesson plan experiment, my classmates will wear tinted sunglasses because old people can’t see well, latex gloves with tape around two fingers so your hands feel weak trying to pick up items, and headphones with random noise playing because some Alzheimer's patients hear loud noises. This experiment will make people experience what Alzheimer patients go through.

No more Caffeine!

My Steam course is called Disease, and focus on how the body works and how it also creates diseases and sickness in your body. In the first unit called Body, we learned about cancer, how how different diseases can manifest themselves in your body. For our first action project we were asked to pick a disease, create a patient profile for the person that we chose to interview. I picked STV which a heart disease, the reasoning I picked this disease was because my mom has it. I didn't know a lot about it, and it was really easy for me to interview her. What I enjoyed the most about this action project was drawing the profile to show the disease and were it affects the body. 

Created by JV 2015*

Lucy was at work when she felt tightness in her chest and pain on her left shoulder, she started getting really hot and started sweating. She felt like she was going to faint than all of a sudden her heart started beating so fast and felt little shocks were hitting her heart. She sat down by the nurses station, they took her blood pressure and it was really high. Her boss then took her to the hospital. The doctors didn't really know what was wrong with Lucy, they ran tests and said she just had a mini heart attack. She was than released from the hospital, but when she got home she drank a cup of coffee and ate a piece of dark chocolate, and just in a few minutes she had another attack but this time it was even worse than the first. She went back to the hospital and was diagnosed with SVT. She knew that this heart diseased was passed down in her family but didn't know she had it. She never felt symptoms until she had her first attack. She grew up her whole life not knowing she had this disease, so why would it show up now? Lucy was under a lot of stress, she works in a nursing home with 12 hour a shift. That can put a lot of stress on your body, she also consumed lots of caffeine she drank 8 cups of coffee a day. That is a lot of caffeine that the body can't handle especially the heart. This disease also makes your blood really thick, since the heart has an irregular heart beat, there is a lot of blood being pump into the body. To thin Lucy's blood she has to take aspirin, and Cartia to slow her heart rate. After being diagnosed with SVT Lucy had to change her diet, she could no longer consume anything that has caffeine in it. Lucy started having the more attacks, her heart rate would go up to 230 beats a minute. "Having attacks feels horrible, you don't know when it can happen."

 Supraventricular tachycardia was passed down genetically from Lucy's father side of the family. This can be a risk because Lucy's children can carry down the disease and pass it down. The disease mostly occurs in Women, and Lucy has 3 daughters. When Lucy is having an attack she experiences electrical impulses starting from the Sino-atrial node. Than travels to the Atrio ventricular node causing shock waves to the heart. SVT  can happen all over the world because its genetically passed down.

Questioning Love?

My humanities course is called Forbidden Books, and focuses on why books have been banned over the course of history. In the first unit called Politics, we learned about why books have been forbidden for political reasons. We used “The Apology” which was written by Plato to dive deeper about this topic. For our first action project we used the Socratic Method, which is asking a series of questions and creating a discussion between two individuals.The topic that I chose was love, I picked this topic because I always question it. I wanted to do some research and see what other people thought about love. And I wanted to raise some questions. What I learned by using the Socratic Dialogue was you can be open, and ask any question that you have on your mind. The Socratic Method can be considered dangerous because you are asking questions that maybe people don’t want to answer because they see it as a threat, or want to hide the true answer. Overall I really enjoyed this unit, I learned a lot and I hope you enjoy my video!


Characters

Jpolis (Character 1, played by JV)

Jellis (Character 2, played by NC)

Filmed 2/10/15 in Skylight

Props: Chicako sign

Topic:
Love

Character #1: Oh, Jpolis I have fallen in love and I couldn't be happier!

Character #2: Well you are glowing so tell me about your love.

Character #1: I feel amazing, I’m up in the clouds. My head is all fuzzy my ,feelings are out of control, love has got me looking crazy. It's overt love.

Character #2: Everyone knows that love can be an amazing feeling. But what is it, can it be more than just a feeling?

Character # 1 Love can be a feeling that you feel towards anything, not just a certain feeling that you have for a person. It can be love for your parents, family members, friends, and pets. It can even be a item, a necklace that someone gave you can have meaning to it, and you love it.

Character #2: I never thought love could be like that. Does a necklace make your head fuzzy and make your feelings out of control? Is that how you define love?

Character #1: Yes a necklace could do that, but also many other items. The item can have a background story that can be caused by the person that gave you the necklace.

People may have different definitions on what love is due to the people they grew up with, but in the end , love has the same effect on everyone. Parents can demonstrate what love is by being caring and understanding towards you. They will tell you they love you and that will show unconditional love. But other people can show different versions of it.

Character #2: And what are those versions?

Character #1: Well like I said before, unconditional love is when you love a person no matter what. The opposite of that is conditional love, which means living up to one's expectations and pleasing them, then they will show you love. But if you don’t do that the love will fade away, then you know they are just using you, and don’t feel love towards you. 

Character #2: I never thought love could be like that. But how can these two types of love play a role in your teenage and adult life?

Character #1: Well if you were given unconditional love then you learned how to accept yourself for who you are and are happy just being you. You will also have high levels of confidence and self-esteem. With conditional love, which is common, you will find yourself having lower self-esteem, jealousy in relationships, suspicion, and insecurity.

Character #2: So what kind of love do you give?

Character #1: I think a little of both, it’s important to show both sides because you can develop a deeper relationship. That will also show the person you truly love them. 

Character # 2: I learned so much. Thank you, for your insight on love Jellis.