Houston, We Have a Pomeranian

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve loved dogs. I tried to convince my parents for years to get a dog. We wound up getting two: a miniature dachshund and a doberman hound cross.  But neither of these dogs were MY dogs, so the convincing continued. It went on for years until finally, my dad caved. I was supposed to wait until my 18th birthday to get a dog, but looking on Craigslist one day, I found this little Pomeranian puppy who was being re-homed. I fell in love with him, and two weeks later I made the drive to Spokane and picked him up. That’s where my love for Poms began, through my little boy, Keenai.

Keenai behaved as one would expect of a regular dog who enjoyed a good belly rub and chewing up a nice pair of slippers. However, it soon became obvious that Keenai is really intelligent. He picks up on my queues, whether they be verbal or through body language. I decided to build on his skills, and so begun my crazy ELI experience.

Before I could begin to train my new-found friend, I had to get to know him. It began with lazy afternoons at the dog park, slobbery tennis balls, and long strolls along the Chipman trail. After all the bonding, it came time for reading. It was time to read all about Pomeranians, from their temperament (stubborn, cocky little things they are) to their sled pulling and sheep herding genes. The Pomeranian breed is a complex breed, a breed that I learned all about from journals, books, Netflix episodes (thank you, Cesar Millan), websites, Youtube, and many other things.

Reading about Pomeranians and becoming familiar with my dog was only part of the process. Next I had to decide which method I would use to train my baby boy. There are so many different options; alpha dog theory, learning theory, clicker training, lure/reward training, compliance with coercion, and the old fashioned reward and punishment system. I researched these through the interwebs, journals, and a lot of videos. I also attended a clicker training session, taught by Rachel Aiello. After researching all of these different methods, I had to decide. My choice was: learning theory accompanied with clicker training. Learning theory is all about consequences, and how every action is just a consequence. Accompanying this theory is the clicker. The clicker links the consequence/action to a positive reward.

Using the learning theory and a clicker, it was time to train Keenai. First I made a list of tricks that I wanted him to learn, and then I researched how to teach them. I taught the fundamentals first: sit, lie down, and drop it. Then came the more complex actions: wait, shake, hop hop, and spin. The tricks I have left to teach are: bang, sit at corners, roll over, and don’t eat the treat until I say so. The learning theory and clicker training has been very effective in training Keenai.

Pomeranians are a very complex breed, and it has been quite the journey training Keenai. Eventually I hope to have him so well trained that he can be a service dog. For now, he will be the most well-trained, little, poofy companion dog that you’ll ever meet.

~Rachael G.

The Scrumptious Life of Benjamin Ting

I do not know about the rest of you young fellows in this day and age, but I enjoy eating good food. However, this often puts people at my age in quite the predicament because great tasting food is not always available for every meal. Access to scrumptious sustenance is often limited to large family meals and the occasional venture to restaurants, so I thought that a solution to this problem was to learn to cook delectable meals for myself.

To do this I decided to focus on baking, because that is an aspect of cooking I have never practiced, and work on the five French mother sauces. These sauces are the bechamel, veloute, espagnole, tomato sauce, and hollandaise. Of these I have made the hollandaise, and attempted to create the stocks for the veloute and espagnole. The baking I have done this semester consists of making apple pies --- during which time  Ms. Wissner helped me develop my taste for which shortening I enjoy in pie crust --- and fruit brulee with my mom. Both have been very beneficial in my project thus far. I believe my work with the five French mother sauces, along with baking, will lay a good foundation as I work toward my self-image of a good home chef.

While I am at the elementary stage of my goal, I do believe that this truly is an “ELI” for me, meaning that it will extend for my entire life and will always be applicable (especially on into the future, because my parents cooking will be less accessible). I am excited to continue learning about the conventions of cooking while honing my skills, as this cooking adventure will be a lifelong one.

~Ben Ting

The Future Needs Food Too!

According to the United Nations, by the year 2050, a minimum of 9 billion people will live on planet earth. Population will increase; it is a simple fact with little, if anything, we can do to change it. What we can change is how we address the problems that will accompany this population growth. One of the inherent questions that comes with a rise in population is how we as people supply food to the entire population. This is not a new issue - the challenge has existed to feed the world for thousands of years, from nomadic societies becoming settled and domesticating plants, to the green revolution, to modern day. Nearly every time we have met the challenge head on.

However, over the next 35 years the earth will see a more rapid increase in population than ever before. Another 2 billion mouths will require feeding, with fewer and fewer resources to produce the needed food. Our current management techniques have drained natural resources. Earth’s climate is rapidly changing, and genetic advancements in crops have been slowed to a crawl by political turmoil. These problems can be solved as long as science is funded, implemented, and cost effective for farmers and the rest of us. My ELI is dedicated to researching the history of agriculture, explaining the difficulties in feeding nearly 10 billion people, and exploring the solutions that will create a happy and well-fed future.

~Isaac S.

The Legendari(um) Game

J.R.R. Tolkien, born on January 3, 1892, was a literary genius of the 20th century. The reason for his fame all lies within his works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have seen The Lord of the Rings movies, or how many hours I sat in anticipation, waiting for the new Hobbit movie to come out each December.

My interests in these films and books since a young age continued to build, until I finally started to do some research on Tolkien and his works a couple of years ago. The day I read Tolkien’s Wikipedia page all the way through, my life changed. That was the day I realized that there was more to the The Lord of the Rings. There was much, much, much more. Similar to coming home past curfew and carefully opening the door as to not wake your parents, I began to slowly open the door to other parts of Tolkien’s world. My findings would excite me every time I read new information, and one day I finally decided enough was enough. I told myself I was going to take an ELI and learn everything there is to know about Tolkien’s work. Now that I have begun, I realize that is impossible, because the world that Tolkien created is so expansive and so detailed that it would take years of research merely to know the details and names.

Now that the reason behind my ELI has been covered, I suppose I should talk about what exactly I am going to be doing this semester. In the simplest terms, I am going to research Tolkien’s Legendarium and through that research, create some type of board game based off my findings. Now for details. For my first goal, I am going to read The Silmarillion as well as other articles on the history of Arda. The Silmarillion, a book full of names, places, and events, is a summary of everything that happened before The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Reading almost more like a textbook than a novel, it is very detailed, and at times, hard to follow. Once I have finished reading this, I am going to start on my second goal, creating the game. At this point in time, I have no real visions for my completed game, but I am excited to begin my work soon. My third and final goal is going to be one that will take place most likely in the future. For my third goal, I hope to document a marketing plan for my game (if I feel like it has any potential to sell at all). So far I have thoroughly enjoyed my project, and I am looking forward to finishing my research and starting my game soon.  

~Chad R.

All the World's a Stage

“Fifteen years ago I killed my sister.” Those are the opening words to the play Nocturne, a play about a guy who had a tragic accident and kills his sister in a car accident, and then throughout the play has to learn to live with that and cope with his grief, which never disappears but only changes. I chose to do my ELI on how to put a play on and my goal is to start rehearsal process for the play I plan to perform, Nocturne. I chose this ELI because of my love for theatre, the love of changing who I am and playing a character, the sensation of lights on my face while I’m performing, and the ability to change how somebody is feeling or even change how they live their lives.

Yes some have said that movies have made theatre boring or irrelevant. However, in reality theatre is the single most powerful and complete art piece, because it includes all types of art, painting, sculpture, music, voice, visual performance, and most of all a connection with the audience. The theatre is best described by this quote by Thorton Wilder, “I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” The theatre is an emotional exercise; it is a place where people can escape all their problems and just vent their emotions. This is why theatre is important and why people need to go to the theatre more often.

My goal for this performance is to make a difference in people’s life and how they think about life. Maybe if I’m lucky I might even be able to change somebody’s life, but chances are that won’t happen. Realistically, I hope that I am able to truly live as the character so as to make the audience forget who I am and what I am like and just believe that I am my character. If I could just change one person and put on a believable performance, then I would be happy.

William Shakespeare said it best: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are just players. They have their entrances and their exits, and one man in his time plays many parts.” Theatre is helpful for people to live happy lives free from stress and negative emotions, because it lets people vent and experience emotions out of their lives.

~Tom W.

Modeling the Ship

For this Extended Learning Internship (ELI), I am building a model sardine fishing boat carrier called the William Underwood. The original was built built and launched in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1941. She has an overall length of 70 feet, has a double ender type hull, and is framed with oak and planked with yellow pine. I am planning on building the boat at 1/2” scale where one foot is equal to half an inch.

My mentor is Ed Chavez, who has built more that 100 model ships. The ones I have seen are amazing and very intricate. I think that he will be a great resource. To build the boat I am using the lay up method, in which I take pieces of wood and cut them in the shape of the hull, or body of the boat, at that section of the hull. Then I glue the sections together to make the hull. I then carve away the extra material to make the hull smooth. This is an easier method that building the frame of the boat and laying on the planks like a real boat is made.

My goals for this ELI are to build the hull of the boat using the method described above and determine what type of engine I want to install in the boat. I have the option of using an electric or a gas engine. I also am going to install the engine and remote control equipment in the boat, and in the end finish the boat to make it look realistic. I can’t wait to watch it motor up and down the swells in the open ocean.

~Patrick R.

Breathing Life into a Pair of Fancy Shoes

You know that feeling you get, when your stomach churns inside and it’s almost like it’s trying to escape? That is dance. That is the combination of steps and rhythms, created to make a perfect harmony. This is especially true with tap dance, which is more than just fancy steps. Tap dancing is multiple cultures coming together, sharing ideas, challenging one another, and continually progressing. It has united people all around the world to come together to develop an art form. For this reason I’m spending a semester learning about the history, the dancers, and even creating my own choreography.

My first goal is to learn about the history of tap dance and its influence. Coming into this project, I was believing that tap had a pretty short history, but I was seriously wrong. In Tap Roots, Mark Knowles states that one of the earliest influences was from 1500 B.C. India. Further on, the Irish would contribute immensely by bringing forth clogging and jigging (The Book of Tap). In more recent history, tap has been on the rise and has been popularized through movies such as The Cotton Club and Tap (Black Dance in America). What’s so important about tap dancing is that, throughout tap’s history, this dance style would overcome boundaries of segregation and would be pushed until it became a respected dance form. And while the history is important, the people who make up the history breathe life into the dance form.

My second goal would be looking into the lives of four or five famous dancers who have helped push tap to becoming something greater. For instance, the first tap dancer would be “Juba,”William Henry Lane, and is known as the “World’s Greatest Tap Dancer” (The Book of Tap). Another dancer would be Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, who has been featured in many Broadway shows (Dance Magazine). After reading about many other dancers, I then narrowed my research down to “Juba,” Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards. These dancers have been pushing the limits of tap.

My final goal is creating a well choreographed piece to poetry written by myself. This goal is the one that will take the most time and most effort because in order for it to be nearly flawless, I have to work and rework over and over again. I am pushing myself to create something out of the ordinary. I am both very nervous and very excited for what this dance will bring. When this dance is completed, however, it will be unique and beautiful.

This project has become everything I’ve wanted. It has been helping me push myself to the limit and past it. Even if tap doesn’t suit your fancy, tap is a history and a culture, that stretches  far beyond the United States. A good example would be African Slaves being brought to America because slaves brought with them their own forms of traditional dance which was then cross bred with European styles and culture. This cross breeding helped shape a dance form, but even more then that, helped refine different aspects of many cultures. The real reason I’m doing this, just like everyone else taking ELI, is because it makes me happy.

~Tim M.

Delving into the World of Islamic Feminism

Islam and feminism… the misconceptions surrounding both of these words, grouped together or used separately, are innumerable. Beginning this ELI, all I knew is that I wanted to continue to explore a topic which I knew very little about. As I have progressed, however, I have realized that I also want to educate the people around me about a topic that is very foreign to the majority of Westerners. I settled on the topic of the Islamic feminist movement because it is a topic that is extremely relevant today, as feminism is becoming more widely known throughout the world, but it has a deep history that is not known to many people.

It is not common information that the Islamic feminist movement has roots as far back as the end of the 19th century, with women who protested the arranged marriages and pay gaps between men and women. Nabawiyah Musa, an Egyptian feminist, fought to take the State Baccalaureate Exam so the heads of education had no excuse to pay her less than her male colleagues. However, she accomplished this feat at the turn of the twentieth century, a right that many women in Western civilizations are fighting for currently. Malala Yousafzai is a modern day feminist at the young age of 18, not even a year older than me. She has been speaking out for equal education between men and women for many years with her father, a subject that she is very passionate about, as her father owned a school for girls. The Taliban found out about her activism and attempted to kill her; however, she survived. I hope to continue my research on Malala with a case study.

I have learned so much so far, but I know I still have a long ways to go when it comes to learning about the history of the Islamic Feminism and how it is progressed to where it is today. In all honesty, I don’t think that it is possible to ever be done learning about this topic, as it will continue to grow as I learn. However, that excites me, because I will have the ability to continue to learn about such an interesting and relevant topic that is extremely misconceived by Westerners. I also hope to educate the people around me that have fallen prey to believing the wrong stereotypes about the Islamic feminist movement.

~Emma P.

Fear Is Fun?

What is one of form of entertainment that people are fascinated with for seemingly bizarre reasons? It’s something that has been quite popular for over 50 years, and involves vampires, werewolves, and serial killers. While some of details and ideas behind these things have changed, the general form has stayed true to the idea, which is that of the horror movie.

For some reason, people like horror movies. The explanation to why this is true is not so easily seen, nor is it obvious even with closer examination. There are ideas behind why people seem to like them, but none have concrete evidence, and the truth could be a combination of many. One such idea is that people simply like being scared. This could be explained by the adrenaline rush that often occurs after a good scare during a movie. This would explain why people continue to spend money on going to see horror movies, buying them on DVD, and generally throwing money at the franchises.

That is not to say that I don’t like horror movies. The reality is in stark contrast to that statement. What I am searching for is what makes horror movies enjoyable to different audiences. Watching horror movies is one of my favorite things to do. My main reason for liking horror movies is usually to see if the movie that I am watching has new ways of scaring me. This only occurs occasionally, as many new horror movies just have typical jump scares, which are usually less than creative to say the least. However, sometimes horror movies will have incredibly creative or interesting ways of attempting to frighten the viewer that are not usually seen. Sometimes this makes the movie more popular, and sometimes it doesn’t help anything because the movie may not be ‘traditionally scary.” For many more casual viewers of horror films, the story involved in the movie does not matter, and neither does the creativity of the scares. What simply matters is if the movie can give them a “rush,” and make them jump. Something in the basic idea of a horror movie must appeal to people, otherwise they would not be nearly as popular. Even with the quality of popular horror films often not being the best, the films still often make large amounts of money. This idea follows the trend of horror movies being enjoyable to many different kinds of viewers, no matter what the content.

-Ben S.

Neuron Cake

Neuron cake? What does this even mean? Well, I’ll get to that in just a little bit. As the semester progressed, I was able to revise and improve my hypothesis stated in my first blog, “Asking the Right Questions.”

Since neurons transmit unique information through electrical and chemical signals, and we are constantly creating new synapses throughout our body, what if we track these impulses to find “healthy” patterns between not only the neurons themselves but within the connectum of neurons around a certain organ? What if we mimic the electrical and chemical pattern of a healthy organ in a dysfunctional organ? Will it become functional again?

To explain the new “cake hypothesis” I will use my favorite friend, the triple layered cake. But before I dive straight into the analogy, let me explain a little bit of what the “cake hypothesis” is. I believe that in any given sector of the brain that controls a function, there will be three different layers of neuron patterns: a base layer, an internal stimuli layer, and an external stimuli layer. Just like the triple layered cake, when one of the layers experiences a change, either in flavor or in patterns, then the overall flavor/pattern will be changed. The action of changing the flavor/pattern alters the overall function/ taste of the neuron cake.

In the base layer we should be able to observe a pattern that is universal among all humans. This layer controls the basic functions for whatever system that sector of the brain controls. If this pattern is altered, or simply not there, then we have a system that is inoperable. We may be able to control/regulate this pattern by stimulating the other two layers.

In the internal stimuli layer, we should be able to observe the different neurons firing according to the different bodily functions, such as hormones, pheromones, and bacteria. This pattern is unique to each person as it will alter its pattern according the internal stimuli of that individual. A lack of firing neurons in this layer would simply cause an irregularity in the system.  However, the system would still work to some degree.

Stimuli that occur on the outside will affect the external stimuli layer. These stimuli can be produced by using our senses. Basically anything that happens in the outside world that affects us in some way will alter the external stimuli layer pattern. Just as in the internal stimuli layer, a lack of firing neurons would simply cause an irregularity and not a completely dysfunctional system.

To mimic or reproduce these patterns, we could use two types of electrodes. One type of electrode will record the pattern of neurons firing, and the other will send in electrical pulses to stimulate other neurons into firing in order to reproduce the necessary pattern.

At this point I have only begun to write my proposal paper. A complete proposal paper includes a title page, an abstract, a literature review and summary, a history/preparation on the subject page, an objective page, a project outline, a timetable, a selective research bibliography page. I have only gotten as far as halfway through the literature review. After every sentence comes a in-text citation and hours of researching and synthesising information from books, magazines, and online articles. I hope to have a paper written up and ready to be sent out before the end of summer. Stay tuned!

~Gabryel

Asking the Right Questions

What if…? The question of many of our childhoods. Whenever that wild idea popped into our heads, the question that we asked our parents always started with “what if.” While this particular type of inquiry might have annoyed our parents to no end, it is truly the only way we, as humans, can make advances in our society. After all, we do not possess the ability to blue pencil all possibilities before we experiment through a process of  trial and error. This exact process is followed in all fields; however, the process may be more pronounced in the field of biology than in others, specifically in the area of human anatomy and physiology. Personally, for this project,  I asked, “What if we had new a new type of technology or technique that could improve our breathing?” To answer this I had to start at the beginning of the study of our respiratory system.

The ancient civilizations had myths and spiritual reasoning to explain respiration. They believed that anything having to do with the flow of air, breathing, wind, even birds, had a mystical power that enabled us to live. That is until we started to ask ourselves, “What if?”

Eristratus (300-250 B.C.E) was the first to put a name to respiration and the study of why and how we as humans breathe; he named it pneumatism. More famed people, including Leonardo da Vinci and Lavoisier, started to ask “what if” about the respiratory system, focusing on the physiology of the body as we inhale and exhale.

As to what they discovered, I’ll give you a quick run-down. First the air enters through either our nasal or oral cavities (mouth or nose), continues through the pharynx, then to the larynx, into the trachea, through the bronchioles, and finally to our alveoli. The alveoli is a permeable membrane which diffuses oxygen into capillaries that surround each alveoli. The oxygen diffuses into the hemoglobin in our red blood cells and becomes oxyhemoglobin (oxygenated blood). The oxygen is distributed throughout the rest of the body. The cells use the oxygen during a process, coined by Lavoisier, called metabolism. Carbon dioxide is produced as a byproduct of metabolism. The carbon dioxide diffuses back into the capillaries and heads to the lungs. The carbon dioxide diffuses back into the alveoli releasing certain chemicals that cause exhalation. The process is repeated for as long as we live.

Once the physiology of our respiratory system was understood, we have been able to do marvelous things to aid our respiratory system, ranging from the use of external ventilators to completely cutting out and regrowing our lungs in labs. As I look into how artificial lungs interact with our bodies, as well as how ventilators and mechanical lungs work in concert with our bodies, I continue to ask myself what I consider to be the most important question that we as humans can to advance - “What if…?” And so I leave you with my newly formed question which I plan to expand on in my project proposal paper that I will hopefully send to labs before the end of the school year. (Keep in mind that the question has potential to change as I further increase my understanding of the subject.)

Since neurons transmit unique information through electrical and chemical signals, and we are constantly creating new synapses throughout our body, what if we track these impulses to find “healthy” patterns between not only the neurons themselves but within the connectum of neurons around a certain organ? What if we mimic the electrical and chemical pattern of a healthy organ in a dysfunctional organ? Will it become functional again?

~Gabryel

Why We Don’t Know More About Sleep

The human brain is often called the most complicated thing in the universe. This is blatantly false on many levels. A human contains a brain, and other organs besides. Isn’t a human more complex than a brain? An ecosystem contains a multitude of organisms. Isn’t that more complex than a single human brain? The universe itself consists of everything in existence, so that would make the universe the most complicated thing in the universe, wouldn’t it? I understand that some people only mean that a human brain is incredibly hard to simulate, but the misuse and misunderstanding of that ‘fact’ annoys me.

Regardless, the human brain is incredibly complicated, and anything that has its roots in the brain is likewise difficult to understand. Sleep is a biological process that affects the whole body, and yet the systematic investigation of sleep has been going on for less than a century. There are obviously holes in our understanding of sleep. What many people do not seem to realize is how basic the understanding is in even the more well researched areas. It is fairly well known that sleep affects memory. How it does so is less well known, for a variety of reasons. What is memory? Today, memory is typically divided into categories, which most neurologists assume are taken care of by different sections of the brain. But to try and find the location of any category but the broadest is currently an exercise in frustration. An active human brain is so difficult to examine, even the best tools such as EEGs and imaging can only give rough pictures. Dissections of dead brains, while more thorough, reveal little, because the activity has ceased.

Despite difficulties, the field of sleep has advanced, and continues to advance. Modern imaging devices represent a huge technological leap. The funding for neurological research in general, as well as sleep research in particular, has gone up over the last several decades (although the REM research craze is still unmatched). Sleep is a rapidly expanding field of study. Today, much is still unknown. Next year, much will still be unknown, but a little bit more information will have been uncovered. And that process will continue, until, one day, people will stop asking questions about sleep that they cannot answer.

~Kaleb Johnson-Leung

Banking in the World of Fungi

Since my last post on April 7, about how I extracted the DNA from the specimens and prepared it to be sequenced, I have sent the samples off to be sequenced by Macrogen. Four of the five samples were able to be sequenced, which is good odds given that it was my first time doing the procedure and that some of the fungi were older. I knew that four of them worked, because after receiving the sequences online, I downloaded the sequences from Macrogen and used the website Nucleotide BLAST® (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool), a part of GenBank®, to compare our sequence to others that had already been uploaded to GenBank®. Nucleotide BLAST® gives a match with sequences that had already been uploaded. If there is a 98-100% match with a them, then we could safely say that they were the same species.

Something interesting happened when we tried to identify the veiled polypore, or popcorn conk. We searched for it on Nucleotide BLAST®, but the closest sequence match in Nucleotide BLAST® said that it was a totally different fungus, even though it was known that it was the veiled polypore, or popcorn fungus. It was confusing until we found out that GenBank® had not had any submissions of this fungus in that particular gene region, the ITS region. This is interesting because the popcorn conk is very common, so it is surprising that no one had uploaded a submission.

Therefore, three new submissions were uploaded and they should be of use to many people. I now have my name on a GenBank® submission, which I never expected to happen.

~Patrick

Presenting, Performing, Practice, Panic, and Popper

After such a self-deprecating first blog post, I’ve got just a few days left to finish up my project (within the time I’ve allotted myself), and while I’m sure I would be a little more relaxed right now if I had managed my time better from the start, I’m feeling better with each completed task.

But anyway, I really don’t want to spend another post just talking about whether or not I’m caught up; I would like to talk about another issue I’ve encountered in the process of this ELI, however. From the get-go I knew that I wanted to include a cello performance in my final presentation, because what’s a music ELI without music? My initial goal was to polish the piece Hungarian Rhapsody by David Popper and to perform it in its entirety during my presentation. The Rhapsody is a very cool piece and it’s a lot of fun both to listen to and to play, but… it’s hard. With a lot of diligence and no small thanks to my cello teacher, I can play all of it by now, but I don’t think I can say that I would have a very good chance of keeping it totally smooth if I tried to perform it beginning to end at this point. (And with all of you to impress!)

But I don’t want to let my final presentation go by with scarcely a slipping interval reaching your auditory cortices just because of a few pesky harmonic double stops.

I want to be able to demonstrate what I’ve learned and how much fun I’ve had learning it this year, even if it’s not perfect. I also want to use the best example possible of the concepts I’ll be discussing elsewhere in my presentation, including music in physics, neuroscience, and culture as well as basic music theory. I want people to be engaged and to make connections between what I talk about and what I play, and I want to show off a little bit.

I resolved at first to talk briefly about certain concepts and then to demonstrate each one with a short section from the piece that tied into what I was explaining, but then I realized that this really wouldn’t show my audience anything about what it’s like to have all of this work come together as a musician. My new plan is to find a good chunk of the piece that I feel confident playing and that gives good examples of a lot of different things that I’ve studied this semester, and to play that chunk with an explanation of what you’ll be hearing first. I think it’ll be a great way to pull everything together, and Ms. Wissner might be my piano accompanist, so I’m excited to see how it all works out.

The problem now is finding a cute outfit that can accommodate my cello.

~Clare

Landscaping the Hole in Our School

We have all seen it: that gaping hole in the middle of the school that everyone refers to as the outdoor commons. It has the potential to become an interesting, purposeful area that could be of use to the student body, yet it remains, for the most part, unused. I selected the lower outdoor commons to create a landscape design for because of its purposelessness and apparent lack of visual appeal. My goals in creating plans for the entire lower outdoor commons was to make it seem more unified, give a direction for any future changes made to the commons, and create interest to draw more people down to the unused area. The fact is, improvements to the outdoor commons began last fall when the wisescape garden was implemented, and I am sure that it will continue to be landscaped. By creating designs for the entire lower commons, I hope to prevent a hodgepodge of bits and pieces of landscaped areas added to the commons by ambitious students. Hopefully, my plans will help improve our school environment and make the high school commons a place where kids enjoy going and a place where they want to hang out.

~Isabell

The Great Depression Generation

While conducting various interviews and reading books, I learned how people managed to get through the Great Depression.  The most important factor was being frugal.  Frugality is defined as the quality of being economical with money, food, and clothing; thriftiness (Webster Dictionary).  Being frugal and careful with money was necessary for survival in the 1930’s.

When asked the question, “How did your family manage in those times?” Evelyn Wissner, who grew up in a small town in Minnesota, responded with, “By being careful with our money.”  No one could afford to be wasteful or frivolous with food, supplies, or money.  In an essay published by The New Deal Network, Judy Busk writes of the importances of being frugal.  Busk stated that, “Rags were precious, to be used, spread with mentholatum, to wrap sore throats; or to make rag rugs; better cloth was cut up and used for quilt squares.” (NPR).

Being frugal came with the mentality that you could never throw anything away because what you were disposing of  could have potential use at some point down the road.  With this mindset, came hoarding.  Hoarding is the mass collection of items that pile up over time, and it became very popular during the Great Depression.  While others may see the items being hoarded as useless or without value, the hoarder sees value or use in these items and is incapable of disposing them.  Many of the hoarders tend to believe that they are recycling and reusing, rather than hoarding.  In a way they are reusing and recycling, but hoarders are unable to establish when they have gone too far with their collection of items and their inability to throw items away.

All of these characteristics displayed in the Great Depression generation, remained with them for the rest of their lives.  When asked the question, “Do you think the Great Depression had any effect on the person you are today?” Evelyn Wissner responded with, “Yes.  I think I am still very careful about how I spend money.  I don’t like to be extravagant.  I never want to be poor again. With the savings I have, I could certainly spend more than I do.  I don’t buy more than I need.”

When I asked the same question of, “Do you think the Great Depression had any effect on the person you are today?” Ernie Peterson, who grew up in Los Angeles,  responded with, “Oh yes. Definitely. I watch whatever I buy very carefully. I never spend full price for anything. I always check to make sure it is on sale, otherwise I will not buy it. I hate spending money on anything. I know that stems back to the Depression. My parents were that way too.”

~Abi

3 Great Apps for Students (and Teachers)

For my second blog post, I decided to focus a little more on apps that could be useful for both students and teachers. The three apps I reviewed were Mathway by Mathway LLC, an app for checking math problems and practicing your skills, Google Drive by Google Inc., a cloud storage service that stores documents, photos, and presentations, and Comic Life 3 by plasq LLC, an app that allows you to make your own comic books and share them on social media. I use all three of these apps, and I can personally attest to how useful/awesome they are! Check out the reviews by clicking on the link below.

Link: http://jamiejeli.weebly.com/ or type jamiejeli.weebly.com into the address bar

~Jamie

Why Composition?

I like organizing things. That is not to say, of course, that I am an organized person by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, as anybody who knows me well can testify, in most facets of my life I am decidedly disorganized. The disarray of my day to day life, however, has not precluded from, on occasion, finding enjoyment in the act of organization. It was on one of these occasions that I discovered my love of composition, for, borrowing from the reflections of Edgard Varèse, music is simply organized sound.

My experience with music started badly: when my mother signed me up for piano lessons in the 5th grade. It was a nightmare for both me and my teacher, and although it may difficult to determine how much of that was due to our vastly different personalities, it is safe to say I was hardly inspired to be the next Mozart. As I have often remarked, the only good thing to come from it was the addition of a piano to the household.

Five years later, during the summer before 10th grade, I was drawn back to the piano. I like to remember it as a magical moment of discovery, but in reality is was just an attempt to pick out the melody of "Axel F" from Beverly Hills Cop. Humble beginnings, I suppose. Soon after, I became fascinated with music, and spent a good portion of the summer exploring it.

When school started, I befriended some of my peers who were already accomplished musicians and from them I learned two things. First, I had an incredibly underdeveloped ability to play instruments compared to my peers. And second, I had a surprisingly overdeveloped theoretical understanding of how music worked, to the point that I had already surpassed my peers. It was the combination of these two facts that inspired me to try my hand at composition.

~Ned

A Final Compilation

As the semester began to wind to a close, I started looking through all the photos I had taken throughout the semester so I could compile some of my best works into a photo portfolio. Between Yellowstone, Washington D.C., Maine, New York and Moscow, I had plenty of photos to go through. But, how to separate the good ones from the ones that I had taken for sheer touristy reasons?

Most of it ended up coming down to the composition of the photo. Where was the subject placed in the photo? Was it in the center? If so, the photo probably did not last long in the vast list of possibilities. Along those lines came questions such as: What is the viewpoint in the photo? Is it interesting? As a viewer, do my eyes move to all parts of a photo or do they quickly get drawn to the center and remain there? Another common question I would ask myself was, what would it look like if I cropped the photo here? Does that improve the composition? Should it be put in with the other possibilities?

After sifting through my many photos, I had a list of around 50 unedited photos that were all possibilities for my portfolio. At this point, I turned to my faculty evaluator, Mr. Shipley, to help me decide which photos should be included and what sort of editing I should do to the photos. We discussed each photo individually, talking through what could be done to edit each and where its potential came from. After this discussion, I made the suggested edits on some of the photos and compiled around the best 20 into a final portfolio, some of which are included below.

This, in my opinion, was one of the most rewarding experiences of the semester. After having put in all the work, I could finally step back, analyze my photos, and realize how far I had progressed in the last few months.

~Rachel C.

I Spy an Athlete

For this entry, I decided to describe the differences between horses built for two of the most opposite disciplines. This is to emphasize how important profiling is, especially when choosing a new horse or training a horse with promise in a certain area. One of these horses is from the dressage world, and the other from the pleasure realm. See if you can spot some major differences!

Didn’t notice? Here are a few:

(We will refer to the lighter colored horse as Horse #1 and the darker colored horse as #2.)

1. Horse #1’s neck is set lower than Horse #2’s.
2. Horse #2’s hind quarter (butt) is less sloped than Horse #1’s.
3. Horse #2 has a slimmer, more stream-lined build than Horse #1, who has a stockier, more muscular build.
4. Horse #1’s knees are set lower on the leg than Horse #2’s.
5. Horse #2’s hocks (the major back leg joint) are straighter than Horse #1’s.

But why are these differences significant? Is there a reason that these two horses are built so differently? Which one is for dressage, and which one is for pleasure? To find the answers, come to my final presentation!

~Kristina