The Ethics and Chemistry of Food and Cooking
For this project we looked at food through two lenses. We looked at food from a chemistry perspective and how food is effected on a molecular level when cooking as well as how that creates different results on a macroscopic level. We also looked at it from an ethical standpoint and where our food comes from and how what we eat affects our planet. For the chemistry portion we each designed our own projects looking at a particular food ran an experiment with the ingredients and wrote a report on our findings. For the ethics portion of our project we read the “omnivore's dilemma” a book that tells of the journey of tracking four meals from the ground to the plate. We watched several documentaries showing the reality our current industrial food system.
How did the interdisciplinary nature of this project impact your learning?
As a result of this project being interdisciplinary I feel that I was really able to push myself and do more. However I felt that at the beginning I didn’t understand what the final goal was for the ethics side of this which slowed me down at the beginning. Being in interdisciplinary project I had the time to really research the things I was interested in. Focussing on concentrated animal feeding operation and antibiotic use in regards to livestock and the dangers that come with all of them really helped me develop my personal food ethic.
What are your main takeaways from studying food academically? How has your thinking about food changed from before?
Studying food academically has definitely changed my perspective on food. Before this project I didn’t really care about what was going into my body I just kinda trusted that if the FDA approved it it can’t be that bad for me. Through studying this I realised that it’s not just how it affects me, but how it affects the environment, the lives of the farmers, the ranchers, the truck drivers, and everyone else involved in getting the food on my plate to my plate. I used to eat meat and not question even remotely where it came from. After researching it because of this topic I believe it is my duty to only eat meat that I know was raised and processed in a humane and sustainable way.
How did the interdisciplinary nature of this project impact your learning?
As a result of this project being interdisciplinary I feel that I was really able to push myself and do more. However I felt that at the beginning I didn’t understand what the final goal was for the ethics side of this which slowed me down at the beginning. Being in interdisciplinary project I had the time to really research the things I was interested in. Focussing on concentrated animal feeding operation and antibiotic use in regards to livestock and the dangers that come with all of them really helped me develop my personal food ethic.
What are your main takeaways from studying food academically? How has your thinking about food changed from before?
Studying food academically has definitely changed my perspective on food. Before this project I didn’t really care about what was going into my body I just kinda trusted that if the FDA approved it it can’t be that bad for me. Through studying this I realised that it’s not just how it affects me, but how it affects the environment, the lives of the farmers, the ranchers, the truck drivers, and everyone else involved in getting the food on my plate to my plate. I used to eat meat and not question even remotely where it came from. After researching it because of this topic I believe it is my duty to only eat meat that I know was raised and processed in a humane and sustainable way.
Your Life on Earth: Philosophizing Purpose and Place in the #21C
Reflection
For this project we studied existentialism and what the meaning of life is. More importantly where we personally find meaning for our life. We looked into Happiness and Meaning, Existentialism (and the “existential crisis”), Aristotle’s Eudaimonia, Transcendentalism, Religion/Spirituality vs. Scientific Worldview, Humanism, Success and ambition. I was focused on looking at what gives my life meaning. This came from struggling last year with depression and feeling like there wasn’t meaning to my life. I looked at the things that really made me not only happy, but what helped heal the pain in my life. This project allowed me to discover how helping others positively affects my life.
This project taught me a lot about my life and what really matters to me. I have spent a lot of time in the last two years learning a lot about myself and trying to deal with past experiences in my life. This project really allowed me to conclude this part of my life and focus on how I can remain mentally healthy. Studying Aristotle’s Eudaimonia made a huge impact on my life and finding the balance in everything we do. I have always talked about how important balance is in our lives, but never really knew how to live it out. Reading “Into the Wild” gave me a new insight to life and how we all have a different purpose for our lives and will never really be happy until we work for our true personal desires and goals. It also showed me that both metaphorically and physically everything is okay if you don’t listen to other people and go live in Alaska for a while. This project really helped me become comfortable with the fact that dying is part of living and we can’t live if we are constantly scared of it. Life isn’t all about getting a college education and working a 9-5 job, having two kids with your perfect wife in a house with a white picket fence. It’s about having abstract experiences and meeting people that you can’t help but care about as you do everything you can to reach your goals and make your aspirations a reality.
I am still trying to figure out what my dreams and goals truly are. I have a couple that I know for sure like that I want to have kids, that I want to have a wife that supports me but that also is able to be successful because I support her. I want to live in my car and travel the US for a year with my wife. I want to create or invent something that saves somebody's life. I still wonder though about everything else. What do I want other people to say about me at my funeral? Do I want a funeral? Should I adopt? Do I really want to continue in academia or is that just what other people want because they think I’m smart? What mark do I want to leave on the world? Do I even want to leave a mark? I don't have the answers to these questions right now, but I truly believe that what I need to do I will do and not live a life fearful of what other people's opinions are on my life. I will live a life that is truly meaningful, but with my definition of meaningful.
This project taught me a lot about my life and what really matters to me. I have spent a lot of time in the last two years learning a lot about myself and trying to deal with past experiences in my life. This project really allowed me to conclude this part of my life and focus on how I can remain mentally healthy. Studying Aristotle’s Eudaimonia made a huge impact on my life and finding the balance in everything we do. I have always talked about how important balance is in our lives, but never really knew how to live it out. Reading “Into the Wild” gave me a new insight to life and how we all have a different purpose for our lives and will never really be happy until we work for our true personal desires and goals. It also showed me that both metaphorically and physically everything is okay if you don’t listen to other people and go live in Alaska for a while. This project really helped me become comfortable with the fact that dying is part of living and we can’t live if we are constantly scared of it. Life isn’t all about getting a college education and working a 9-5 job, having two kids with your perfect wife in a house with a white picket fence. It’s about having abstract experiences and meeting people that you can’t help but care about as you do everything you can to reach your goals and make your aspirations a reality.
I am still trying to figure out what my dreams and goals truly are. I have a couple that I know for sure like that I want to have kids, that I want to have a wife that supports me but that also is able to be successful because I support her. I want to live in my car and travel the US for a year with my wife. I want to create or invent something that saves somebody's life. I still wonder though about everything else. What do I want other people to say about me at my funeral? Do I want a funeral? Should I adopt? Do I really want to continue in academia or is that just what other people want because they think I’m smart? What mark do I want to leave on the world? Do I even want to leave a mark? I don't have the answers to these questions right now, but I truly believe that what I need to do I will do and not live a life fearful of what other people's opinions are on my life. I will live a life that is truly meaningful, but with my definition of meaningful.
Visual Piece
Written Component
A life filled with challenges, struggles, and pain, but isn’t that just part of life. Life is just a series of events some bad, some good, some painful. Everyday we learn more and change from the person we were only a few minutes before. Challenges force us to grow probably faster than anything else. The real trouble comes when we meet a challenge we can’t beat by ourselves. Last year I ran into a challenge that I had once faced before. I was having trouble finding a reason to want to keep living. It felt more and more like all the experiences I was having were just more and more challenges, walls surrounding me from every angle. I then realised it wasn’t about the challenges it was about me not having a purpose. I realized my purpose wasn’t to end my life but instead help other people going through the challenges they felt were surrounding them. I thought about all the other people around me that I knew were struggling with the same feelings. I had the constant thought running through my head we are all good people in a M.A.A.D World. The more I talked to people about their challenges and helped them mine began to disappear themselves. The challenges that I once wanted to end my life over began to become opportunities to grow.
Labor Project
Essential Question: How can our knowledge of historical labor movements inform us on how to solve current and future labor issues?
During this project we looked at the United States during the Industrial Revolution. We read and analyzed documents from the time related to labor. We had a timed writing about labor issues from this period. Then we shifted gears and gave presentations on current issues and potential solutions. Finally we took all the information we collected from past and present labor issues and created podcasts based on the current labor situation in the United States.
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Timed Writing
Presentation
Reflection
1. What was the greatest challenge you faced in the project and what did you do to overcome that challenge?
The greatest challenge I faced during the project was being behind all my peers due to post concussive syndrome. At the very beginning of this project, I got a concussion which resulted in me missing a lot of the background information that all my peers received. I missed a whole week of class in the deepest part of research and then when I returned I really wasn’t back. I had a hard time understanding what we were doing and had trouble comprehending anything that I was reading. When it came to making our podcasts I was lacking on the background information. Thankfully because we were working in groups I was able to rely upon my team for help in this area.
2. If you could go back and do the project again what would you do differently and why?
If I were to do this project again I would spend more time editing the audio quality of our podcast. I had to use several different mics throughout the process which caused some inconsistencies in our audio. I feel that these inconsistencies took away from our main goal and distracted listeners. I plan to go back and re-record it with a consistent mic so that this problem can be avoided.
3. What is the greatest insight you gained about the state of labor issues today? Think back through the entire project, historical context, the presentations, globalization, and your podcast production.
The greatest insight I gained from this project about labor issues is the reality of child labor. Before this project, I knew that child labor existed, but I didn’t fully understand how or why it was a problem. Through this project and researching about child labor in the United States during the industrial revolution, I grasped the dangerous reality of it. I now understand how I as a consumer have a voice in the child labor problems of today and that little changes in my lifestyle have the potential to save the lives of children.
4.What are you most proud of in your project? This could be something very small and not visible to me or the audience. Help me understand why you are so proud of this piece.
The piece of this project that I am the proudest of is my cover art for our podcast. I love photography, but I have a really hard time showing others my art. For our cover art, I used one of my original photos. This was a huge step for me and caused lots of anxiety and stress. I realized that showing other people my art isn’t as bad as I thought it was and that people couldn’t even tell that I had taken it. As small as this may seem it was a huge step for me because it was the first time I was personally choosing to show people and not because somebody told me to show it.
5. Explain 1 way you grew as a student during this project. It is not when we are comfortable and know how to do a task that we grow, it is often when we are the most challenged or have struggled through something that we grow. So what will you be better at now?
My biggest growth during this project was my advocacy. Before coming to Animas I didn’t even know that advocacy was a word let alone something I could do. Having a concussion during this project called for a lot of communication between me and my teacher. This is something in the past I have not been very good at. I still did not do a perfect job of this. However, on assignments that I missed, I made alternative plans to earn credit for them. As well as asked for support on the things that I didn’t understand throughout the project from not only my teacher but also my peers which is a really new thing for me.
The greatest challenge I faced during the project was being behind all my peers due to post concussive syndrome. At the very beginning of this project, I got a concussion which resulted in me missing a lot of the background information that all my peers received. I missed a whole week of class in the deepest part of research and then when I returned I really wasn’t back. I had a hard time understanding what we were doing and had trouble comprehending anything that I was reading. When it came to making our podcasts I was lacking on the background information. Thankfully because we were working in groups I was able to rely upon my team for help in this area.
2. If you could go back and do the project again what would you do differently and why?
If I were to do this project again I would spend more time editing the audio quality of our podcast. I had to use several different mics throughout the process which caused some inconsistencies in our audio. I feel that these inconsistencies took away from our main goal and distracted listeners. I plan to go back and re-record it with a consistent mic so that this problem can be avoided.
3. What is the greatest insight you gained about the state of labor issues today? Think back through the entire project, historical context, the presentations, globalization, and your podcast production.
The greatest insight I gained from this project about labor issues is the reality of child labor. Before this project, I knew that child labor existed, but I didn’t fully understand how or why it was a problem. Through this project and researching about child labor in the United States during the industrial revolution, I grasped the dangerous reality of it. I now understand how I as a consumer have a voice in the child labor problems of today and that little changes in my lifestyle have the potential to save the lives of children.
4.What are you most proud of in your project? This could be something very small and not visible to me or the audience. Help me understand why you are so proud of this piece.
The piece of this project that I am the proudest of is my cover art for our podcast. I love photography, but I have a really hard time showing others my art. For our cover art, I used one of my original photos. This was a huge step for me and caused lots of anxiety and stress. I realized that showing other people my art isn’t as bad as I thought it was and that people couldn’t even tell that I had taken it. As small as this may seem it was a huge step for me because it was the first time I was personally choosing to show people and not because somebody told me to show it.
5. Explain 1 way you grew as a student during this project. It is not when we are comfortable and know how to do a task that we grow, it is often when we are the most challenged or have struggled through something that we grow. So what will you be better at now?
My biggest growth during this project was my advocacy. Before coming to Animas I didn’t even know that advocacy was a word let alone something I could do. Having a concussion during this project called for a lot of communication between me and my teacher. This is something in the past I have not been very good at. I still did not do a perfect job of this. However, on assignments that I missed, I made alternative plans to earn credit for them. As well as asked for support on the things that I didn’t understand throughout the project from not only my teacher but also my peers which is a really new thing for me.