GR GCE Portfolio

In the past weeks in my humanities Course policy, we looked at how policy is created, who creates policy, and even how people react to policy. In this unit, we look specifically at the judicial branch of the United States of America. We studied the history of the supreme court and how it had little momentum at first until John Marshall came up with the idea of judicial review. We found out the constitution is very broad in article III unlike articles I and II. We also learned that the judicial branch is just as powerful as the other two branches of government. The judicial branch can make decisions that can create or abolish law for example in Roe v. Wade The supreme court ruled that the constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without government restriction. A more recent example of this is on June 26, 2015,  the United States Supreme Court held it in a 504 decision that required all states to grant same-sex marriages--Obe...

The first unit of Urban Planning has come to an end! Let's look back at what happened in this unit. First, we began by discussing the first part of A Devil in the White City. This discussion led to some deeper questionings on why urban planning even matters. Second, we were introduced to the many different types of bridges that are out there just to discover that it is even more than we initially thought. Then, we looked at the geometry behind these bridges especially focusing on triangles. Unfortunately due to COVID-19, we had to cancel all in-class instruction including field experiences. Nonetheless, our teacher was still able to get out there (Downtown Chicago), and show us the urban planning of our city through a video call. The inspiration behind my design is the K truss bridge. A real-life example of a K-truss bridge is the Austin Peay Bridge location in Jackson County, Tennessee. Dave King, "Austin Peay Bridge" Jan. 26 (2015) This was a very time-...

Welcome to my second action project for my STEAM course, Light Sound and Time! In this unit, we investigated in the sound part of Light Sound and Time. First, we learned about the parts of the human ear and how we hear. Then we went over to the Chicago Hearing Society, where we talked to four hard of hearing people about their experiences being hard of hearing or deaf. Finally, we learned more about the Doppler effect, frequency vs. wavelength, and much more. To wrap up this unit, we were assigned to go out on our own to a music/guitar shop to learn more about guitars. This was a useful step that gave us a better idea of how guitars work so that we can eventually create our own. We did just that! For this action project, we were tasked to create a diddley bow. Below is my project! The process of building my diddley bow was a frustrating one, but in the end, everything turned out well. My classmates were having trouble tying the guitar string, so I kindly offered my ex...

Welcome to my first action project for Biomimicry. Biomimicry is an elective course which focuses on STEAM. There are 3 units in this class: Plants, Animals, and Fungi. We just wrapped up Plants which was our first unit. In this unit, we went on a field experience to Interface, which is a company that makes sustainable rugs and carpets. At Interface, we talked to a man named Mikhail Davis who talked about biomimicry and how Interface's designs are inspired by nature. We also went to the Lincoln Park Conservatory, where we looked at different plants and tried to see if we could find the Fibonacci Series. On the first day our class, we were asked, "What is biomimicry?". No one had an accurate definition until further on into the unit. How I would define biomimicry is, "Biomimicry is when human-made designs are influenced or inspired by something in nature." We talked about different terms such as heterotrophs, autotrophs, parts of a tree, Fibonacci Series, Gaia H...

Welcome to my first Action Project for Cure. Cure is a STEAM course taken by the sophomore class here at GCE. There are 3 units in this course and we just first our first one titled, Emergency. In this unit we looked at cell through microscopes, we learned the quadratic formula, we looked at how surgery has changed through history, and we learned much more. We took a field experience to the International Museum of Surgical Science to look at the history of surgery and how surgical tool have evolved since the early years of surgery. To wrap up this unit, this chose a specific surgery that we wanted to focus on. Below is my project on the surgery of my choice! Thanks for looking through my project! Overall, this project wasn't too difficult to complete. I enjoyed learning about what someone goes through after and before they go through and invasive surgery.  

Welcome to my 3rd action project for Biomimicry. Biomimicry is an elective course which focuses on STEAM. There are 3 units in this class: Like A Plant, Like an Animal, and Like A Fungus. We just wrapped up Like A Fungus which was our last unit. In this unit, we learned about how things decompose, the difference between a food chain and a food web, organic vs inorganic matter, and many more. For this unit there were two Field Experiences that my class went on, to The Plant and Sharayu from Healthy Soil Compost came in and talked to us about vermicomposting. for this action project our goal is to re-make a product that is sustainable and that is a closed loop system. below is my design.   I had a great time re-creating something sustainable that has now become apart of a lot of people's daily lives. This was a cool project because I got to think about where things go after they are out of use. It was hard to find information on the Echo Dot so it made it a lot harder for m...

Welcome to my second action project for Biomimicry. Biomimicry is an elective course which focuses on STEAM. There are 3 units in this class: Like A Plant, Like an Animal, and Like A Fungus. We just wrapped up Animals which was our second unit. In this unit, we learned about how different designs are inspired by animals. We learned terms like aerodynamics, Bernoulli's principle, the scientific method, and many more. We also learned about the 3 ways we can learn from animals. These 3 ways are Form, Process, and Ecosystem. In this unit, we didn't go on any Field Experiences because we brought the experiences to us. We had two different guests come in, one was Amy from Biomimicry Chicago and the other was Maya. Maya really helped us with our projects because she is an architect and she helped us create our designs which is something she does in her work as an architect. For this action project, we were challenged to create a 3D model of a sustainable structure and a vehicle that w...

Welcome to the last Action Project of the Stories. Stories is a humanities course that the sophomores of GCE Lab School take. There are 3 units in this course, and we just wrapped up our last unit of this course. In this unit, we talked about Joseph Campbell's Monomyth-- the 12 stages of a hero's journey. Those 12 stages are Call to Adventure, Refusal of Call, Supernatural Aid, Crossing 1st Threshold, Belly of the Whale, Road of Trial, Meeting with the Goddess, Temptation, Atonement with the Father, Apostasis, Ultimate Boon, Refusal of Return, Magic Fight, Rescue from Without, Crossing Return Threshold, Master of Two Words, and Freedom to Live. For this action project our guiding question was, How do you analyze a hero? We were asked to compare 2 heroes. One fictional hero and one real life hero. The heroes that I chose to talk about were my brother, Leandre and the Flash from the television series named The Flash. I chose the Flash as my fictional hero because he has all the ...