Fennec Fox (Vulpes zerda)

I am a sophomore at GCE Lab School. This STEAM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) Population, we discussed binomial nomenclature which is a two part name for every animal in the world, usually in Latin language. We studied taxonomy, which is the science of categorizing into levels given to every animal in order to tell them apart and to organize animals in their similarities and differences. We usually find these traits in morphology which is the organism's physical traits. We were able to go onto an FE (field experience) to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago where we observed an animal. I chose a Fennec Fox and I have organized them into taxonomic levels.

 
Venn diagram of Grey Seal, Cinereous Vulture, and Fennec Fox:

In class, we were grouped up with two other students who had completely different animals than us in order to compare and contrast the taxonomy levels. I was paired up with WH who was observing the Grey Seal, and ALL who was working with the Cinereous Vulture. I learned that a Grey Seal is usually found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. They usually live along rocky coasts and aren’t very sociable with each other, despite living together in large colonies and gathering together in large groups just like how Fennec Foxes gather in groups of about 10. On the other hand, the Cinereous Vulture can be found in European Countries such as France, Italy, and Spain while the Fennec Fox is found in the Sahara. Cinereous Vultures also live in habitats that can give the higher ground advantage, which is usually in forested areas with hills. I found it interesting to discover how closely related two animals could be connected to one another even though they come from two totally different habitats.

                                                           Picture of Vulpes zerda:

Drew, Avery, File:Fennec Fox Vulpes zerda.jpg, 28 January 2010, 13:07:16

NB Hand Drawn Picture of Fennec Fox(2018)

                               
Fennec Foxes are usually found in North Africa or in the Sahara desert. The scientific name for a Fennec Fox is Vulpes zerda which translates to small fox. Because they live in the Arabian Peninsula, they have adapted to warmer climates like the Sahara desert by using their unusually large ears to cool down from the heat. The Fennec Fox would typically hunt for rodents, reptiles, and insects. They are social animals that like to live in packs with one another, hunt together, and play. A Fennec Fox may live 16 years. They may tend to use their feet for digging to build underground tunnels.

Taxonomic Levels:

                                     
I have drawn and labeled the different parts in a Fennec Foxes body which identifies their levels on my taxonomic chart visually.

                     

Set theory was a way to organize these groups into mathematical terms and to find the similarities in these animals to other ones. We use different symbols to mean different things. For example, “U“ means universe which is everything that may be inside of the brackets. From there we can use, Є, to mean it is an element to a specific group. “⋃” which is used to mean a union, or addition to, while ⋂ means an intersection. When we use the apostrophe after we label a specific group that means everything in the brackets are opposite of what we are trying to get to. Here are my examples:


U= { Fennec Fox, Grey Seal, Cinereous Vulture}
Fennec Foxes, Grey Seals, and Cinereous vultures are all a part of my universe.

Herbivores’= {Cinereous Vulture, Fennec Fox, Grey Seal}
Vultures, Fennec Foxes, and Grey Seals are not herbivores.

Feathery ⋃ Furry: { Fennec Fox, Vulture}
The set of animals that are either feathery or furry are the fennec fox and vulture.

Feathery ⋂ Furry: {Ø}
There is no animal in my universe that is both furry and feathery.

fennec fox Є Mammalia
The fennec fox is an element of the Mammalia group.

fennec fox Є carnivora
The fennec fox is an element of the Carnivora group.


Conclusion:
To conclude, I found my first AP to be quite interesting. I was able to learn more about how and why organisms are listed into taxonomic levels and I was able to find out how closely connected we are to the animals around us, even though we all come from different habitats. It's interesting to know that although morphology may show us our differences in physical traits, when we break these levels down, we can see the comparisons between organisms.

Citations:
Artist unknown, https://moniqueschoutenblog.wordpress.com, May 19, 2018.
Lincoln Park zoo, https://www.lpzoo.org/animal/cinereous-vulture#, September 15, 2018
Lincoln Park Zoo

Fennec Fox (Vulpes Zerda)

Introduction:

I am a sophomore at GCE Lab School. For my first AP this year for STEAM we discussed binomial nomenclature which is a two part name for every animal in the world, usually in latin language. we studied taxonomy levels which are the levels that are given to every animal in order to tell them apart and to organize animals in their similarities and differences, we usually find these traits in morphology which is the organism's physical traits. We were able to go onto an FE to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago where we observed an animal, for me I chose a fennec fox and I have organized them into taxonomic levels also got to create a Venn diagram with two other classmates where I got to compare and contrast other mammals to mine.

 Background on mammal:

Fennec Foxes are usually found in North Africa or in the Sahara desert. The scientific name for a Fennec Fox would be Vulpes zerda (small fox). Because they live in the Arabian Peninsula, they have adapted to warmer climates like the Sahara desert by using their unusually large ears to cool down from the heat. The Fennec Fox would typically hunt for like rodents, reptiles, and insects. They are social animals that like to live in packs with one another, hunt together, and play. A Fennec Fox may live up to 12-16 years. They may tend to use their feet for digging because they could be found in underground dens they have built.

    Taxonomic Levels

 

                 Picture of Fennec Fox                   

Drew, Avery, File:Fennec Fox Vulpes zerda.jpg, 28 January 2010, 13:07:16

Picture of my hand drawn mammal with taxonomic levels labeled:

NB(2018)

Venn diagram of Grey Seal, Cinereous Vulture, and Fennec Fox:

NB(2018)


In class, we were grouped up with two other students who had completely different animals to us in order to compare and contrast the taxonomy levels. I was paired up with WH who was observing the Grey Seal, and ALL who was working with the Cinereous Vulture. I learned that the Grey Seal are usually found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. They usually live along rocky coasts, and aren’t very sociable with each other, despite living together in large colonies and gathering together in large groups, just like how Fennec Foxes gather in groups of about 10. On the other hand, the Cinereous Vulture can be found in European Countries such as France, Italy, and Spain, while the Fennec Fox is found in the Sahara. They also live in habitats that can give the higher ground advantage, which is usually in forested areas with hills. I found it interesting to find out how closely related two animals could be connected to one another even though they come from two totally different habitats.

Photo of Grey Seal:

Artist unknown, https://moniqueschoutenblog.wordpress.com, May 19, 2018.

Photo of Cinereous Vulture:

Lincoln Park zoo, https://www.lpzoo.org/animal/cinereous-vulture#, September 15, 2018

Set theory statements:

U: { Fennec Fox, Grey Seal, Cinereous Vulture}

Fennec Foxes, grey seals, and Cinereous vultures are all a part of my universe.

Herbivores’: { Vulture, Fennec Fox, Grey Seal}

Vultures, Fennec Foxes, and Grey Seals are not herbivores.

Feathery ⋃ Furry: { Fennec Fox, Vulture}

Animals that are either feathery or furry are the fennec fox and vulture.

Feathery ⋂ Furry: {Ø}

There is no animal in my universe that is both furry and feathery.

fennec fox Є Mammalia

The fennec fox is an element of the Mammalia group.

fennec fox Є carnivora

The fennec fox is an element of the carnivora group.

Conclusion:

To conclude, I found my first AP to be quite interesting. I was able to learn more about how and why mammals are listed into taxonomic levels, and I was able to find out how closely connected we are to the animals around us even though we all come from different habitats. It's interesting to know that although morphology may show us our difference in physical traits, when you break it down into these levels we can see how we are linked into even the smallest traits in an animal.

Get out the way GMOs

Throughout my last freshman term at GCE, Food, we were able to dive in deeper in where our food actually comes from. We were asking ourselves, does our food come locally? Why do we transport food? or questions like what are the pros or cons to the use of GMOs? I was more on the Anti side of GMOs being that my mom is a health freak and cares about where everything comes from before purchasing. This is my slideshow of why I am anti-GMOs and what you could do to activate and inform the world about GMOs.

           
                                                            NBE "Anti GMO" June 2018

                       

From the Restaurant to the Kitchen; Mansaf

Throughout this course I was able to get a deeper meaning of what food really was. Before taking this class I thought this was a pretty weird name for a course at GCE, but now the meaning completely makes sense. I think that we think of food in more of a broad standpoint but we should be thinking of food more as a, where does it come from? Is it local? How did it get here? We think about what we are going to be eating rather than where our food is actually coming from.

War & Food

For this Unit, Death, we were able to dive deeper into the meaning of famine and how monocultures can lead to famine. We looked into the Irish Potato Famine. We were able to go to the Lincoln Park Conservatory. We looked at 5 different plants and we learned why and how they grow in the environments that they do. For our AP, we chose a certain issue that we wanted to present to the UN in order to solve specific problems. I chose to write about War/ political instability and how that might effect our world today in relation to food.




War & Food (2018) NBE
Do you ever think about the correlation of war and political instability in relation to food? By having certain elements like governance, food production, climate, etc. we are able to develop a global food system. This global food system can be affected by these elements like war/ political instability. The reason for why I chose to write about my stance with war and food is because I don’t think people usually remember or correlate war and food together as being a crisis. We think of it more as separate issues but really these issues affect each other in some sort of way almost in a domino effect, where if one of them is happening for example war, we should be thinking of food scarcity being the next crisis. War/ Political Instability is the biggest threat to our global food system. The reason I want to put this out there in the world is in order to inform others about the issue with war and food. I want to give out ways that political instability or war can threat food supply and ways that we can help globally. When we begin to have others get involved in a certain situation others will be informed and will want to create a better world.

Wars from Syria, South Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, etc. are all affecting the food scarcity and the way these citizens live. This is a threat to the global food system because according to an article by the Washington Post, “ ...increases in food prices caused by drought were also a factor in the 2011 Arab Springs uprising in Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, and Egypt.” Not only are we thinking about food droughts here but we are also thinking about the food prices that are rising. How would you assume that a refugee would have enough to pay for this? Would they think of food as priority in a certain situation like that? Also, we are having people protest which is all related to these food conflicts. “...Riots, protests, ad massacres are among the types to unrest that can lead to civil war - and all can be linked to food conflicts.” It has a domino effect, with anything. Food is such an important source in our lives that once we have one situation it will immediately lead to food production. Lastly, going back to a quote from the Washington Post, “ Low crop yields increase the competition for remaining crops.” Now we have competition in this situation for remaining crops which leads to dispute.

There was such thing as food stamps which I assume we are all aware of; this was needed in times of World War 2. An era that faced a similar problem is our own country. Back in 1947 the U.S. was involved in World War 2. This lead to an increase in the use of food stamps. The OPA was the Office of Price Administration which was established within the Emergency Management of the U.S. government used to control money. In the book, Empires of Food, there was a short excerpt, "...in England, the price of wheat jumped eightfold." (Pg. 34). We can see that even in "1316" the prices were being raised on crops.

A civilization like Ancient Greece surprisingly had food scarcity and land problems as well. The way the ancient greeks would address this problem was by having each social class in a different section; or maybe a different set of privileges than each other. Land had been separated for people who owned a portion of it. According to ancient.eu, “The state did not control farming and crops were grown and livestock reared by private individuals on their own land.” By having these crops being grown by private individuals a situation may come up like, controversy leading to possibly war because of food supply. We can learn from history because although it may seem like an organized idea to have an organized agricultural society we can also have dispute. I think this is something that we are still trying to work on but we have evolved in some way. There may be public gardens where people are easily able to pick up any crops they may need. We can see by having private land that it won’t entirely make a difference from the people that own the land. They have more of a supply but won’t share it causing controversy over the community in which they may have lived in.

Now that we know how food and war can relate to one another or create some kind of effect on one another. We can see that there isn’t really a divide in both of these situations. We can create ways in which we can put this to an end. For one, we can create different organizations which are already being created for refugees leaving their war torn countries. By having more and more organizations I think the world will begin to see that helping out will become more of a task rather than a yes or no situation. Second, education. Someone wouldn’t want to be a part of an organization without being informed in the first place. Educators should be teaching their students the effects that war can lead to rather than having their students assume what might be the effects. Lastly, awareness. We need the people around us to be aware of certain situations that are not just happening in their nation but globally. Without the people being aware around us we aren’t able to help the people in need like bringing them into your country for shelter, providing food and water, etc. and we aren't able to create a better world without knowing our world.

To conclude, my reasoning behind writing this is because I don’t think people usually correlate food and war but they are similar in a way. Food droughts can lead to a raise in prices, protests and rioting can occur, and low yields. One of the UN's SDGS that relate to this subject is #10 reduced inequalities because the divide between who and who get access to food and water varies depending on your social class which can suddenly drop because your country can be fleeing a war like many of these refugees which are flooding to new countries for shelter. Before I go, I want to leave you thinking about something, what are your views of political instability in relation to food scarcity? What would you do as an outsider in order to solve this food supply problem?


Citations:
Cartwright, Mark, Food & Agriculture in Ancient Greece, Ancient. eu, 25 Jul 2016, 22 May 2018
Koren. Ore, Food Scarcity causes conflict - but so can food abundance. Here's why, The Washington Post, 23, November 2016, 22, May 2018
Tran. Mark, Millions of Syrians need of food aid as war devastates food production, The Guardian, 5 Jul 2013, 22 May, 2018.
Rimas. Andrew, Empires of Food, Pg. 34

Bake it until you make it!

To begin, throughout this term of Food we were able to look into baking. We studied the pH scale and what is considered an acid or a base. We learned about acid base reactions which we applied to our baking. We went on an FE to Big Delicious Planet where we were able to look at their garden and also get a hands on experience.  We explored their urban farm and how they work from the farm to the kitchen. We made 5 different breads in class. We were trying to figure out which component makes the best leavening agent. The leavening agents we used were baking soda, yeast, and sourdough starter. This AP was actually one of my favorites that we have had all year because I was able to see what worked better and it was more of a hands on AP that I was able to experience with one of my other peers.

                                 


Calculations:

BUTTERMILK
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
PROTEIN
17% x 2 cups per serving = 34% of daily value
8 grams of protein per serving x 2 cups per serving = 56 grams of protein
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
FAT
4% x 2 = 8% of daily value
2.5 grams x 2 = 5 grams of fat

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CARBOHYDRATES
4 x 2 = 8% of daily value
13 x 2 = 26 grams of carbohydrates
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CALORIES
110 x 2 = 220 calories
220 = x
2000 calories needed daily 100%
22000 = 2000x
2000 2000
11 = x
11% of calories needed daily
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ALL PURPOSE FLOUR
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
0.25 serving size x 3.5 cups of flour used = .875
.875 is change factor
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PROTEIN
.875 x 3 = 2.625 grams of protein
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CARBOHYDRATE
7% x .875 = 6.125% of daily value
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CALORIES
100 x .875 = 87.5 calories
87.5 = x
2000 100
8750 = 2000x
2000 2000
4.375 = x
4.375% of calories needed daily
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SUGAR
=-=-=-=-=

CARBOHYDRATES
1% of the daily value
4 grams of sugar
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CALORIES
15 calories
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Canela & Karfa

 Throughout this course, Food for thought, we were able to dive deeper into food. Where did it come from? How did it get to our local grocery store? Is it better to forage for your food or create an agricultural society? We were able to look into these questions deeper by going on some FEs. The first week we went to Metropolis where we were able to see how they roast coffee beans and where they originated. We were able to taste test some of the countries depending on their origins and find what we liked and didn't like. We also made some tortillas with PA's mother. She came and we were able to use a tortilla press and make corn and flour tortillas which was fun to see the difference. Lastly, we went forage around Lincoln park with Odd Produce. We saw what we were able to eat and what was maybe something to stay away from but I feel like I was able to make more of a connection with the community and neighborhood that I live in and how we care about the way things look and what we are able to use.

I created my own family tree. In this family tree you can see at the top you have my two grandparents from my Mexican side, sadly I couldn't use my Moroccan grandparents because they don't live in the U.S. We can see the variety of the foods because my family loves trying new foods. This also creates a background to culture and my family getting to experience the different spices and ingredients used in these different foods.

NBE. Family Tree 2018

For my AP, I had to find one ingredient that my family uses and write about it in the perspective of the ingredient. I decided to use cinnamon because it is used in Moroccan and Mexican cuisine. Read my essay on cinnamon to find out where it originated and how my family uses it:

                               

To conclude, we were able to explore the origin of cinnamon and how it made its way to the Mexican and Moroccan Bedda family. This was an interesting experience and it only makes me feel more connected to both of my cultures. Connecting to the origins of something can have an effect on the way you think about the world and the people who are around us. It makes us think about how aware we are of our background and not just the background of food but also the background of our ancestors.

Citations:
NBE. Family Tree 2018.
Bedda, Hicham. Personal Interview. 26. April 2018.
Carla Rahn Phillips. "The Growth and Composition of Trade in the Iberian Empires, 1450-1750" in James D. Tracy, ed., The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350-1750 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 51.
Gonzalez, Guadalupe. Personal Interview. 25 April 2018.
Protoplasmakid. Ponche de fruta navideno. 24 December 2015. 30. April 2018

Be Green Like Beans

Throughout this food term, my last term as a freshman at GCE, our first unit is called: Planting. Throughout this unit we explored gardening methods, went deeper into natural farming by read the book One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, we dove into growing our own herbs and mushrooms. To wrap up the unit we created our own hypothetical gardens. In my garden I decided to include a 5ft by 5ft garden bed. I used three containers such as a hemisphere, a can, and a rectangular bucket. Before, the soil quality was pretty low and wasn’t efficient enough for all of my ten fruits and vegetables to grow such as, strawberries, avocado, raspberries, tomatoes, squash, beans, corn, cabbage, radish and tangerines. 

       
To conclude, I think that this AP allowed me to think more about how I want to create my garden. I think I was able to think more about how I want to make an impact especially after thinking about how I could be more green and how I can make an impact. Hopefully this presentation allowed to think more about creating your own gardens and making an impact.

Citations:
Natural Farming, Wikipedia. April 27, 2018.
Flickr, Fish meal, fishmeal, March 12, 2015, April 27, 2018.
Hemisphere, Wikipedia Commons. 25 November 2014. April 27 2018.

Sweet dreams

Throughout the humanities term, Who am I? our last unit was called Doubt and Dream which was the total opposite to our first unit which was Truth and Memory we were able to meet with Matt Fitzgerald who is a pastor in Chicago. We were able to talk to him about doubt and questions that we had. We were also able to talk to an Imaam, Abu-Noor Ryan, getting an Islamic perspective as well. This was by far one of my favorite courses this year at GCE being able to explore. At the end, we were able to create our own dream catchers. We looked deeper into the meaning behind a dreamcatcher. I tend to see dreamcatchers around Tumblr and it's usually shown as a "cute" project, but that's culture appropriation which is not acceptable especially in this day and age. Look through my ISSUU presentation to get an explanation of the Ojibwa tribe and my own dreamcatcher and the meaning behind it all. This was an experience that has made me think more about my cultural background.

                              

Pollution...turn it into a solution

As we are coming to the end of our last term, Fuel, we decided to to finalize it with an AP. This unit was called Future, where we were able to explore and think about how CO2 consumption is becoming more and more of an issue. Because we are GCE and we make a difference as a global citizen, this action project was more about inventing and thinking about ways that we can change the things around us and turn them into something eco-friendly. Throughout the term, we were able to meet with Christa Margroff from Nicor Gas (natural gas company), this was by far one of the most interactive FE's I have had all year in my STEAM course.  It was an experience that made us come out with ideas and think more about where we are headed in the world in terms of climate change. Look through my ISSUU presentation to find ideas I have come up with, my calculations, and how I plan to make this Earth safer and ways we can all get a head start on making change!

                                 

Overall, I think this was quite the experience and hopefully you got something out of this presentation. I think all of us in this world, we don't really think about what we are doing that can have a negative effect on our environment, but it's important to think before you do. We have things that give us bliss, but have you ever thought about your bliss having a negative impact?

Gone With The Wind

Throughout my steam course, Fuel, we explored renewable resources such as, wind power, solar power, biomass, geothermal, etc. We were able to go to field experience like Comed where we interacted with different ways to generate energy and how our power is spread throughout the U.S. At the end of this course, we were assigned to produce an infomercial trying to convince an audience to switch to a certain renewable energy source. I chose wind power and here is why...

                

To conclude, switch to wind power. There are pros and cons that you may need to think about, but at the end we all need to think about the issue of global warming. It's time that we take action into our own hands, choose different methods of creating energy, etc. Switch to wind power, other companies like Microsoft are switching as well. Join the movement to fight climate change.