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Ethnobotany & Cultures

Posted by Jyaire Oconnor in Botany · Aziz · y1 on
Within the Agriculture community we've had many different types of groups amplify and pitch in increasing agriculture and spreading it. One of those being the indigenous tribes found within the U.S and basically everywhere else. We studied multiple tribes such as Lanape, San, Angami, Sioux e.t.c. Within these tribes we've seen how important agriculture was to them. Usually being the drive force to their tribe and growth as a community. Something like this helps explain the heavy background agriculture carries which is why it's praised and held to such high standards. Looking into this helped a lot and made me more interested in researching in said Topic.

Comparative Ethnobotany

Posted by Lourdes Blazquez in Botany · Aziz · y1 on
REFLECTION:

Indigenous plants, cultures and wisdom should be conserved by spreading awareness of indigenous people and their background. They use every plant in a different way depending what the plant is good for. Depending on the plant, like herbs can be used as medicinal, while other plants like fruits, nuts, vegies, is used as food. If humans genetically modify the plants to help change with the environment, it will allow the plants to survive in those specific environments, etc. What stood out to us was how many different organizations there was to help out the Indigenous plants and people.


Comparative Ethnobotany

Posted by Alisha Lane in Botany · Aziz · y1 on
For our project we studied four different native tribes from around the world, including the Lenape from Philadelphia, Sioux from North Dakota, San from Southern Africa, and the Angami from Nagaland India. We studied their culture and learned about how they used agriculture in their society. With what we learned we can conserve their culture and wisdom by using some of their planting techniques, and trying to use plants as much as they did. These tribes incorporated agriculture into their daily lives and made sure to get the most out of everything. Plants in new climates can either become invasive or just not do well in a new environment. If we keep them in their natural climate and respect land as much as the indigenous people did/ do then we will have a more positive affect instead of negative. From this project I realized how native tribes helped shape agriculture and their use of plants and materials was rather conserved and not wasteful. I think this is something we can still use today in order to get the most out of all that we use. 


Comparative Ethnography

Posted by Daniel Baez in Botany · Aziz · y1 on
With the indigenous knowledge, we are capable to help with the biodiversity, and we can also help the forest due to the traditions only working if the forest canopy is intact for example in the old, Africans used to conserve forests in a simple way. Indigenous wisdom is a valuable tradition among indigenous peoples, in these long traditions human problems have been taken care of by learning from other species and also from the wider natural processes in which we participate. The anatomy of a plant can affect plant physiology in a positive way because we are able to use various parts of a plant for a variety of things such as food, medicine, etc. Human interactions affect plants ability to adapt to changing climates because if it’s extremely hot then there can be droughts and plants won’t have enough water where in other areas they can drown to excessive water.

Comparative Ethobotany

Posted by Lamier Howard in Botany · Aziz · y1 on
Indigenous plants, cultures, and wisdom can be conserved if we put more effort into protecting them and giving more respect for their culture and what they do. The structure of a plant affects how they function. For instance, a Venus Fly Trap is structured the way it is so that it can eat bugs. Humans can affect how plants are affected by the climate because the actions of humans always affect how the environment is which affects the plants in that environment. Like when people smoke, it gets in the air which then kills plants. This is why we need to not only take a priority in taking care of plants, but also take a priority in helping indigenous people.  

Q1 Benchmark: Comparative Ethnobotany

Posted by Jordan Davis in Botany · Aziz · y1 on
The way that indigenous plants and the culture be preserved as a whole is by having more classes teach these kinds of things. This information can be shared amongst students at the grade level of 5th grade and could teach it again in the sophomore year of high school. There could be special schools days where they acknowledge indigenous culture and spend a day or however long they want to spend celebrating and cultivating that culture. Plant anatomy affects plant physiology because plants need to be structurally strong so that it can do certain features; a plant that thrives in rainy conditions and is built for humid areas such as the rainforest isn't going to work the same if it was suddenly put in an environment like a desert, it wouldn’t survive. Humans interactions affect a plants ability to adapt to changing climates if it’s a plant that is always in a constant environment. If a plant is always being nurtured by having constant light and being given water at certain times throughout the day the plant will never have to experience a drought of water or sometimes not seeing the sun. Since the plant is in a constant environment it will always know only that constant.

Sustainable Mcdonald's

Posted by Benjamin Hahn in Environmental Science · Aziz · E on

It is evident from objective data and statistics that Mcdonald’s’s business practices are not sustainable for the environment and will play a role in the depleting the earth of its natural resources, and warming to planet to a point of no return.

Mcdonald’s has two meat suppliers: Keystone Foods (now owned by Tyson Foods) and Lopez Foods. Tyson Foods takes pride in only working with independent, family owned farms. But while these farms are independent and family owned they are factory farms. According to the Ethical Choices Program, factory farming is the largest contributor to environmental damage. Tyson foods justifies their practices by glorifying the farms they work with, drawing the conclusion that if they are family owned, they must be ethical. But this conclusion is false because the fact that a business is family owned does not mean it is a small, ethical business, Mcdonald’s itself is family owned. Furthermore, the farms that tyson foods works with are hardly even family owned as tyson foods owns the animals, and the food that the animals eat. Only the land and equipment are independently owned.

Lopez foods produces the beef patties for the hamburgers sold at Mcdonald’s. They are made in a large scale factory, and all large scale factories contribute to air pollution if they do not use renewable energy. Lopez foods is not a farm, and they will not publicly state their suppliers. It can be inferred that this is because their suppliers farming practices are even more unethical than those from tyson farms.

New plan for sustainability:

In order to ensure that the food sold at Mcdonald’s is sustainability. Mcdonald’s should introduce Clean Meat as their new supplier. Clean Meat produces 100% real meat without killing animals. They do this by taking a sample of the animals cells, and then growing the cells outside of the animal. This will help the environment because far less animals will be required to produce the same amount of meat, and it will drastically reduce the costs of meat because a virtually endless supply of meat can be produced from a single animal.

In addition, Mcdonald’s should cease opening new restaurants, there are already 37,241 worldwide, which is more than enough. And all current restaurants should be powered by forms of renewable energy such as solar energy and wind energy.


Works Cited

Lopez Foods, lopezfoods.com/.

“Ethical Choices Program.” Ethical Choices Program, www.ethicalchoicesprogram.org/.

“Farmers.” Tyson, www.tysonfoods.com/who-we-are/our-partners/farmers.

GRACE Communications Foundation. “Environment.” GRACE Communications Foundation, www.sustainabletable.org/265/environment.

Maserati7200. “Inside the Factory Where McDonalds' Meat Comes From.” YouTube, YouTube, 17 Feb. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGWqwYP1dcA.

Primack, Dan. “Tyson in Talks to Purchase Keystone Foods.” Axios, 30 July 1970, www.axios.com/tyson-chicken-keystone-foods-mcnuggets-mcdonalds-b6e98f3d-2d47-4f4c-9fcb-f66144beae7e.html.

“Trace Your Food Back ToTHE SOURCE.” McDonald's Food Suppliers & Food Sources | McDonald's, www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/meet-our-suppliers.html.

“Welcome.” Clean Meat, cleanmeat.org/.


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Ethnobotany Project By: Deja, Simon, Quamir

Posted by Deja Green in Botany · Aziz · y1 on

Indigenous plants, cultures, and wisdom can be conserved by protecting them from what you know that would hurt them. 
Depending how plants are structured effects how they function and how they are taking care of. Human interactions affects plants ability to changing climates depends on how humans take care of plants and what they are using them for. Something that stood out to me is indigenous group use plants for clothing because I am a fan on clothes and it interesting to see culture coming from so small into something used for so big. Learning about the different indigenous groups made me see a bigger picture on plants and why they are important and how they can supply human needs. 

Comparative Ethnobotany

Posted by Jeremiah Williams in Botany · Aziz · y1 on

Exploring Differences In Tribes


Plants uses

  • The plants have many uses in different cultures because each culture has a different point of view

Abenaki

   Native American tribe and First Nation.The role of the plants is something that may have helped them in there everyday life when planting different foods to eat everyday and sometime make cool objects out of them.

Angola

     Natural or man-made fires occur frequently in savanna vegetation, and tree species are thus usually resistant to fire.


What is the climate like ?

  • When we discuss climate change it refers to global or regional climate patterns so for these tribes we will go through what they experience...


  • Traveling for more resources will change

  • More carbon released may create more changes

  • Changes in food sources, perceived reduction in weather

  • Deforestation and forest fragmentation

Angola:  Climate. Like the rest of tropical Africa, Angola experiences distinct, alternating rainy and dry seasons. The coastal strip is tempered by the cool Benguela Current, resulting in a climate similar to coastal Peru or Baja California. It is semiarid in the South and along the coast to Luanda.

Abenaki:  North America extends to within 10° of latitude of both the equator and the North Pole. It embraces every climatic zone, from tropical rainforest and savanna on the lowlands of Central America to areas of permanent ice cap in central Greenland.


Events/ evolution overtime ?

  • When it comes to evolution we talk about learning and growing into something more to improve...

    • The Abenaki are a Native American tribe and First Nation

    • The Abenaki live in Quebec and the Maritimes of Canada and in the New England region of the United States




Similarities and differences ?

The Northern Mbundu or Ambundu are a Bantu people living in Angola's North-West, North of the river Kwanza. While Abenaki were in america





Ethnobotany Project - Simon, Deja, Quamir

Posted by Simon Garner in Botany · Aziz · y1 on
I think indigenous agriculture can be preserved simply by un-industrial farmers and gardeners performing the same methods of indigenous cultures. If indigenous methods can escape their original culture and be used by the greater population they can survive in modern culture. We can adapt to changing climates by monitoring the change in climate and influence our new methods by those that thrived in the new climate we will be in. Our actions can also be used to selectively breed plants so they are better suited to the new climate. What stood out to me was how sophisticated and advanced these cultures agricultures are and how much thought went into individual methods. It is also awesome to learn about these culture's agriculture and compare it to methods used by Europeans and see how boring those methods are, or maybe I just see them as boring because they are standard to me. I'm wondering why with automation our agriculture has become very standardized and there isn't much variation in mechanized farming like how there is in indigenous farming.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1srS6yJxCMD9bCUhgJpyYMoF0wkCHAYucCdodFCdF5xw/edit?usp=sharing

Q1 Poetry Benchmark

Posted by Taneeja Jones in Poetry · Burrows-Stone · C2 on
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​The Truth Behind Kente (reveal a truth)

Kente is a piece of me
Loving its colorful  energy
Knowing you’re more powerful
Wearing a piece of cloth
Living up to your all

 Knowing you could never fall
I am Africa American
I am proud
I will stand up and say it out loud

Being black is amazing
Bet my ancestors are proud 
Of who my mom is raising
Alive and well
I am praising

I am black and proud
Even in the biggest crowd
My Kente cloth will stand out


​Not What You May Think! ( asking a question)

Africa? The place you may think is awful
Africa? Hot and dirt roads
Africa? A place you could never call your own
Africa? A place that doesn’t have livable homes?

Africa is not what you think
It’s more urban as poverty begins to shrink 
You may ask why it’s portrayed that way if it isn’t 
The answer is simple

People are easily manipulated 
Hardly concentrated
Never really creative
Which makes them simple-minded 

Believing everything they see
Not experiencing
So take it from me
Africa is not what it seems
People there are inviting 
Not the slightest bit of mean

Visual Presentation

https://youtu.be/UAqHTvCGyCU

​Special Cloth ( tell a story)

I have not only one piece of kente
I have 2 
One colorful
With some blue
One straight pink
With a naturally made ink

20 cedis is how much it cost me
Which is equivalent to almost nothing
Knowing its price was considered expensive in Ghana
But nothing with my US dollars

And that it was handmade with beautiful techniques 
Fairly hard to critique
I didn’t think twice about the price
All the hard hot work 
It came out very nice

Making them sturdy and durable 
In all that hot weather must have been terrible
So my 20 cedi blessings
Must have been a miracle

Artifact Poems

Posted by Jyaire Oconnor in Poetry · Burrows-Stone · C2 on
Family Photo
Family Photo

A Picture with Pops


I use to have you in a frame

Almost like a photo

But seeing that brings sudden pain

My heart suddenly grows cold


So I chose to throw you away

Not in a sense that you're trash

But keeping you around slowly broke me down

So to focus

I hid you in the top dresser the one that holds no value


Like a childhood toy shelved and long forgotten

You stayed there collecting dust but for what reason

Because I let this image of you bring up you leaving

I forgot who you were


To let the bad overwhelm the good

Was far from me

This photo a main factor

In my struggle something I simply hated

So I believed because of you my stature received these changes


I forgot who you were


I remember now

How you pushed me to succeed like a father would

You helped me told me I could

When I strayed away from my true path

You help put me back on track


So instead of remembering the bad

I'll remember just that


I need to remember


No bars will hold you

You can freely roam

A home far from home

These memories I hold on to


You helped me grow oh so bold


Cause when days are cold and feverish

That photo I hold it rids the cold

And I know for certain you're seeing this

A woeful road won't change my tone


So instead of just hating

This image I hid gracefully

I'll hang you up again

And use you as a means of motivation


A Father Figure



A Mere Image


Just an ordinary morning

Same routine which is Boring

I get up brush my teeth and think what’s the point

I do the same thing everyday

Learn the same thing everyday

Same routine different day


I look at the picture posted upon the wall

And can’t help but feel appalled

Realising I don’t do this Cause I have to

I do it cause i feel obliged.


I look at this picture and feel as though I need to pass

Like dedicating my grades to my mom and dad

Because they help me strive each day and each night

Even when life is filled with strife


This picture of mine I keep hung in my mind

Helps rid me of this plight

In dire times

This pic of mine

Sheds light on the days

I wish to decay


You motivate me

You inspire me

You guys the entire team

Keep me going keep me living

All that displayed through a mere image.


​
The Picture that Speaks

I pull you out of the first drawer 
And look at you 
Just staring 
And staring 
And staring 

Until I get lost 
Lost in the laughter and idle chatter
Lost in an explosion of colors 
Surrounding me entirely 
As colorful strips like film
Wrap around me 

As the colorful binds release me from my mummified state
I stand there, looking at my own 13th birthday 
And I get lost 
In the laughter and idle chatter

Lost in the familiar face
Lost in the new ones,
And as I stare at me and maire smiling
Waiting happily to blow out the candles 
I can't help but smile

A ton of Emotions overwhelm me 
And as they do I'm back in my room
In front of that dresser
With that photo in my hand
And on that photo a tear

This photo indeed spoke to me
A mere minute felt like an hour 
And a mere image felt like,
Felt like a heartfelt eulogy 

This image has said more than I have 
In my 18 years of living

This image spoke to me


And chill I kept raising my eyebrow while spitting this heat 
https://youtu.be/GuppGHO85Tc

Q1 Artifact project

Posted by Raynaline Torres on
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 Poem #1
When you look at me 

 When you look at me, 
be sure to look twice
Although I come off as unapproachable,  I am really nice 
Before you think you know me be sure to know what you're getting into 
Who I am is different from who you think I am 
be sure you know me before you go back to your friends 
I am me, you are you, we are two different people get that through - 
 Your head 

Poem #2
Mistakes 

When I was younger I cut my hair 
When I was younger i thought having curly hair was unfair
A unfair curse that was could never be lifted 
until I grabbed some scissors and got to snippin
By the time I was done cutting, I looked like a young boy who was ugly 
I played myself and got my ass beat 
Ever since then I appreciate my hair like a pet getting a treat 
I will ever cut my hair again, 
even when I start to think about it 
My curly hair is apart of my identity. 

Poem #3
Does it really matter what others think of me? 

I have grown up to learn that it doesn't matter what those think of you 
Whether you got it good or struggling to make it through 
Another day, have it your way, or the highway 
I have to tell myself it doesn't matter what others think
It matters what I say 
I am the one looking in the mirror everyday and see the reflection
all that matter is i'm happy with myself, including my imperfections

https://youtu.be/AFPXfB-mgyk

Poetry Q1 Project

Posted by Donald Rodgers in Poetry · Burrows-Stone · C2 on

What do others think of me

When they look at the first born

The figure for leading the others

A son in which has a soft but impenetrable heart

What can I do to change the image they see


Am I the oldest

The depended one

A hope in their dreams

Expectation

Or a mystery they have no time solving.


Why do I have to be blamed for things

Taking the shame and pain no one else has to

Why am I creating a life that's makes it easier for the younger siblings

Why am I separated from the rest.


Do I have a say in my actions

A say that I want to change things

A say to others thoughts

The life I was given for free

The exaggerated truth


I believe I am one in a mill

One others don’t see enough

Someone people need in their life

A pillar of support

Am I the one others see as a nuisance


Can I turn these thoughts around

Do I have the willpower to better the things I want

Is it something I want to change

What I chose to do better is moving forward.





The Definition


Family is what you comeback to

They are their always

Not for a day

Not for a week

But forever


Family ties are special things

They are woven ties through the years

It is something deep

Family isn’t always gonna be blood

But people in life who want you in theirs.


Family is the circle of life

And the circle of love

Because they always care

And they will never stop,

It's something you are able to keep



The FAM


Their on your hurt days

And the days you push them away

They still their waiting

TIll you come home happy or cold and shaking


I belong to a family

A group of great people

Pieces of me I’m afraid to lose from life

The only people I can’t use words for


Emotions come from here

Love in my family is something deep

My mind makes stories and memories

I will treasure and keep


They teach me

They create me

They worry me

This is my family


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My Heart- Zakirah's Poetry Blog Part 1

Posted by Zakirah Boyd on

You remember the Day

Do you remember the day

The day when I officially gave you way?

How you were so happy to stay

Just remember this love path is a two way

So are you ready to get out the driveway?


It was the eighth of June

When we got out at noon

When we got to the field

Is when he broke down your shield


We were laying in the grass

Just letting time pass

Can you be my girlfriend he then ask

The excitement i couldn't mask


As the days went by

He stained my heart like dye

Making me hate to say goodbye

Cause i'm scared he'll be gone in a blink of an eye


We all have our doubts

Like why did he ask ME out?

Will this just be a love drought?

Or will he teach me what love is truly about?


So i'm just thinking about the future

Hoping that it’ll come sooner

But for now i am a junior

Typing on her computer


https://youtu.be/6jC4AziPY_E


Not gonna lie

I am not gonna stand here and lie

When her feelings began to show

We both tried to cover it

We thought we were using a blanket to hide

Hide the emotions that seeped through


Not knowing that the blanket was see through

We thought if we doubled the blanket

It would make it hard to see

We were scared of having it just out

Thinking about what would happen


Would he take it and throw it away?

Leave it and forget about it

We didn’t want to take a chance

So we tried to add another layer

Praying this could be the one


The one that would even destroy those feelings

We weren't ready to face another heartache

So we added more layers

But then

Then he walked up to us


Look at her

And snatched the blankets away

He looked at the feelings and embraced them

Embraced them like they were loved ones

Loved ones he hasn’t seen in years

He turns to her and revealed his feeling too


Answer me this

Why are you so open?

She gave this stranger her love so fast

But fortunately, she made the right choice

Not afraid of the endless possibility of failure


You didn’t let those scare you

Why?

What made him so worthy of it

Was it the way he made her laugh

Or the way he made her feel free


That feeling he created made her just throw herself at him

It just feels so pure

The drug has her dependent

Leaving her wanting more


The sound of his voice make her skip a beat

The tone vibrates from my ears to her door

As she flickers

As she gets lost in the sound

The sounds that makes her want to risk it all


So Answer me this

What will happen now?

Now that you know how you feel

Now that you understand what's really going on

What will you do?

Will you invest all your love into him?

If so, let me know.