What is beauty? We based our capstone project on beauty because it is such a powerful word in today's generation. There are many definitions of beauty, but people still have the mindset that beauty is based upon physical appearance i.e. eurocentric beauty standards and not who you are as person. We wanted to give a visual representation of what beauty means. We interviewed 5 people from different countries from Science leadership Academy at Beeber to show the beauty standards around the world. We wanted to learn what the definition of beauty meant in different countries, and how people from different countries expressed beauty and what made them feel beautiful.  We came up with 5 questions about beauty to ask. These questions were, “Where are you from?, What’s your definition of beauty? What’s your countries idea of beauty? What is the difference between your country’s beauty and America’s? Which standard of beauty do you find yourself conforming to?” We then asked them to bring clothing or jewelry that defined beauty from their country. To broaden our point of view, we asked two gentlemen to give their perspective on beauty. Given the fact that beauty isn’t just within a person, it can also be a place or thing, we also explored the Art Museum of Philadelphia. Each one of the five people say the word Beauty in their language. For the final project, we created a video that we wanted to share with the world.

The video is about four girls, Saphira, Hadja, Yari, and I doing work for a class and they here on the news about oil derailing into the schuylkill river. All of are concerned and ask questions like what is the government going to do to solve this, and how much does it cost to clean the oil spill. After that, we decide that we should do something to raise awareness to the public, so we created a music video. I agreed to do this topic because I was able to relate it to the BP oil spill in 2010. I remember that happened I was 10 years old and scared/scared about what this meant for all the organisms that lived in the ecosystem. Also, with the most recent oil spill from the pipelines in North Dakota it was very frustrating to hear because it was so many things that were wrong about that situation involving the people and the environment.

For this project I worked really hard in everything. I was apart of researching and finding information to put into the video. I also created the skit and wrote the song all by myself. When it came down to the video I edited it and published it onto YouTube. In this project I think that I created the song very well, I’m proud of the how much effort I put into it. What I would differently is record and edit a day earlier so I didn’t have to panic about finishing it. Also, I would change my group because I feel like I worked the hardest and cared the most about it. The most meaningful part was what I learned and how what we do to the Earth will impact it for better or worst. We only have one Earth, so we should take care of it.

Look at me in my brown eyes, what do you see?

I see strong, I see brave, I see beauty in me

I feel pride from my head all the way to my feet

I can taste the independence inside me

JH; Hey I’m here with my grandma, Merian Campbell and umm so, where were you born?

MC: In Whiteville, North Carolina.

JH: So, do you think you faced racism more in North Carolina than in Philadelphia?  

MC: I-I faced it more in Philadelphia I think.

JH: What makes you think that?

MC: Well, it’s really hard to say actually- because being born in the 50s um whenever a whole lot of racism was going on, I wasn’t around it um... I wasn’t around it. Only when we went into the city. And, nobody actually bothered us, we had no problems even though we wasn’t allowed to go in the restaurants and sit down and stuff like that, but that didn’t matter because we never went to restaurants.

JH: Did you ever signs- segregation signs that said whites only and blacks only?

MC: Uh,  I’ve saw signs that said um, whites only bathroom at the bus station, um basically that’s it.

JH: Did you understand like,  why did anybody ever tell why they had those signs?

MC: Not really, it was just that we don’t go in that bathroom.

JH: So, Jim Crow laws never really impacted you.

MC: No, nope.

JH: Well, what year did you come to Philadelphia?

MC: I came to Philadelphia in 1970.

JH: So, segregation was over by that time, so what racism- did anybody say anything?

MC: Uh, Segregation was over at that time, but where we came from schools did not mix until 1970.

JH: So, besides black people in your school were there any other races.

MC: No.

JH: You told me that there were Native Americans in your um… near your hometown. They didn’t go to your school or anything?

MC: They had their own school.

JH: Did you ever talk, like were you ever friends with someone outside your race.

MC: Uh, nope.

JH: Well-

MC: Well Native Americans yes, I’m sorry. With some Native Americans, but that was it, that was only because they lived in the community.  

JH: Did any other- any whites live in your community, was your neighborhood diverse?

MC: Nope. All Black. Even it was segregated, I mean, the Native Americans lived in one section of the community and the blacks in the other. The Native Americans and the Blacks, they did you know socialize.

JH: So, they didn’t like hate each other?

MC: No.

JH: Were there any racist remarks to each other?

MC: No.

JH: Well, in my school there is a lot of self-segregation, why do you think that is?

MC: I really don’t know, maybe because they think they’re different.

JH: Well, I know there was self-segregation in your school, but you told me about our uncle, who went to an all white school. How do you think that was for him?

MC: That was when they first started mixing the schools, and he went and it was only a few blacks, uh he faced uh racism. I didn’t, because I didn’t go there.

JH: Did- Did he ever come home and like was angry or upset about what they said?

MC: At first, um, maybe the first month he had a pretty rough time, uh he didn’t really talk about it a lot it was just uh I know he got in trouble a couple of times, over somethings that was said to him.

Abstract

My grandmother, Merian Campbell, told what it was like for her in school before they stop segregated school.  She also talked about my uncle going to an interracial school and the struggles he had to face. Since, she had a brother she got to see how different the education was between white and colored school.

Research

North Carolina, though not one of the major states during civil rights movement, still faced segregation. In 1954, public schools were determined unconstitutional for being segregated. But in North Carolina the desegregated slowly. In fact, Greensboro school was the first to agree with the Brown vs Board of education laws. “In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, a federal court ruled that busing could be used as a tool to help integrate the public schools,” which was attempt to desegregate schools.    

Sources:

http://ncpedia.org/history/20th-Century/african-american-civil-rights

http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/segregation-again-north-carolina2019s-transition-from-leading-desegregation-then-to-accepting-segregation-now

I choose this infographic because I think it’s important to raise awareness on women’s views on social media. I think that we should prevent this for the next generation of girls and let them love themselves for who they are. This is to show that we as a society need to encourage each others looks instead of just saying there is one type of beautiful.

I choose this infographic because I think it’s important to raise awareness on women’s views on social media. I think that we should prevent this for the next generation of girls and let them love themselves for who they are. This is to show that we as a society need to encourage each others looks instead of just saying there is one type of beautiful.

I chose the as my project because I love music. Also, I played in an orchestra and played these notes in treble. What it says about me is that I admire music. Music makes everything around me lights up which this is a perfect sculpture with light for me. My music helps give me an expression of life.