The Redline Project

The purpose of this action project was to experience organizing and realizing a nonviolent intervention in my own city, practicing Satyagraha with the real world implications. In Global Peace we learned about Satyagraha which is Gandhi's principle for nonviolence. Satya means truth, graha means insistence in favor with the truth. Satyagraha means insistence of the truth. We used Satyagraha to understand how to make a nonviolent action happen.What I learned during this action project was to not be afraid of what you believe in. If you think something should be a different way protest or use any nonviolent way to solve this problem. We used a sheet of 198 methods of nonviolence actions to help me find a action that I want to take, mine was number 179, which is  Alternative Social institutions. I was first very scared about actually going out to a neighborhood to show my action, but at the end I felt very proud of myself and my classmate JV.

  My action project was to document segregation and violence. I picked this action because there is still segregation in Chicago and many people do not realize it .  I feel very passionate about this topic, and I know for sure that their is something we can all do to stop it. There should not be any segregation in Chicago. All people should be equal no race should be treated any lower. Segregation should have stopped a long time ago but it is still going on. People should care because segregation causes violence. I think nobody should treat any one lower because of what skin color, race, or religion they are. Segregation causes violence by people being separated and thinking they own a certain neighborhood. People thinking one side of the neighborhood is bad because of what race lives there when its just how the public marks the neighborhood as, and people not knowing segregation causes the violence.

We planned to schedule a date to take our action which was Wednesday Dec 11, 2013 on a FE day. We came up with a plan that we got inspired by a organization that is called The Red Line Project . Their form of nonviolence is to show that there are problems and violence going on,  on the red line. "Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and The Red Line Project helps readers better understand and connect with them. The site covers news and urban issues in neighborhoods located near Chicago's Red Line El stops". Our plan was to show that there is still segregation in our city. We went on the red line our first stop was Chicago and the train was so packed. As we started going on down less white people were getting on. By Sox-35th the train was empty. On 47th there was mostly African Americans on the train ride .We wanted to show that people do not go by 47th because of the people and history, which causes segregation. 

Bouncy Boba

For this units action project, Like a Fungus, the class was assigned to create a slide show presentation about a product that we like, or we think can use an improvement. I decided to study and try to improve the process of Tapioca. I went to Chill Bubble Tea, a fruit smoothie shop, where they also make their own Tapioca. I was able to talk to one of the people who work in the kitchen and see how they prepare this delicious treat. I learned that Tapioca comes from a starch, something I would have never guessed because of its chewy texture. I was able to view Tapioca before it was cooked and after it was cooked and I noticed a difference in texture and color. The most difficult part of this project was having to create a whole new system with the process of Tapioca, but I got over that once I actually talked to a person who has the best understanding with that process. The most rewarding part of this project was actually finding out a lot of interesting facts about Tapioca. Thanks to this project I now know some of the most interesting facts about my favorite treat.

                                             Created by RD

The system of Tapioca before was very simple, but bad for the Earth and its surroundings.  It was just to collect starch from the Cassava plant in Thailand and ship them to stores. From there many shops cook the starch and eventually throw away the starch that they do not use, along with the plastic cups and straws that hold the teas, those going into landfills, where eventually they all decompose. My system is a bit different. It would all start out the same way, with the Tapioca being collected from the Cassava plant and the starch being cleaned out and collected. I would like to change and improve the way the leftover starch at Chill Bubble Tea gets thrown away and decomposed. The plan I had was to use the leftover starch to make new plastic cups to hold the bubble teas. It would be an example of Bio-Plastics.