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Journal Entry #15

How might my project stir an ethical debate? How might different theories of ethics view my project? What about my project could be ethically debated or questioned?

Our project is very straightforward and doesn't have many moving parts, in terms of different people who will work with us on the project. Other than those people no one is affected physically by our project at all. But in this situation there are some that could be potentially affected on a emotional level in that what they think someone is doing is not right, for them. Balancing these two elements of being directly related to an ethical debate and being indirectly related to one is very important.

      How might different theories of ethics view my project is a hard question to answer because our project would be located in this little town, where the belief system is different from people that we bring to the project. Both of these ethnic groups will react and view my project differently, and it's quite likely that the little town belief system would believe what they heard from local news and the one from other places wouldn't.

      Some aspects of our project could stir ethical debate. I can say that in a very straight forward way because Luis and I have identified this possible ethical debate. In the process of making our fertilizer, at some point, bugs and garden worms will make their way in the pile of “brewing” fertilizer. So the question is, by using bugs and worms to sift through the fertilizer eating and pooping and making it better. But through this process sometimes worms die or get hurt and there is the ethical debate. But as I said before Luis and I are aware of this and have started to find solutions and strategies to eliminate this problem.   

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Journal Entry #14

#14

For the first question, it is hard to answer because sometimes you can't pinpoint one thing that you do for your community. In our community everyone does something even if it is small. For instance at our school community sometimes Ms. Kenia asks me to wipe down the tables after lunch. Though this is a small task that might be overlooked, it is still a part of helping our community, I am making sure the tables are clean for the next people that use them and also helping the cleaning staff of the school have less work. Another thing that I am trying to do for my community is this CAS project. When it's finished hopefully it won't just be helping Matapalo and the people in that town but also our community at La Paz/Mar Vista and then after hopefully we can make a difference in Guanacaste. To create change in my community and in life I am doing my job. By this I mean i’m doing what i'm supposed to do, when it comes to social obligations, school work and even family life. Through the easy taste of just doing your job you can create change in a community even if its small. The process to create this change is not procrastinating and also keeping good communication with helpful sources (Teachers, Parents). Something that could be in the way of reaching my goals and promoting change is if I become unmotivated in what i'm doing, and lose the passion and drive that keeps someone going. To get through these obstacles I can make sure I love what I do and put everything I have into it so I can keep pushing forward. My project demonstrates engagement in global significance for many reasons but one is: We are creating something sustainable, something that can continue on without hurting the environment and the community around it. Just by creating something like this, that not only produces a sustainable product but is sustainable in the manufacturing of a product is doing the world good on a global level. If everyone on the earth did something sustainable and helpful to any community then it would be a better world.

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Journal Entry #13

#13

This Week was another good one. Luis and I made progress on a couple things. First off we completed a letter that will be sent the the board of Matapalo, in the letter it talks about CAS and our project but also how it will impact their community and more importantly help their community. This letter was sent to Lindsay so that she could make sure it was all good in terms of grammar and also we have never talked to the board before so we do not know how they work so Lindsey is making sure the letter is appropriate for them. This week we have also finalized the plans for the project and mapped out exactly where it is going to be on the blueprints for the area. After walking there with Yourli and Lindsay, Luis and I felt a new motivation to keep going with the project and also a sliver of hope that it would work out. Another thing that I didn't mention in the last journal entry is that Lindsay knows a guy who will help us with the welding for free or a small price so that is good news and also involves people in that community and would be the first “volunteer” help that we will get.

In response to the questions on the Google Classroom, for me an impossible is getting this CAS project built and functioning. It is very hard for me to see into the future and picture something when it is a bit of a mess in my present day. For that reason to better reach my impossible of completing the CAS project I could be more organized and also create more goals for myself to work towards. 

Attached is a picture of where the shack will be:

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Journal Entry #12

#12

Reflecting on the Wednesday meeting:

This wednesday we had a meeting which was very important for the future of our project, and it went very well. I challenged myself to try something new and attempt to create a building plan for our fertilizer shacks. With a little help from my dad these sketches came out great and it was satisfying to see the interested looks on Lindsay and Yourlis face as we showed it to them. After catching up for a bit we decided to walk over and measure out where the shack would go. We found the perfect spot, shaded with a huge tree and it is next to the salon comunala and a playground. This spot will be perfectly position to get minimal sunlight which is critical for the laboratory and the ingredients of our compost. We have also added to the plan a new idea which is the sliding door in the middle. This seemingly small addition will help us keep the space clear of the door and thus create more work space. Luis and I have overcome some challenges such as coordinating rides because neither of our parents were able to pick us up and we also both spoke our non native language at some point during the meeting. As I said before, I took up a new skill and learned how to make a very simple plan of a building on powerpoint. This motivated me and gave me confidence when talking to superiors because they could tell I knew what I was talking about. We analyzed the ethical repercussions of our project when looking into the placement of the building, we didn't want it too close to salon comunal because some bad smelling fumes may enter through the roof. This would not be beneficial for the people in the salon comunal and definitely would not make us any friends in Matapalo. Lastly, During this meeting we talked about next steps which would be, creating a detailed budget and outlining what is going to be donated, we will need to find volunteers within the futuro brillante community but also in the construccion community and lastly we will need to clear the land. Overall this week was very productive and so will the weeks to come.

Below is our shack plans:

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Journal Entry #11

#11

This week was one of the most important weeks of our project so far. Coming back from vacation we had very little momentum going into this new year. Coming into the second week we were ready to make some difference in our project and we decided to utilize the new class schedule. In this schedule we are given permission to work on our projects every wednesday morning because that is when we have class. So, going back to why this week was so important; this week we set up our first morning meeting with lindsay at the garden. This meeting is a big step and shows that we have started to overcome some challenges that we had last year with communication and accountability. We are ready to face new challenges now because we have proved to ourselves that we can overcome them. We have been working on motivating ourselves and one of the ways I decided to do that is to talk to some people who have had successful CAS projects and see how they feel when they are done. Almost all of them said that they felt very good that they spent all the time on there project and that it changed people's lives. This small task of asking some friends how they felt really boosted my confidence and gave me new motivation. My partner and I collaborated on something this week as well which was the Gantt chart which is something that create some interesting thoughts. For instance as we were filling in the chart we realized that we are missing a bunch of things to get this project going faster. That is a challenge that we need to overcome as partners and this will come in time and we will be working to whittle down the things that we need to do the most, first.

All in all this week has brought many new lessons and victory's. This next week holds new discoveries and has work that needs to get done!  

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Journal Entry #10

Here is the Gantt chart for my CAS project, it outlines everything we will be doing for the next two months. We will be adding too it as we go so we stay organized and are able to communicate with other people in the project. 

This first week was filled with many new experiences and learning opportunity's Where I learned about time management. I will use the valuable lessons learned in the coming weeks. 

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Journal Entry #9

Preparing for CAS:

There are things that will make or break my CAS experience this year. Some of them are internal, things that I need to work on within myself to do the best job I can do. But also relationships and connections within the community that I will need to keep strong.

I also don’t want to put all the work I did last year to bed, I want to carry it through to this year and make sure that I my goals haven't changed over the summer. Lessons that were learnt last year can be very valuable to me this year and the next.

Something that will help me excel in CAS this year and specific things I can do to better my project would be being more organized. This can imply directly to our project in the sense that we need to be more organized when creating activity especially when it has to deal with two or more groups of people because we need to get everyone on the same page. But organization can also relate to myself outside of CAS and being organized outside of class will help me keep everything under control and free up more time to work on other things.

Some literal things that I think would help Luis and I accomplish our goals is to visit the garden more and also start to brainstorm some key ideas.

Mone of which is where we will get our eggshells and shrimp shells that we will use to add calcium to the fertilizer. We were thinking about asking local Matapalo restaurants if they have any to give us and this will help reduce waste but also give the otherwise useless materials that would rot in a dump, a good home.

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Journal entry #8

Service.

Thinking about things that I did this summer related to service is hard. Nothing jumps out to me like it might for other kids. Maybe they took a trip to Ecuador to help build a bridge in a local town, or maybe they helped cook food at homeless shelters. But for me this summer was going to be a learning experience for ME but when I saw the people who were in this summer program and how diverse the group was I suddenly realized what I could do to represent service.

Something I did this summer related to service was help my roommate and his friend (that came to the camp together from France), learn English. They did have a foundation of the language and could communicate but there was still a bit of a language barrier. There would be words that they didn't understand and also words that they couldn't pronounce. My job was to speak in a way that could be easily understood and also help out whenever they were searching for a hard word. Doing some small things like this really helped, and I saw that they were improving towards the end of the 3 weeks. 

My actions in helping these two kids better learn the English language is a step towards connecting foreign countries and connecting people through language. Also they can go home and help teach their friends which would continue the cycle. 

This picture is of the two french kids (Left, Jean and on the right is Hadrien)

The second picture is me and my roommate Jean in Montreal. 

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Journal Entry #7

Activity.

Also during this summer at the Pre-college program at Amherst I chose to do the Tennis camp which was a afternoon activity. This camp taught me many things that related to activity and CAS. Every other day me and a small group of kids walked to the tennis court after our last class of the day and played tennis for two hours. This gave us the best a of both worlds, a mind relaxation after a hard class but also something active to do to stay healthy and strong. This tennis camp showed me a good balance to follow which is almost equal parts work and fun. This might not be the most practical way because I will have a huge work load this year which could create imbalance in my life so I need to be careful of that. 

But, back to how I can relate this to CAS.

There are times in life when you really don’t want to do something, maybe because your too tired or for any reason. This tennis camp showed me what it means to be committed. I went even if it was raining or even if i was tired. It was hard sometimes but I pushed through it. This relates directly to the Activity portion of CAS but also to the whole class in general. Even when things are hard you need to stay committed and you need to push through. (especially with planning activity's to fundraise because some aspects of it may be discouraging)

Throughout the time that I was in this camp I saw my growth in the sport of tennis and seeing that growth made me believe the “rumors” which are that when you stay engaged and committed to an activity you will improve. (and raise money...)

The first picture is of me before the camp getting tennis supplies.

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Journal Entry #6

Creativity,

During the summer I spent 3 weeks in Amherst which is a small but important college in the state of Massachusetts. The reason for the trip was to show me and the other 16-17 year olds on the trip what college life is like. We took classes, went to the dining hall, stayed in dorms and went on weekend excursions. The two class that I took were very creative in there own ways. The first was Creative Writing class. This class opened many new doors for me but at the same time it wasn't exactly something new. I love creative writing and do it often, sometimes for school and other times for myself, to get things out of my head. We did many “creative” things in this class for instance one day we went to whole foods which is a supermarket that they have in the area. When we got there we had to choose one person walking around the store who we would later need to create a story about. This mildly “stalkerish” activity may seem weird but its something that really gets your creative juices flowing. Instead of creating old and boring characters from your mind you can instead have a real life visual and then put you own spin on their life. This wasn't the only class where I had to use my creative mind, I also had to in my Film and Video class. During this time of the day I needed to shift out of my writing mode and instead bring in my technology and videography side. I learned many new skills in this class and created cool short films. This will help me greatly when I am asked to make a video about our project and also when i’m updating these entry's with videos and pictures. 

Another creative thing I did this summer was to partake in a activity where we were taught how to make children books. This took a lot of creativity to think of a fun and interesting idea and figure out how to word it for young children. This is a useful skill to have and I can adapt it to my project if i ever need to explain complex ideas to younger grades when they come to visit our garden and also when we teach people about our fertilizer project. 

These are only a few of the creative things that I did this summer and more journal entries coming soon.

Picture key:

First is my children's book, second is when we went to whole foods and third is the campus. 

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Journal Entry #5

The summer is a long and well deserved break for all of us, but everyone especially me should start thinking about what in the heck we are going to do next year. This anxiety going into the new school year is not constructive and it would be better to get some things under control.

For me, that means finishing any work i’m in the progress of doing, tuck in all my loose strings and get myself ready for new things. For some this is easy but for me it is a bit hard, I start one thing and maybe forget about it or maybe just abandon it all together without letting anyone know. Both of these habits are annoying for the other people involved in your ideas in plans, so for this summer one of my goals is to recenter myself take a step back and then “go ham” (term that is sometimes used to imply that I will be going crazy).

But, back to CAS.

Coming off of my second real meeting at the garden with the gardener, Yourlli, my excitement has doubled. Now that I have walked with him on the plot of land where the fertilizer shack will go, I can envision it in my head and it seems real. 

Some things I learned from the meeting:

There are many plots of land that we can use that are big enough and out of the way. There are materials used from the roof of one of the community buildings with corrugated metal that we can use for the roof of our shack. The walls will be made of strong chicken wire, with a mesh green cover on the outside (i will have a picture at the end). Working during the summer is a possibility.

Some things I didn't quite learn:

Exactly how much the whole thing will cost. Exact dates of construction. If he had anymore materials that we could use that would be recycled so we wouldn't have to buy and also wouldn't have to throw things out. Exactly what the board of Mataplo needs from us to “sign” off on the land.

The things that I didn't learn will come in time and right now they can all be easily answered through whats-app and email, so they wont be a problem.

Going into summer there are not many things  can do except figure out all the questions that I have. Also of course when I get back, I need to start building this darn thing, so that we have it ready for the start of 11th grade. 

Here are the pictures of the site where we will build the shack followed by the roofing recycled materials that we can use followed by an example of how the walls of the shack will look.

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Journal Entry #4

The time is here, and since about a week ago our projects officially started. For my project that is looking to accomplish many things there are multitudes of steps that we would need to follow. But here i will share three of the most important ones.

1: The first and definitely most important thing we need to do right now is go to the garden. We have been there a couple times here and there but now that we are invested in this project, we need to make schedules and times where we need to be at the garden. This can be either to look at progress, work and get our hands dirty or just meeting with Yourli and Lindsay. This is the most important first step because without going and actually seeing whats going on, we can never get a idea of the problems/triumphs that we will have. Also without this as one of our steps, we can do any other steps because they all have to do with being in the garden. 

2: The second step is to create a budget combined with a fundraising game plan that we will use to gain money and support for the project. We need money but sometimes we cant just ask our parents for money for a snack at the school store, instead we need to ask for big donations, create fundraisers, talk with Lindsay and Futuro Brillante or even use some of our own money. This will have to be real money and to start raising this money we will need to create a budget that will give us a goal and something to work towards. This is the second most important step we need to take because money runs the world and we need it to continue with our project. So this fundraising plan will be very important so we can visualize when this money making will happen. Also the amount of money we need when we figure out the amount will be the goal that we have and makes us work harder and faster to get it.

3: The third and definitely not last step will be too begin connecting the Matapalo Garden with other gardens in the area that are doing well so we can learn from them. An example of that would be last Monday when we went to La Senda to learn from Carlos. This was not only a learning experience for us but also we made the connection between the two gardens, now one knows the others exists. Obviously the La Senda garden is bigger and more variety, but they also have been working on it for a while. So this is the third most important step because it has many aspects of CAS in it. We are connecting our community through agricultural activities, we are also learning from someone in the local community on how to do something beneficial in the end to everyone. Though we have already done this step once we will need to continuously do it around in other communities but also La Senda because we need to strengthen the tie between any place and ours.

The dates these steps will be completed a long time. I think around 1-2 months would be an estimate for how long the first two steps will take us to complete, because we need to create this scheduled to go to the garden and make sure that the times work for everyone make sure everyone is okay with the hours of work and other small problems that are similar too those. Also for the second step its about consistency but also about the drive to create and initiate a fundraiser. There are ten steps to do that which i’m sure will be on another journal entry. Those are a couple reasons why it will take that long but also a couple ways how we will do them.

For step number 3 it should be finished in around 18 months. This step will take the whole project because it is basically the life of the project which is learning. We will need to be learning the whole time, getting ideas from other gardens the whole time and also just engaging with smart agriculture oriented people. 

There will need to be exact dates for the smaller steps within each of these steps which I will come up with working with Luis Felipe.

The picture added here is just to visualize what it looks like to fundraising at La Paz and how to present it, this was found on families of La Paz. I would have put a small picture of us at La Senda but i recently switched phones and i cant seem to get it onto this computer. 

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Journal Entry #3

My purpose statement: 

To expand and make better an already successful project (Matapalo Community Garden) by bringing new sustainable compost made with only natural materials. 

There is a few things I plan to do for the community of Matapalo and they are very easy to envision. First I would like to help create more jobs for the locals and i can achieve this goal by creating a healthy work place where people would like to come everyday to make money and or volunteer. 

The second thing I would like to achieve is to make better the already thriving garden of Matapalo and in that continue with its values of engaging the school children and also the adults. 

There are two obstacles in my way when trying to reach my goals.

First, a very difficult obstacle is the cultural differences between me and the people of Matapalo. I do not know how they will react to my presence in the town and if they will be accepting to my ideas or not. I can help break down this obstacle by spending time in the town and with the people and also show my dedication and love for the project so they will see my passion. 

Another obstacle is my poor time management skills. Sometimes it is very hard for me to do something that I need to do or finish a task that needs to get done. This is a personal obstacle that I have and it is very hard to shake. First what i could do is ( through self realization) stop procrastinating and just realize that i need to do the thing i am doing and i need to do it well. Also i could remember to surround my self with things that inspire me and with that i can be creative and in turn not procrastinate. 

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First Garden Meeting

Tomorrow is a big day.

Luis Felipe and I will be visiting our garden for the first time to talk with Lindsay and the garden coordinator. Its a important meeting where we basically decide how our project will look like over the next 18 months. 

Some things we will talk about:

What we want to achieve with the garden, have it produce food, create jobs, be a event space and other things of that sort that will come up in the meeting hopefully from the local gardener and also Lindsay.

We will talk about the plans we have such as..

New fertilizer, sustainable farming ideas, aqua-ponics, different hydroponics and also general expansion with pin wheel design gardening like at La Senda and EARTH. 

More will come through the meeting and will be published to my blog.

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Trip to Earth University Journal Entry #2

This trip was eye opening in many ways. From the diverse and strong kids, too the innovative design and thinking that was implemented in everything they do. I was amazed at almost everything they did, and at the end of a tired week even if I was ready to go home. I was grateful to have the opportunity to see that school, and to witness what on earth was going on at EARTH.

Even though it was not the first day, the part of the trip that really stood out to me was the urban gardens that we looked at with three students and the gardens care taker. I could see the passion on all of their faces, and for that reason the passion passed onto me. We saw alternative ways to garden not only in the sense of materials but also in the sense of where it was actually constructed with. We saw a aqua-ponics system that was huge and with the capacity to hold a lot of vegetables, all from the nutrients of a small school of fish. 

Coming back to the first day we learned learned about how EARTH’s banana plantation works, how they get the bananas and farm them, how they transport the bananas and finally how they pack and ship them. It was interesting because during business class we have been working on the school store, and experimenting with different baked goods. Though at some points these baked goods have sold. I think that if we implemented some of EARTH’s ideas like sustainable packaging or even mas production of some of the best products, could increase the value of them such as EARTH’s does with its bananas. Also EARTH’s quality of bananas is almost perfect, and if it has only one little scratch it gets sent back, this shows they have high standards for their exports. 

We worked collaboratively on many things such as fertilizing cacao trees in the middle of a dense tropical rain Forrest. It was a sight to see, 6 of us gringos from Guanacaste working with our hands in the dirt fertilizing trees. I worked with Alexa specifically and together we put one small bucket of fertilizer on around 50 cacao trees. I would be holding the sack of EARTH’s special fertilizer, and Alexa would put the bucket around the tree. Sometimes we switch off but that method was good for us. This is how we worked for around 2 hours, getting very sweaty and dirty. Though it did smell like dark chocolate the whole time. 

The life lessons that I learned at EARTH university and the stories that i heard there will forever help me in anything I do. I will have the grit to stay doing something even when i’m hot and tire. I will have to no-how to do mostly any activity in the garden (Which will benefit my CAS project) such as making compost, planting things, how to plant, what nutrients to use, what type of a water to use in hydroponics and many other things like that. I learned about the lives of the kids there and the hardships and struggles that they went through, and it made me realize how lucky I am to be where I am today and to have my parents to guide me through life. 

The first picture is after a long day at the banana processing plant and farm.

The second is a picture of andreas in the Cacao area holding the buckets we used to put fertilizer around the trees. 

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Journal Entry #1

My Motivation:

The first thing  do when I get up each morning is check my phone. Not the best habit but since I have my alarm on it, I end up looking at Instagram anyways. Each day I do some things that are just for myself, like go to school and learn because this simple thing helps me and only me in life and can be even more helpful if I want it too. I am very passionate about writing poems and I took me a while to figure this out. It started with my love for rap music in 4th grade and the love of rhymes and simplicity. Then I wrote my first poem and for some reason my teacher (that openly hated me at the time) loved it. My parents also loved it but you know, parents love everything that their child does.  My Aspirations:

I have no idea where I am heading in life and I am interested to see where it takes me. I am interested in the topic of how each year your body changes along with you life, friends and habits. For this reason I wonder what I will be like a year from now and how I will be different, and maybe then I would have an idea of what I am going to do. I would like to be focused in the next few weeks and also be more engaged in class because lately I have been annoyed with coming to school. In the long run I would love to make a ton of money just for myself, to say that I did it and to also just be able to live without a care in the world. That is one of my goals but another is to meet new interesting people in my life and be able to have cool conversations with friends over a soda at a restaurant. Seems like a weird goal but I have always wanted to be in a stable spot where I could do that. Believe me my family is not super tight on money but I would like to feel like I earned it and now i’m going to use it.  My Work:

I need to put in the hardest effort when I am trying to do something i’m not very good at because i am trying to understand and better myself in the topic. I have skills in creative writing and I have learned how to do it well at La Paz with Amy Snoddgrass and also ms Kerry, when we do different projects in class. I also like science and gardening and I have learned how to do this task very well with the help of Mr. Sean.