Driving Question: How can I incorporate more local and homemade food into my diet to improve my sustainability and health?
Project Description:
My project is a short book of recipes I have written myself that use local, sustainable, and healthy ingredients. To write these recipes, I looked at foods I eat most often and local foods I have access to decide on the items before researching the history of each item and the different methods used to make them so I could create my own recipes. I also researched how a recipe is written, how to cater to your intended audience, the proper language to use, and the elements to include. My final product is a collection of these recipes that could be used by relatively new cooks.
Reflection:
“This project was especially interesting because I have done a lot of cooking and baking in my life, but I have never been one to follow recipes. Doing this project and creating my own recipes really helped me understand how recipes can be useful as well as how much work and effort goes into making each one. I think I will now be at least slightly more inclined to follow recipes when cooking in the future.”
Driving Question: How can I contribute to solving a problem in my local community?
Project Description:
The project aims to spread awareness on the importance of education to the underprivileged and the existing educational opportunities. I will be directing a documentary that spreads the message of the project’s aim. This solutions fills the gap off the unawareness on the importance of education and the opportunity available to their children.
Reflection:
“I am really excited to work on directing my documentary once the schools of Tamilnadu opens. TGS was an incredible educational opportunity for me and I want to give back to my community by connecting children to existing educational opportunities in India.”
Driving Question: How can I use photography to raise awareness about our human behavior’s impact on the environment?
Project Description
My personal project this term is a photography project about human behavior’s impact on the environment. While wondering why we are not acting as urgently as we should for the climate crisis, I found people often see the crisis as a distant challenge, both in time and in space. Through this project, I wanted to raise awareness about the impact of our daily and individual actions on the environment, and ultimately, bring people closer to the challenge.
Reflection:
“My main takeaway from this project is that, no matter how global any challenge is, the individual action will end up making the difference.”
Driving Question: In what ways can the philosophy of decentralization and blockchain technologies be catalysts for disruption and efficiency within the current modus operations of the business world?
During their Panama term, Che and Scott elected to develop a game that gamifies the backend of Blockchain to simplify and educate users on how blockchain really works.
The game concept they developed is Metaminers, which aims to have users build a blockchain together with their friends. Users add to the chain by playing minigames, receiving rewards for completing entire blocks. Unlocking blocks leads to a chest containing rewardables that can be used to help solve problems easier in the future. As part of their process, Che and Scott spent quite a bit of time developing a wireframe of their product including graphics and other assets, examples of which you can see below. For their smart contract, they chose to mirror the inherent ethics held by founder Satoshi Nakamoto during the creation of Blockchain.
Maria decided to tackle two topics at once: 1) most people have a misunderstanding of economic issues and 2) most game companies are greedy, spamming their “free” products with exclusive content. Their solution was to “create a multiplayer game owned and updated by the players where gamification is used not to make customers spend money, but to solve issues with the economic system.” In their project, the game is owned by the community and the community decides.
Driving Question: What are the unique properties of a meal/dish from my culture and how can I share that with the world?
Project Description: This module was about exploring my culture and highlighting our unique characteristics. They could be from language or family to religion and traditions. I was looking for a dish that is important to me and represents a big part of my culture. My final product for the project is a video explaining the importance of my dish, pan de muerto, and how to do it step by step.
Project Reflection: “I enjoyed learned about my culture and the origin of many of my traditions. Baking pan de muerto and recording the process was challenging and exciting at the same time. I learned how to communicate in a simple and interesting way.” -Marily
Driving Question: How can I address some of the present threats to global health while promoting human rights and social progress?
Project Description: My project is a policy brief about the Malaria situation in Congo. It includes its nature and magnitude, the most affected populations, the socio-economic consequences, and the potential solution to reduce the burden. The policy aims to convince the finance Minister of Congo to invest in solutions for Malaria.
Project Reflection: “I enjoyed hearing from my peers how the health care systems function in different countries. A challenge was writing in the concise and precise way required for the policy brief.” -Sofia W.
Driving Question: How can I build a modern recurve bow with the available materials in Panama City and be able to explain the physics behind archery in a simplified way to my audience during showcase?
Project Overview: I have been practicing archery since 2016 and my passion for archery never stopped after joining TGS.
During the Panama term, after finding out about the opportunities the “Fab Lab” (fabrication lab) offered, I couldn’t miss the chance to build and design my own bow. With Educator Dan Garvey’s help I was able to make the “skeleton” of a recurve bow and understand some basics of wood working and lamination.
While working on the project I faced many challenges. The first try of making the bow failed because the wood strips were too thick, so Dan and I made thinner wood strips and experimented with it until the lamination of the bow succeeded. I learnt so much out of this passion project, from real life application of geometrical translations in planes, scaling, wood working to patience and learning how not to give up when something doesn’t succeed during the first try.
Driving Question:How can I create an eco-friendly product and brand?
Project Description: For this project, I used the design cycle to formulate my own shampoo bars. I also constructed a business factsheet, SWOT analysis, and pricing strategy. With the findings from my market research paper, I created a buyer persona, social media pages and a website to effectively reach my target audience.
Project Reflection: GreenCare was my year-long passion project. I started it because I saw a gap in the current market for green products. Many green brands were only targeting people that could afford a price premium; however, I have always felt that in order for us to make a macro-level shift to conscious consumerism, everyone, regardless of economic background, should have access to sustainable products.
That’s when I came up with GreenCare—a green beauty brand that values inclusivity and sustainability. The entire process has been an amazing (and stressful) learning experience. From the beginning, I quickly realized that I wanted to make shampoo bars because of their potential impact on the sachet market. I also knew I wanted to formulate my own bars to understand my product inside and out. As I continued, however, I soon realized that this would be more difficult than I had thought. In total, it took about four months, many failed attempts, and weird periods of greasy hair to get to a formulation that I was happy with.
To achieve my science A.I. learning target, I researched the biochemistry behind hair and design specifications extensively. I spent days in the kitchen mixing surfactants with essential oils, colorants, and fatty alcohols. After each testing trial, I would ask my family for feedback on my bar so I could improve the next. I failed probably 95% of the time. My bars were always either too dry, too oily, or disintegrated in the bathroom after the first use. It felt hopeless. Nothing worked. I worried that it never would. Then one day, it did.
After analyzing past formulations, finding trends and making conclusions, I finally figured it out. After about eight trials, I discovered a decent formulation for my bars—one that was sulfate-free and had the right ratios to clean hair without drying it. It also stayed intact even after using it for the first time. I felt ecstatic! My mom and sister approved as well. My bars performed all the qualities of shampoo (cleansing and smelling nice) while being completely zero-waste. They’re definitely what I’m most proud of for this project. The biggest takeaway from this project was the lesson of positive risk-taking.
At TGS, risk-taking is a skill defined as “the willingness to make mistakes, advocate unconventional or unpopular positions, or tackle extremely challenging problems without obvious solutions, such that one’s personal growth, integrity, or accomplishments are enhanced”. Through GreenCare, I tackled the extremely challenging problem of formulating my own product. I had to learn that failing was okay. No. Actually, it’s essential. Without those eight attempts, I would have never gotten to the place where I am now. In hindsight, I’m grateful for all those times when I thought of giving up because they make this entire journey so much more fulfilling. Now, I’m not saying that this is the end. In fact, it’s far from it. I know that my entire life will be a collection of failed trials and attempts. But if there’s anything I’ve learned from GreenCare, it’s that the occasional successes make it all worth it.
Driving Question: How can I organize a trash clean up event in my community to positively impact the environment?
Project Overview:
I’ve seen the forest back at home gone through all types of natural and unnatural transformations. Every time I visit, there is a trail of evidence that demonstrates the presence of humans. I think it is extremely important to address the relevance and impact of maintaining these spaces clean. Especially when it comes to a natural reserve that is filled with flora and fauna. My project, Por un Lago Azul, is the beginning of a Trash Clean Up campaign in my community that aims to provide spaces and tools to facilitate reflection. I wanted to organize a clean up event that had a meaningful value for the community that could also meet academic needs.
