April 25, 2012

Adaptation on the Fly: the Evolution of Marin SEL. By Ethan Gaines and Dylan Adler

Adaptation is the evolution of a species over time to better fit its environment. For example, the whale, a huge sea animal, used to be a land animal no bigger than a dog and we know this because whales have a hip-bone that has no use. The hip-bone in a whale is called a “vestigial structure,” because of its lack of use. MSEL didn’t get the chance to adapt over time during the Friday cook-off, like the whale did. We had to adapt in the moment to save our cooking competition, called the “Hunger Games”, which is exactly what we did.

It all started the week before Spring Break. We were studying the food system in the United States in all of our Marin SEL classes, looking at “conventional” food and comparing it to healthier, local, organic food. Then our teachers informed us that to build upon the idea of organic local food, we would be having an organic, local, healthy, food cook-off.   We chose our teams of five, and each team had its own style of cooking, drawing from different cultural influences from all around the world. The goal was to create dishes that used ingredients that were organic, local, sustainable, healthy, and used environmentally friendly ingredients. As a class, we ventured to one of the Marin Farmers Markets the day before the competition.

The Farmers Market was an exciting experience:

I was walkin’ down the road with my group b’side me

Zargar came up next to us sayin’ “Can you please find me

a Belgian waffle, savory and sweet

by the Belgian’ waffle truck we should meet”

Takin’ pics with the group

got distracted from dat smell o’ soup

We ate some kettle corn

so sweet and shiny

It looked so good

it amost said buy me

We fought o’er dat pop corn

and those dat didn’t get any felt forlorn.

            Our trip to the market was a huge success. Everybody got the ingredients that they needed. We also learned some interesting things at the market, because we were asking stall owners questions from our MSEL questionaire.  For example, we were told that spider DNA is used in McDonalds French fries.  We learned that it takes hard work, dedication, and passion to live the farmer lifestyle and grow local, organic food. We felt confident coming back from our Farmers Market. Little did we know that the next day would bring chaos beyond our wildest dreams.

           

            We got to the kitchen adjacent to the MarinSEL room the next day feeling confident in our dishes, prepared to create our delicious creations. We began to cook and had some early success, but success was soon replaced with disaster. We were continuing our cooking when a catastrophe arose. We heard “BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP”, the blaring sound continued to pulsate throughout the school, signaling a supposed fire threat. Evidently, some smoke and steam from our cooking leaked into the hallway setting off the fire alarms. The school was quickly in a state of panic.  There was mayhem in the hallways, as everyone had to evacuate the school.

           

            When we returned to the room we found that administrators at the district level had decided we could no longer use the kitchen. At first we were disappointed, but then, as our teacher, Ms Leonhart said,” We handled it like champions”.

           

            We had been studying evolution and adaptation in biology that week, and quickly realized that, like our ancestors before us, we must adapt to our environment. We had to evolve our dishes to match the conditions before us. Some dishes had to be completely rearranged, like replacing crepes with angel cake and mixing ingredients to make a salad, but others stayed mostly the same due to Ms. Leonharts superb actions in bringing all the uncooked food to her own kitchen and cooking it for us.

            The food came out fantastic, especially with Ms. Leonhart’s herculean efforts. (Teacher’s note: This entailed shlepping three loads of half-prepared dishes to my car, a quick trip home, an impressive blowout of my kitchen, the abandonment of my second period class--huge props to Frankie, our campus security officer for holding down the fort--and a return to school in time to beat the bell. All told, I'm glad I know how to cook and live so close to school. Thanks for the thanks!) The winning group for our “Hunger Games” cook-off will get to go to a Giants game, complete with time on the field and a Green Tour of the stadium as part of the Giants partnership with local schools. It hasn’t yet been announced which group gets to go, but everyone hopes it will be theirs.  Through this process, we managed to adapt to a difficult situation, and evolved as a class and as people. We learned that there will always be roadblocks along the way, but with creative thinking, we can surpass any obstacle. We will be ready to face the other challenges that are sure to come our way during our time with MarinSEL, and in our lives. As a wise person once said,” It’s never crowded at the cutting edge.” We are honored to be part of the cutting edge at MarinSEL.

Without a Plan, Do You Think You Can? By Ani Pirinjian and Alyssa Ceccanti-Harris

We stare at the feathery red hat filled with fluttering slips of red and green, wondering whose names will be called. Chiara, one of our two previous bloggers, sticks her hand into that giant hat and pulls out a single green sheet of paper. She delivers the name of one of this week’s bloggers, “Ani!” Ani turns to Alyssa and says, “I hope you get picked too.” Now the hat travels to Ember, our other previous blogger. Ember grabs a red slip, and Alyssa is chosen. Ironic, Huh?

Planning and preparation are the first steps to success. Without any rough sketch of what is coming ahead, the result wouldn't turn out well. While planning, one must consider the outcome they are striving for. For example, take this very blog. Without planning, this blog would never be put into action. The two weeks of preparation for the bi-monthly post consists of looking for and making connections within the five MarinSEL classes, some academic, but also social. For example, academic connections connect the films we watch in our Geography class to the books we read in our English class. Social connections are the ones we notice not necessarily in school but throughout our days and we connect back to MarinSEL with everything we learn in each unit. Our chosen bloggers must be the eyes and ears of the academy. Throughout the week, the two bloggers must take copious notes explaining what occurred in each class. In addition, they meet several times before the week is over to discover connections within the five classes and to decide a theme for their blog of the week.  Next comes the Friday meeting with Ms. Leonhart to look over the notes taken and the connections made. You need a plan before starting anything, from simple school projects to lifetime opportunities.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were put on the spot and didn’t know what to do? Not only when the teacher randomly calls on you to answer the one homework problem you skipped, but in an emergency when someone needs help and you don’t know how to deliver? Well, our very own Mr. Garcia is preparing us for any possibility. This week the twenty-five of us began CPR training in our health class. We went through a presentation of what to do in such a situation and then practiced what we learned on dummies. Now, thanks to planning and preparation.  we are prepared for a possible emergency that could happen any time

There was much planning involved with character design in our English class, taught by Ms. Leonhart. The assignment was to create a character and write a short story based on the book we recently read, The Milagro Beanfield War. Each student developed his or her own kooky character and wrote about a single event that occurred in his or her life. Now we are working on refining our stories with multiple drafts. Keep in mind that what you planned originally will not always be the same as the final outcome.

The writing process is very similar to life. You start with one crappy draft where all you are doing is sharing your ideas with the world. Then you ask your peers to revise the piece you have put together. You take their revisions and improve your paper. Once you believe your paper is perfect you take it to your teacher and earn a grade worth hanging on the fridge, proud that you have a paper that can be as perfect as possible. In life, you plan a rough sketch of an event to start off. After experiencing it for the first time you ask others for their opinion and revise your ideas. After an updated plan for the event, the experience is much better the second time and you are living the highlife.

To some students, it may seem like teachers just give out homework and grade tests. However, teachers put the same effort, if not more, than students themselves into assignments, curriculum, and tests. For instance, in World Geography, Mr. Madsen planned out our entire food unit. We started the unit with a simple online activity and we will get into more depth as we continue learning about different aspects of food.

In Mr. Zargar’s Biology class we have been learning about genetics and the passing down of traits from parents to children. This class has showed us that planning is not just a major role in school and work, but in important life changing decisions as well. Learning about different aspects of yourself that you can pass down to your kids, from the good traits to the bad ones, really gets us teenagers imagining what our future will turn out to be.

All of these examples about the importance of planning can teach individuals important tools for living well. Our country’s leaders should also have a plan.  In our final MarinSEL class, seminar, we watched a film to wrap up our energy unit. The movie was called Kilowatt Our and it discussed current issues involving energy and our country's use of it. As a class, we focused on how our government should come up with an energy plan in the next couple years. If we don’t fix the energy crisis, the problem will grow to be gigantic until it is irreversible. Who knows, maybe one of us MarinSELers will be involved in the writing of this energy plan.

            Overall, we have learned that planning is a mandatory step in completing the actions one wishes to take. Without planning, even MarinSEL would not be possible. Think about it: if we did not plan our daily lives, then the world would just be one big jumble of confusion. Planning and preparation are how we figure out what we want to do in life, who we want to be, ,and most importantly how we want to live.