Category Archives: Summer16 Student Work

Veteran Suicide Rate for capstone project.

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    For my project, I want to discuss an issue that is often overlooked by our society as a whole. That is military veteran suicide rate. My own personal experiences in the military left me with first hand knowledge to the severity of this ongoing problem. In 2012 alone more veterans succumbed to suicide than to deaths in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. The United States department of Veteran Affairs released a study covering the years from 1999-2010, revealing that as many as 22 veterans were committing suicide per day.
    For my project I want to compare and contrast the suicide rate while soldiers who are still actively serving, and in addition, the first three years of after leaving the service. I want to focus on these areas, because these are what are what I would consider the most at risk timelines for suicide rates of soldiers. As I know, the times before a deployment can be painfully and emotional trying for individuals to cope with, often leading to a spike in suicide rates.  Then next the first three years after leaving service is another of which suicide amongst veterans runs prominent due not being able to adjust or assimilate back to civilian life, often feeling an emotional and social disconnect amongst prior friends and family. In turn, leading to severe depression and possibly suicide. My overall goal is to bring attention to the high suicide rates that not only soldiers face during active service but after they leave service as well. I will be using an infographic to illustrate the numbers of suicides for each category and video mashup to highlight some of these ongoing issues.

African Elephants and the Illegal Ivory Trade

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Even though there has been an international ban on ivory trading since 1989, the African elephant is closer than ever to extinction. In 1979, ten years before the international ban, the African elephant population was estimated to be around 1.3 million. A decade later, the worldwide population had shriveled to only about 600,000. It is estimated that, of the 700,000 elephants killed in the decade before the international ban was placed on the ivory trade, only about 20% were killed legally.

Since 2013, the annual mortality rates for African elephants has plateaued at about 35,000—in other words, that’s about 96 elephants every day. The mortality rate today is considerably lower than it was in the 1970s and the 1980s—when the annual rate was closer to 70,000—but this number is still shockingly high considering the ivory trade was not banned until the end of the 1980s. The African elephant, which has been classified as an endangered species since the ivory trade ban of 1989, is poised closer to extinction than ever before. Some researchers estimate that, given the current mortality rate, the African elephant could be extinct in fewer than ten years.

My capstone project will encompass both a video mash-up as well as an infographic that will explore the drastic decrease in the African elephant population as a direct result of the ivory trade.

https://twitter.com/ChaikaKatie/status/739900834880724992

https://twitter.com/ChaikaKatie/status/739900464523665408

https://twitter.com/ChaikaKatie/status/739899416853651457

https://twitter.com/ChaikaKatie/status/739898552336293888

https://twitter.com/ChaikaKatie/status/739896568854118400

 

The effects of oil spills on marine biology

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The idea of off shore drilling for oil has been around sense 1897, and the first ocean drilling station was created in the summer of 1954. Offshore oil drilling has many effects on the marine life. Aside from the large scale oil spills the way that researchers find the oil pockets is by using seismic waves. These seismic waves cause many whales and other species to be disoriented and cause mass beaching’s. The other big effect is the oil that is released has a damaging effect. The oil can get into animal’s fur and cause them to not retain their heat causing hypothermia that leads to death. The oil also causes issues due to the fact that marine life swims through it or reefs that are forced to sit in the oily substance. My capstone project will focus on the oil spills that effect marine life and what can be done to fix this. I will use an infographic to illustrate statistics and other facts about the issue. I will also do a video mashup of different things from marine life to videos of oil spills. These two media forms relate to each other because the infographic is a visual way of showing statistics that someone might not otherwise have read. The video mash up is a way of showing the animals and how they are before and after oil spills so that people don’t think its something that isn’t important or doesn’t relate to them. My two media forms will tie into my subject of damaging oil spills on the environment by being a call to action of showing what will continue to happen if nothing is done.

Capstone Project Preview

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One of the biggest topics in entertainment right now is the media’s representation of LGBTQ characters. Progress has been made in recent years, with award-winning shows like Transparent and movies like Pride gaining positive attention. For many fans, however, change just isn’t coming fast enough. Major Hollywood movies featuring queer characters are few and far between, while television can’t seem to stop killing off its lesbians. When queer characters do make an appearance, they very often play minor roles, or are grossly stereotyped images of the effeminate gay man or the butch lesbian. Such images can be harmful to the LGBTQ community, and for young people especially, because they say that queer storylines (and therefore, people) don’t matter.

For my project, I hope to go into detail on both the positive and negative aspects and impacts of queer representation in today’s media. I may also bring up the measures that fans are taking to bring change to the industry, such as the #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend and #GiveElsaAGirlfriend twitter campaigns. For my infographic, I will be using a lot of statistics to show the facts of queer representation, including how many LGBTQ characters star in mainstream movies and how many of them have been killed in television. For my second media object, I will most likely do an animation, which will present similar facts as the infographic.

Capstone Project Preview – Arts Education

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As many have heard, arts education funding has been, and is continuing to be cut drastically throughout our country. As someone who grew up with the kindermusik program, playing piano and being in art classes, I am well aware of the benefits that having a well rounded education and skill set has had on my development and my education. Studies have found that since 2008, nearly 80% of funding has been cut from many school districts across the united states, and the majority of the cuts were directly to the art and music programs. The lasting effects of art education has been proven time and time again to be beneficial to human development. Researchers find that sustained learning in music and theater correlates strongly with higher achievement in both math and reading, while promoting creativity, social development, personality adjustment, and self-worth. Art leads to happier, healthier, and more educated students. Through my capstone project, I would like to get some more people on the arts education train! The media I would like to utilyze for this is the infographic and the audio remix. Those were two of the class assignments that I enjoyed creating the most, and felt I had a lot of room to continue to grow with. Because my project is about art, I hope that I can use aspects of the senses to connect the two. I would like to focus mainly on art and music classes, because those are the two most common arts classes in primary school settings, which is where I believe the need is greatest to start establishing the norm of art in school.

Sand Dunes are for Everyone! Capstone Project

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“Between 1972 and 2011, the acreage available for ATV riders has been reduced from 28,000 acres to just below 6,000 acres,” said Discovery Point Resort and RV Park owner Greg Hoover. “Just 20 percent of the Oregon Dunes NRA is available for legal ATV use today.” (2)

Systematically eliminating these trails is wrong for several reasons:

  • First, non-native European Beach grass displaces native plants and alters the landscape. The beach grass grows further inland, smothering the native flora that reside there and creating artificial swampland
  • Second, bacause the federal government planted invasive European Beach grass in the 1990’s, the Oregon Dunes National Recreational Area that was traditionally for recreation had been slowly shrinking. Essentially this non-native grass eliminates areas that the sand accumulate, creating smaller dunes and closing off trails permanently;
  • Third, the tourism and businesses that have been created because of recreational ATV use will be negatively impacted
  • Fourth, the shrinking area causes more people to use the open dunes and less people riding the trails, therefore increasing the chance of injury.

For the project I will be creating an edited version of a short motivational video, as well as an infographic. The video will include images of trails, and show how family oriented these events are while presenting some simplified facts about the situation. Either the infographic or the video will include a call to action, like a petition or some other way that they can help. The infographic will delve more deeply into the info, focusing on two or three reasons why these trails should be kept open.

http://www.opb.org/news/article/off-road-enthusiasts-lose-trails-gain-riding-area-in-oregon-dunes/  (1)

http://boiseatvtrailriders.org/whats-new/around-the-us/dunes-atv-trails-threatened/ (2)

http://www.ridetheoregondunes.com/ (3)

https://twitter.com/oldschoolgmc1/status/739641076655349760

https://twitter.com/oldschoolgmc1/status/739641784234450945

https://twitter.com/oldschoolgmc1/status/739641422672855040

https://twitter.com/oldschoolgmc1/status/739641959027859456

https://twitter.com/oldschoolgmc1/status/739642236359442432

Radio Revival for Local Communities

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radio
Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tetsumo/5309720900

Low-power FM radio stations have begun to spring up in local communities around the world since 2000. Terrestrial radio or digital signals have made it easy for stations to broadcast to an online audience. The Seattle area has started to see a rise in FM “hyperlocal” radio stations providing a voice of “media justice” by providing a voice to voiceless members of the community.

Low-power FM stations in Seattle neighborhoods gives people a voice often overlooked by mainstream broadcast media https://t.co/o5WBvGiZgr — John Combs (@JohnWCombs) June 4, 2016Puget Sound Community Radio

Some would call this a fad which will eventually be outmoded by digital media. Just a switch to an outdated analog medium like vinyl or cassette which scratches some hipster, nostalgic itch for hipsters but will soon enough be forgotten. Everyone has switched to mobile streaming and millennials are just not listening to the radio, right? Well not exactly.

According to a 2015 Nielsen report millennials are turning on their radios for music discovery.

In fact, millennials listen to the radio more than previous generations according to those Nielsen surveys.

MTV’s first broadcasted music video, The Buggles’ 1978 hit “Video Killed the Radio Star,” predicted the obsolescent of radio and many forecasted smartphones and online streaming services would be the final nail in the coffin but the radio broadcast seems to acquiescence. In 2015 Nielsen reported terrestrial radio as the number 1 medium for advertisers for reaching their audience.

Nielsen reports terrestrial radio is the number 1 medium in terms of reach

https://t.co/dfz9pNDkrA — John Combs (@JohnWCombs) June 6, 2016

 

 

 

Community radio not only provides an outlet for bands and talent that would not normally get played on the air through commercial radio stations but also helps broadcasts the voice of the local community. Instead of adhering to the interests of advertisers, local radio stations represent and reflect the listeners of the community. Online options have taken the power out of the hands of consolidated media conglomerates national radio stations like Clear Channel and given them back to the listener which is empowering the local community.