By Sea Declarations

All of the proposed Amber Band project declarations have been approved! Throughout the exploration phase of the By Sea Arc, we took a closer look at our relationship to the sea. We researched the ways each of us arrived in the Bay Area, and toured the Angel Island Immigration Station; collected and analyzed our personal water usage data; adopted drains in our neighborhood, and designed devices to help keep those drains clean; got up close to sharks at the Aquarium of the Bay, and heard an elephant seal serenade at the Marine Mammal Center. We kayaked in the bay, surfed in the ocean, slept on a submarine, and built boats. Now in the third week of the expression phase, students are building on what they learned in the exploration phase through their own expression project. Last week students shared declarations with Gever and Liz for final approval, and here’s what was proposed:Ella

On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans. My great great great great grandfather was one of the survivors and after that he went totally crazy. 

For my project I want to do a podcast about how surviving the shipwreck effected him and his family.

Felix

My desired product is a surreal cinematic music video that is all shot underwater. I’m using Rhone as the character in the video. Since Rhone and I are both humans, I will create a chart that times how long we will need to be under to shoot a shot.This project will be a challenge for me because I will have to figure out how to bring things that shouldn't be underwater, underwater. I will have to figure out how to keep us from floating or drowning. This project will be worth my time because I have had this idea for a music video all being shot underwater in my head for a year, and I’ve finally found the right opportunity to film it.KhaliaMy project will tell Chinese immigrants’ stories. I find immigration interesting because it’s cool to see how different people got here. I want my project to make people feel lucky that they didn’t have to go through immigration. At Angel Island people had to sleep in a place where the people were cramped. It’s not something I would want to go through.OscarI will make an evolution simulator that creates a description of  underwater plants/animals and their evolutions based on Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection, and an ecosystem based on the plants/animals that the simulator created.This project will be a challenge to me because I want to better understand programming and evolution. I will be able to make an evolution simulation using my programming knowledge, and it will teach me more about evolution.NorabelleMy desired  finish project is three finished waterscapes of Angel Island using different techniques. This project is challenging because I've never tried to do detailed landscapes before and I've never painted with extreme detail like I would like to for the painting part of my projectElijahI’m iterating on the boats we built as a band to make them more practical and comfortable. This project is worth my time because It is a great opportunity to learn more about how boats work and how boats are made. This is a challenge for me because I’m building the most out of the 4 of us who are using the boats for expression projects, and I have the least experience building. Also I’m not a big fan of sailing, so this will be good for getting me out of my comfort zone.DeclanI will use the boats we built to navigate around the Bay Area. I will use a professional chart of the Bay Area to plot our course around San Francisco. I will plan when we will launch, taking into account witch way the wind is blowing, what the tide is doing, and all of the rest of complications that I discover along the way. I will also teach the rest of my team how to sail.The project I am hopeful to embark on is extremely important to the group's mission because if the launch time and course are incorrectly judged the results could be catastrophic. We could end up way off course, be hit by a huge container ship, and even drown, to say the worst. However these fates could be avoided if you have someone to make sure everything goes smoothly.  AudreyHave you ever looked at something in nature and wondered: What is this made of? Me too. So for my project I want to identify chemical makeup of various specimens like water from the bay and analyze their chemical makeup. At the end of the project we will have an easy to understand display to show what I found in the water samples and why it’s there and whether it’s helpful or harmful to the ocean.This project will be a challenge for me because I’ve never worked in a lab before or dealt with all that much chemistry at all. I want to do this project because I don’t know that much about chemistry and I’m hoping this experience will teach me. It will also further teach me about how to design an experiment and give me more hands on experience with science.RhoneFor my project I will be going on a 24 hour sail trip with Declan, Audrey and Elijah. I will be focusing on life support, or as I like to call it "soccer mom". I will design a boat survival pack that can last one person 30 days on a boat.I will have to decide what's necessary to have and what not necessary. (I tend to say just get it all) the boats are a big part of my project and if they don’t move or float or if there is any other problem that will prevent us from going in them we will have to figure it out.