Inside and Out.

This is my first Action Project for unit 1 of my STEAM class, Population. Unit 1 of this class was called, “In/Out”. “In/Out” focused on the taxonomy of animals, how organisms are named and how we classify them, and how organisms function in their environments. For this Action Project, we chose an organism to study them, and learn about their taxonomy. I chose to study a South African Giraffe. To support the research we collected about our animals' taxonomy, we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, on a Field Experience, to take a further look at our animals. Going to the Zoo to see our animals in person was an important step in this unit because it allowed us to apply their taxonomic characteristics into a real-life image. We also used this time to take pictures of our animals for the next step in our project, a collage. A poster-sized replication of the Giraffe was made into a mosaic which then was turned into a GIF to show the taxonomic characteristics in a live view corresponding with the image. We also worked with our group to create a Venn diagram, comparing our animals to one another. I am proud of the work I have done and enjoyed going through this unit. Below, you will see my taxonomy for my animal.

Taxonomy is the step-by-step classification of organisms, which eventually leads to what they are named. Originally, I chose an African Lion but when we got to the Zoo with our groups, I realized that they had sent their lions away, so I had to choose another one. As we were walking through the Zoo, we stopped at the Giraffes. I knew that they would be a good alternative because of how much I admired how tall and majestic they were and I liked how their dark patches looked.

Once I chose my Giraffe and was completing its taxonomy, I was very interested to learn about their characteristics and how they lived. What I learned about their characteristics will be listed below in their taxonomy but there were some interesting facts I learned about their daily lives. I learned that a Giraffe’s habitat consists of grasslands and wide-ranged forests and that they can be found in parts of Africa and South of the Sahara Desert. Giraffes' main food source is Acacia trees since they are one of the only animals that can reach them. Giraffes are very calm creatures and an interesting fact about them is that they sleep standing up and only need between 5-30 minutes of sleep during a 24-hour period. A Giraffe’s scientific name is Giraffa camelopardalis and here is its taxonomy:

Kingdom - Animalia

• Multicellular, Heterotrophs- rely on others for food, Start as embryos

Phylum - Chordata

• Notochord, a Dorsal hollow tubular nerve cord - both in the spine region, Post-anal tail

Class - Mammalia

• Hair/Fur, Single-Boned lower jaws, One-Time tooth replacement, Warm-blooded, Diaphragms, Four-Chambered hearts

Order - Even-toed ungulates

• Hooved animals, Central balance is on two toes (even number) - the third and fourth toe out of five toes

Family - Giraffidae

• They have long and narrow heads, thin lips, and long tongues

Genus - Giraffa

• They have a body length between 3.8 and 4.7 m (9.75 - 15 ft), a tail length between 78 and 100 cms (31 - 39 inches), a shoulder height between 4 and 4.7 m (13.1 - 15.4 ft), they weigh between 0.6 and 1.9 tonnes (0.5 - 2 tons), They have a long tail that is tipped with a black tuft that helps to keep flies away, Tends to be white in color with brown or reddish markings that cover its body

Species - camelopardalis

• They have a body length between 3.8 and 4.7 m (9.75 - 15 ft), a tail length between 78 and 100 cms (31 - 39 inches), a shoulder height between 4 and 4.7 m (13.1 - 15.4 ft), they weigh between 0.6 and 1.9 tonnes (0.5 - 2 tons), They have a long tail that is tipped with a black tuft that helps to keep flies away, Tends to be white in color with brown or reddish markings that cover its body

Another part of this project was to create a Venn diagram comparing our animals’ characteristics to 2-3 other animals in our group. I chose to compare my Giraffe to two of those animals: an African Penguin, and a Meerkat. Another thing that intrigued me was learning about the comparisons between my animal to the other two. I found it interesting how all three of them together had a lot in common but when you looked at the Meerkat and Giraffe to the African Penguin, they each only had one thing in common with each other, according to the characteristics of their taxa. A few examples of the characteristic comparisons are: All of them are Animalia (Animals), multicellular, warm-blooded, flightless, and they live in a South African habitat. The Giraffe and the Meerkat’ are both mammals- they have hair/fur and give birth instead of laying eggs.  They also both live in the desert. The animals also had a lot of their own characteristics that were not shared with the other animals. My Venn diagram below has more details of the other comparisons:

MEM. Venn Diagram. 2019.

We also learned about Set Theory which is a mathematical representation of certain categories (sets), and the elements within those sets. Here are some mathematical explanations, linking to this Venn diagram, in Set Theory and an English sentence below it, to help the understanding of the equation:


Set Theory Key: g = Giraffe, m = Meerkat, p = African Penguin, C = Carnivore, and MA = Mammal.


U = {g, m, p, c, and ma}
(The Universal set contains Giraffe, Meerkat, African Penguin, Carnivore, and Mammal)


C= {All animals that eat meat; c}
(The Carnivore set contains all animals that eat meat)


MA= {Have hair/fur and give birth to live young; ma}
(The Mammal set contains all animals that have hair/fur and give birth)


MA = {g, m}
(Giraffes and Meerkats are elements of the set of Mammals)


p ∉ MA
(African Penguin is not an element of the set of Mammals)


C = {g, m, and p}
(Giraffes, Meerkats, and African Penguins are elements of the set of Carnivores)


C∪MA = {g, m, and p}
(The Union of the sets Carnivore and Mammal are Giraffe, Meerkat, and African Penguin)


MA’ = C ∪ {p}
(The complement of Mammals are the set of Carnivores unified with African penguins)


The last element of this project was to create a GIF from our mosaic that we made. The GIF was made to show each level of taxa individually on the image. Below, you will see the original photo of my Giraffe and the GIF using the mosaic to portray each level of taxonomy:

MEM. South African Giraffe. 2019.

MEM. Giraffe Taxonomy GIF. 2019.

To summarize, this project was about the taxonomy of an organism we chose and to learn about their classifications by comparing them to other animals and using their characteristics to create mathematical equations for those characteristics and comparisons. 

The Origin of Language.

This is my first Action Project for unit 1 of my Stories class. For this unit, we focused on the etiology, the traditions, and stories that relate back to the origin of something. We also focused on the details and content that go into writing a story. For this project, our objective was to create an origin story of our own while giving it a creative format. For my story, I chose to write fictionally about the origin of language. My intention was to put a symbolic twist on a historical event. My origin story of language was purposefully chosen with the backstory of the creation of the world. I enjoyed creatively putting together a fictional context around how languages might have begun and learning about how modern languages have descended from three originating groups. This made me realize that speech is such a prime element because so many things stem out of our ability to communicate.

The Origin of Language

 This story began in a sea of darkness. It started with an atmosphere quite like a black hole, pitch-black and nothing in sight with such a frigid temperature, your brain would freeze just from thinking about it. Suddenly, a light appeared. Its shine was eye-piercing and was getting closer. It peered in, like a mother waking her child by opening the bedroom curtains. Then, everything stopped, and suddenly, the whole world was in sight. There was nothing that the light didn’t touch. A tall man with a long beard as white as snow appeared, and his name was God.

 God was the creator of everything and all that he created came out of The Book of Infinity. Anything God wished to create, he would open the book and draw his intended image. Once he completed his image, it would come to be, almost instantaneously. The only one that could use the book was him, whose touch activated the magic quill, which opened and drew in the book. God had many accomplishments; He created a world which he called “Universe” and placed the stars and planets within it. One of those planets was called Earth.

 Earth was where he visited most frequently because his home was above it and it contained all of his most favored possessions. Everything that inhabited earth (humans, plants, and animals) were very precious to him. These inhabitants lived symbiotically with the ground, water, and sky which were created before the inhabitants arrived. God’s home was called Heaven, which laid above the Earth, so he could easily watch over his universe and his creations on earth.

 One day, God was up in the clouds of heaven, observing the humans. He observed them using all the wonderful gifts he gave them including the gift of fire. As he was watching, he noticed two young children playing and saw them having a hard time communicating when one of them was facing the opposite direction. God had noticed this before, but hadn’t fully thought about the challenge until now. Humans had been on Earth for nearly 1 million years and had not evolved their methods of communication. God thought long and hard on how to solve the problem with new ways to communicate besides using slight humming-like noises and hand gestures. Then, he had a bursting thought that he would give them the gift of speech! Humans already had vocal chords in which they could make tiny sounds, but they were not advanced enough to produce actual words. He could not wait to execute his idea, so he grabbed the magic quill and headed down to the spot in which the book stood. He relished in the moment for which he was opening the book for he had not opened it in 1,000 years. It had grown cold, quite dark, and dusty. As he opened it, the light from the sun poured onto every square inch of the book and felt as though it had awoken in his hands.

 Upon opening the book, he drew a tree with three branches. Before he could finish, a large maple tree with leaves as red as cherries, sprouted before him. The tree, the giant that it was, had only three branches. One would question at that moment by looking at the tree, if God had made a mistake, but God never made mistakes, his ideas were always purposefully executed. These branches represented his gift he was going to bestow upon the humans; The gift of speech and language. Each branch had a specific category of language and under the branches, there was room for descending languages to sprout. He gathered all of his humans around the tree and told them to drink from the syrup, which was as sweet as honey, that oozed out of the bottom, for that would advance their vocal chords with the gift of speech. Once they drank, he named the three branches. Their names were Europeano-Indigus, Sino-Tibet, and Afroiatic-Asia. Upon drinking the magic syrup, the humans started to make noises. They had not yet learned the languages of the branches so they were not able to properly speak. God then blessed the branches of language with life so they could spread their knowledge of speech. The three branches were split into three groups of people. The eldest group (26-30 years old), went to Afroiatic-Asia, the middle-aged group (15-25 years old), went to Sino-Tibet, and the youngest group (5-14 years old), went to Europeano-Indigus. As the months went by, the humans soaked up their new languages and some of them started to leave. Every week or so, a person or two from each group would be gone. They started to scatter because there was more world to fill and explore, now that they had this new ability.

 Years passed, and there was no one left but God, his tree, and his book. Even though he had no one, he did not feel alone. He enjoyed watching all of his humans migrate and expand and communicate with each other. One day, as God was towering above in Heaven, he noticed humans were spreading out, but only in their groups since they knew one language. Then he got an idea of the three branches extending their languages into new ones. People nearby the tree could learn these new languages and integrate some of the original languages with the new ones. The three branches agreed and birthed three new languages; The first descendant of Afroiatic-Asia, was the Coptic language, the second, Sino-Tibet, was the Putonghua' language, and the third, Europeano-Indigus, was the Lycian language. Whenever new people arrived at the tree, they were able to choose a new language to learn and then spread it to parts of the world.

 After those early ages, God moved up into heaven and brought his book up with him, but he left the tree so it could continue to grow and teach. Many of the descended languages that developed through time, still exist today and are all over the world. Nobody knows where the tree is located anymore for older records have disappeared. God decided to conceal the true identity of the tree since, in this modern age, languages sprout everywhere from humans that don’t need the help of a tree anymore. For the rest of time, the tree will forever be hidden in the depths of The Northern Sugarwood Forest. 

Here is my drawing for the language tree:

MEM. Language Tree Photo. 2019.