The injustices of the Iraq War

Policy is a course that I'm taking in my last term as a junior. My classmates and I just ended the 2nd unit of this term, "Executive". The main focus was the executive branch of the US Government. We talked about actions that the executive branch can take and cabinet positions, I specifically looked into the Secretary of Housing and Urban development but I got a chance to look into my classmates positions. We went to the Cook County Criminal Courthouse in this unit and it's so far one of my favorite field experiences, we got to witness part of an actual murder trial. I learned about the wars that had US involvement and what it takes to declare a war. For this Action project, I wrote about how the Iraq war wasn't a just war. I came across this blog that has photographs from the Iraq war and that made me realize how much of an impact the war was.

Marco Di Lauro, 2003

This photo is from the blog of Marco Di Lauro, who at the time worked for  Getty Images News Service. I came across while looking for information on documenting the United states invasion of Iraq. Researching this was very enlightening to what's going on in government decisions and how it affects everyone involved, rather it's direct or indirect interactions.
Here's my paper:

Towards the end of writing this paper, my class visited the National Veterans Art Museum. This went along with my paper because I talked about how soldiers are now affected physically and mentally for the rest of their lives. I saw the photography there, it really connected with me as a viewer even though I have no idea what the soldiers went through while oversee's.

Yeon J. Yue, 2017, Grey American Landscape

 I asked our tour guide does she see a difference in art between the generations of veterans and she said that around the time of the Iraq and Afghanistan war, there was a lot of photography because that was around the time you were first allowed a camera. She also said that soldiers now in this generation turn towards performance art and comedy, I found that really interesting how the mediums changed through the decades. A lot of veterans have different experiences and that can seem really isolated after going to war and they're dropped into regular civilization expected to live it over again.

Yeon J. Yue, 2017, Grey American Landscape

This project was really enjoyable. I like to research and write so I had fun learning about the Iraq war. My favorite part of researching was looking through a theoretical analysis by Kenneth N. Waltz, called Man, the State and War. I'm glad that I chose this war because I feel like I gained so much information on the United states and the war itself. 

Circuits behind the city

Power is our second unit for my class, Urban Planning. In this unit we learned about circuits and that related to unit 1, when we learned about electricity. We went to an FE to the Museum of Science and Industry and there we saw the Tesla coil, which is a transforming alternating current, invented by Nikola Tesla. That was a very cool experience and it was relevant because at the time, we were learning about the war on currents. A war between Alternating and Direct current. Another reason this FE was relevant is because we're reading Devil in the white city, a book about Chicago's world fair, and the Museum is one of the only remaining structures from that time. In addition to learning about Alternating and Direct currents, I learned how to use formula's to calculate power, voltage, current, resistance, and ohms.

DS MW, Diagram, 2019

For this units Action Project, I partnered with my classmate,DS and we made a circuit of our own. I believe the purpose of this project was to use all that we learned and actually get to make something of it. I enjoyed designing a parallel circuit with my partner, and I also enjoyed seeing what my classmates did for their circuit. My favorite part was calculating all of the math that we learned. My partner and I even found a connection with SDG 7 and you can see that below. 

In conclusion, this project went very well and I think it tied in perfectly to our curriculum. I was pleased with all of my calculations and how I could find real world connections.