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Civil Rights Act Of 1964 (Q1 BENCHMARK)

Posted by Samantha Boyd in American Government - Laufenberg on

​For my benchmark i choose to to do a pod cast on how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came about and explain why we needed this bill and how this bill was passed. I also wanted to focus my project on African American history. I always found it interesting the history behind slavery and the negative things behind the topic. Most people don't understand their history or know about anything bout it in the first place so because I take a good interest in it I though I can help the people who don't know get to know about their history. I chose to create another Sammy show because I always have fun working with a partner and I feel I always find a pod cast easy to work with. Editing this project was one part of this project that became hard because I'm not to good with garage band but I was able to find help and get it done. Finding how this act went though its process was hard also but then I went to my teacher and asked for help she was able to look up resources for me to use and everything worked out really good. If I had to redo this entire project over I would not wait to the last 3 days to do the entire project when I had one month to work on it. But even though I waited to the last 3 days I really went hard and put my foot in this project so that I was turning in a good project and it was a really good one. From all the research that I found out about the 1964 act I found out that a lot of people had to really step up to the place and put this act into place. It took a lot of people to say we need a change for this change to be passed. Even though I waited to the last 3 days to complete this project it was not hard at all because I new what I wanted to do how I wanted to do it and all I had to do was do it and get the ball rolling. So the process and research for me was very easy.
civil rights act 1964 #(2)

The Defense of Marriage Act - Shelby Harcher

Posted by Shelby Harcher in American Government - Laufenberg on

​When given the lobbying assignment, I first wanted to do something about gay marriage. I ended up changing my topic to curfews and flashmobs so when given the opportunity to research a law I chose one that dealt with gay marriage. I stumbled upon the Defense of Marriage Act while researching posible laws/bills to look at. When I saw what the bill had gone through and how unconstitutional it was, I wanted to learn more about it. This bill had a lot of interesting information and I wanted people to know what had happened. I decided to do a video to keep people entertained. I wanted the words on the screen to be powerful, so I didn't add audio besides music in the background. It took my awhile to find the right information to include in the video. I didn't want to add unnecessary information, but then again I didn't want to have too little information. If I were to do this again, I think I'd add more information about the people involved and the actual process the bill/law went through. 

When doing research, I learned that the bill was wanted by Congress but once it was put into law people weren't too happy. Even though states were allowed to acknowledge marriage with same-sex couples, the federal government still wouldn't. This bill/law went through a lot and the history behind it is interesting and should be shared because it still affects us today.  

Story of a Bill: The Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002

Posted by Natalie Sanchez in American Government - Laufenberg on

By: Natalie Sanchez

BAIPA

In the beginning of this Benchmark, I didn’t really know what I wanted to research. I was interested in legislation that protected wildlife or any other type of animal, but then I ran across the Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002. As I continued to read more about it, I became more and more intrigued in the bill. Before researching my bill for this Benchmark, I had no idea that born alive infants had rights. I chose the Born Alive Infant Protection Act because it was a law that I, initially, knew nothing about. I chose it out of my curiosity and desire to explore to new things.

I chose to present my findings on  a website. I was originally going to make a movie, but I realized that this would have taken more work and time to produce. I chose to use create a website instead because I can manipulate and modify it more easily and can still incorporate the visual element by embedding videos on   it. I feel like a website is as fun and engaging as a movie, but it is easier to make.

During the course of this benchmark, I had a lot of other projects due for my other classes. Since my website was not due for a while, compared to my other assignments, I tended to push it back. I would get some things done, but would focus more on the other assignments. I feel like the other work that I had on the side took some of my work time for the website away. I overcame this, however, by completing small parts of the website at a time. I would assign myself to create, for example, the summary of the bill on day, and then the timeline another. I divided the task in bits, and finished it gradually. 

If I could do this project a second time, I would try to complete this website earlier. I would have also tried to be more creative with the website. I would have added more hyperlinks to the text of the website so that people could have easy referral to the meanings or history of the some of the words that I incorporate in these passages. I would try to make the website more interactive and “clickable”.

The research that I did on my bill showed me a lot about the creation process of this bill. Abortion is a pretty touchy subject in America. Some people believe in pro-choice and some in pro-life. Some don’t know how they feel towards abortion. The process of this bill’s transformation into a law was a rocky one. The first time it was introduced to the house, there was  an objection by a group of people because of “discrepancies” In the language of the bill. My thinking is that the people who objected to the bill let their personal bias towards abortion get in the way of their voting of the legislation-because they did not agree with abortion, they did not vote for the bill. The bill went through the house, to senate, and finally to the president the second time it was introduced to the house. The language was changed and the majority of the representatives voted yes to the bill. This time, however, the House consisted of different representatives. The research I did taught me that process of turning a bill to a law can sometimes be a rocky one because of the bias that representatives and senate members have towards the subject of the bill. 

When I first read about the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, I assumed that it had gotten through the house and senate pretty easily. I thought that it was a pretty reasonable law, considering that the infants were indeed alive and were humans entitled to their rights. Even the most avid Pro-choice supporters sided with this bill. Then I found out that it was not as easy as I thought it was. As mentioned before, the bill did not get through the house the first time and had to be reintroduced to the house a second time. It was only on the second time, when the language was modified to meet the opposer’s requests that it was passed.  It was a pretty tedious process.  

Here is the link to my website.

Story of a bill; Employment discrimination Laws

Posted by Brittany Riggins in American Government - Laufenberg on

When choosing which bill I should do it was kind of difficult because there are so many bills and laws out there to choose from so I decided that I would choose the first one that sounded interesting to me and the one that I really know least about. After choosing this bill I decided that the best way to present it was in prezi, I like prezi for presenting things because it is not lecturing to people and it is not boring, I like prezi's because they give out the information but in a interesting way. Even though I like presenting in a prezi there were some issues that did occur. Some of which what order I wanted to tell the story, another problem that came up is how long should the presentation be so that is does not become boring and so that people can get a full understanding of the bill is saying. If I can do the project all over again I probably would would maybe try to present it in some kind of comical way. What the research and investigation process tells us about the creation process is basically what happens with other bills some one notices that something is not working for them so they propose a way to solve it and it goes from there, what I did notice is that it is not that hard in the beginning but towards the end it became much more easy.

Non-Discrimination Laws on Prezi

Story Of A Bill; No Child Left Behind

Posted by Jason Davis in American Government - Laufenberg on

  • I chose 'No Child Left Behind' because it related to my lobbying topic that I've studied all quarter. In my lobbying process I chose to research educational reform because it was something I felt passionate about. In doing my research, I realized that many people mentioned No Child Left Behind as being an issue in public education, so I decided to go more in depth on the act.
    My presentation format seemed to be the most straight forward way to present my research while still using creative graphics. At first the process was difficult because I had to find who was involved in proposing the bill and what outside influences were involved. If I were to do this differently, I would try and use more sources for info to diversify my research. However, while researching the process, I was able to closely analyze what it took for the bill to be proposed. The fact that a business group who had been pushing for educational reform since the 80's were the main supporters in the cause. And even after being backed up by the president, it was not signed until a year after it's proposal. I believe that because it was a federal law, it was easier to research than that of the state or city level. Nonetheless, it was an interesting process in which I think I gained a lot of information from.
    • No Child Left Behind -Jason Davis

    Defense of Marriage Act

    Posted by Ayanna Robinson in American Government - Laufenberg on

    DOMAA on Prezi

    ·       The beginning of this assignment started off fairly easily. We were tasked with explaining the history behind a bill of our choice. Any bill. But of course, Lauf suggested it would be easier on us to choose one linked to our lobbying topic. Knowing gay rights were a high profile topic and that they wouldn't hide any information I thought it was in my best interest to link my two topics. The first bill I found when I did research on gay rights was the Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA.

    The process wasn’t as hard as I seemed to make it in the bginning. Because of the other benchmarks I had been assigned I got a late start on the bill project but when we had to meet our first deadline (initial research) I found out quickly just how easy it was to find information about my bill. It was controversial, so there was no lack of info to be found.

    It was an interesting story to tell, from inception to creation, but there was more to it than just the history. Originally I wanted to do a documentary but as I gathered more and more information, I kept imagining things that I wanted my presentation to include that I simply couldn’t show in a documentary. I settled on a prezi because it’s a program I work well with and can make even the simplest statements engaging to the viewer.

    In the end I think my project turned out fairly well. Its far from boring and I put into the story than just the history. I would only change the outcome of it if I had more time. Given the right amount of time I would do something like a cross between prezi and documentary which is what I had planned in the beginning. 



    References​

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/06/29/lgbt-pride-month-white-house

    http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2010/07/federal-court-rules-doma-viola.html 

    http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=107807

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/04/boehner-launches-effort-defend-gay-marriage-ban/ 

    http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/23/attorney-general-declares-doma-unconstitutional/

    http://web.archive.org/web/20050208184130/http://www.advocate.com/html/stories/824/824_clinton_710.asp 

    http://www.aegis.com/News/WB/2004/WB040631.html

    http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll316.xml 

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/02/gay-marriage.html

    http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=16430 

    http://www.lectlaw.com/files/leg23.htm

    http://www.domawatch.org/about/federaldoma.html 

    http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/how-doma-was-born-a-history/

    http://www.glad.org/uploads/docs/publications/doma-short-history.pdf 

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_XqMIY-dy0

    Story of Bill- Chinese Exclusion Act, IRCA

    Posted by Kashif Ahmad in American Government - Laufenberg on

    For my bill I chose two bills that were about migration and did research on them 

    Screen Shot 2011-11-14 at 2.18.43 PM


        My Project. 

    • Explain your decision making for choosing the bill.
      While choosing a bill for the project, I thought about doing something that actually affected me or my family in a way. Since my parents are immigrants, I chose to do this project on immigration. Not only it affects my family but it affects a good amount of U.S population. 
    • Why did you choose the particular presentation format?
      In my opinion I think choosing Keynote as a format is a reliable way to teach anyone about something you want to teach them. 
    • What challenges did you overcome in completing the project?
      At first I chose the Chinese Exclusion Act, since it's a old law I couldn't find the legislation process. Therefore I chose a recent law and did my project on both of them. 
    • How would you do the project differently if you had to do it over again?
      I would pick a different law that affects teenagers and also make a movie type of presentation. 
    • What did the research and investigation tell you about the creation process... from idea to bill to law?
      One thing I learned is that ideas can become law in a heart beat but at the same time some ideas can take a long time just to go through that process and not all makes it. 
    • Was the process easier or harder than you imagined based on your particular bill/law research?
      I think it's a hard process because it involves a lot of debate and movement at different places. 
    Screen Shot 2011-11-14 at 2.18.43 PM
    Screen Shot 2011-11-14 at 2.18.43 PM

    History of DOMA - Ian McClendon

    Posted by Ian McClendon in American Government - Laufenberg on



    • Explain your decision making for choosing the bill.
      -I chose the DOMA bill because I knew that there was always a lot of controversy involving this law. A mass population is effected by what they can and can't do to show love for their partner. I also wanted to see what major names put the bill into law and their perspectives on it then and now.   

    • Why did you choose the particular presentation format?
      -I picked a video format because Keynote Slide Shows and certain forms of presentation were already made. So I wanted to try a sort of News/ Documentary video. Instead of keeping it boring with 5 minutes of me talking in one video, I tried to change the frames for each sentence to keep the viewers attention while I move around the screen and keeping a verbal flow. 

       
    • What challenges did you overcome in completing the project?
      -Other than other people doing the same bill as me the only challenge was to make something different than the others. 

    • How would you do the project differently if you had to do it over again?
      -I would have a different set up for my scenes, different location, better camera/ audio, and to become more fluent with my speech. 

    • What did the research and investigation tell you about the creation process... from idea to bill to law?
      -As I researched I couldn't find legit websites for DOMA but I slightly referenced Wikipedia and their resources for finding my information. There was not much clarification about this act but I managed to complete the essential details for the history of the bill.  

    • Was the process easier or harder than you imagined based on your particular bill/law research?
      -It was a little challenging at first but I came up with the idea of how I was gonna present this. Then it flowed together into my final production of The History of DOMA.  

    Food Quality Protection Act-Alaya White

    Posted by Alaya White in American Government - Laufenberg on

    Food Quality Protection Act on Prezi

    • Explain your decision making for choosing the bill.
      I wanted to select something that had to do with food. 

    • Why did you choose the particular presentation format?
      I felt like it would be a great representation of the timeline format by using a Prezi.

    • What challenges did you overcome in completing the project?
      I had about a day & a half to change my topic for the project. I feel likt this was an obstacle, and had I had enough time with this one topic I would've went deeper into the project & detail with the topic. 

    • How would you do the project differently if you had to do it over again?
      I would start fresh with more time. Maybe use another general topic instead of laws & bills about food.

    • What did the research and investigation tell you about the creation process... from idea to bill to law?
      A lot of the time, bills go back and forth in order to change bits and pieces to make it pass a certain stage in the billing process.

    • Was the process easier or harder than you imagined based on your particular bill/law research?
      This was much harder than I imagine with shorter time to change the Law selected.

      Overall I think I could've done better.  I know I had a shorter time than most with the benchmark, with changing my topic and everything, and that had a big impact on the finished product.

    Lobbying for Curfew- Mustapha Idriss

    Posted by Mustapha Idriss in American Government - Laufenberg on

    ​I plan am lobbying for there to be a strict curfew on teens under the age of 16. There has been an uprising of teen related in our lovely city. Though not teens who re out at night are engaging in such acts, majority are and it is becoming a nuisance to the citizen of the city. Everyone deserves to feel safe in the city when there out to dinner, enjoying a movie, or simply taking a stroll downtown. 

    The reason I decided to lobby for this topic is because I have been attacked recently from these "flash mobs" that have been popping up all over the city. Aslo I feel strongly about having that comfort to walk down the street and not feel like they should be watching out for ever little noise. Also it gives teens like me and other teens as well more credibility. Instead of seeing a group of teens and instantly wondering if they so go hide in a store, or if their going to have to run, we should just be accepted as equals in the community. 

    To help lobby this topic, I think the idea of more after school activities would benifit both the community and the teens in them. These could be run by schools, recreation centers, or neighborhoods. Teens who have a fun way to outlet all their extra energy, stress, anger are much less likely to run amuck in downtown philadelphia. With this in mind Philadelphia can once again become the great city it was ment to be.
     

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    2011-12.S1

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