Justice Project
Project Overview
We began this project going over various philosophies of justice, such as Utilitarianism, compassion, and libertarianism. After that we shifted towards issues of environmental justice and the indigenous peoples of the US. For both of these units we watched the films True Justice and Beyond Standing Rock. We also did a deep look into the issues of natural gas extraction facing Chaco Canyon and the local Dine population.
To apply this knowledge, the first part of the project was dedicated to justice monologues. For these we would give a short speech on a specific issue of injustice, and for the second one environmental injustice in specific. They were 2-3 minute speeches that would make an argument in favor of our own views of the issue. Finally, in the final project we chose our own issues of injustice in the world and did an action project, hopefully reaching out to the community in some way in order to help solve the issue of injustice.
We began this project going over various philosophies of justice, such as Utilitarianism, compassion, and libertarianism. After that we shifted towards issues of environmental justice and the indigenous peoples of the US. For both of these units we watched the films True Justice and Beyond Standing Rock. We also did a deep look into the issues of natural gas extraction facing Chaco Canyon and the local Dine population.
To apply this knowledge, the first part of the project was dedicated to justice monologues. For these we would give a short speech on a specific issue of injustice, and for the second one environmental injustice in specific. They were 2-3 minute speeches that would make an argument in favor of our own views of the issue. Finally, in the final project we chose our own issues of injustice in the world and did an action project, hopefully reaching out to the community in some way in order to help solve the issue of injustice.
Project Defense
For my project I wrote a short opinion piece about gentrification in Durango. I gathered data on housing costs in town and compared them to average wages and national averages for cost of living. I also sent out surveys to get data and opinions from the Animas Senior Class and faculty. The purpose of this work and article was to raise awareness of gentrification in Durango to people who will soon be adults, and will have to face it one way or another in the next few years. Finally, to accomplish this I submitted it to be published in the Animas School Newspaper, the Animas Quill. An important aspect of my personal view of justice is that I believe it is inherently unjust for the wealthy to use their wealth and power to negatively impact those who are less fortunate. I believe gentrification is a prime example of this happening in modern America, with poor and working class neighborhoods being destroyed in favor of high-rent apartments and high-rises, making it harder and harder for the vast majority of Americans to survive in our cities. As one person, I don’t think I am able to do much currently. It’s for this reason that I think that a way to raise awareness was the best I could do for Durango especially in the 2-week time frame. I can’t say that it has done much yet, but I hope I can inform some people. I think I did enough background research, but I wish I had gathered more data from people. I originally planned on doing interviews and getting more opinions of people in the community, but I failed to organize anything within the time constraints we had. I think I did do as best as I could with the information I was able to get however. |
Project Reflection
I was successful in producing an article on the subject and submitting it, as well as gathering data from Animas students. I did however fail to gather as much data as I wanted to originally. In my proposal I planned to get demographic data, and interviews with community members in Durango but I succeeded in neither of these. While I did the best I could with the information I did gather, I think having more would really support my final opinion piece. The largest obstacles were my own failures to organize my time and the very short time frame which we had to complete this project. I feel that I was very engaged in the work because gentrification is an issue I feel strongly about, but oftentimes I had difficulty organizing my time leading to failures in my goals. I can’t really say that this project taught me anything that I haven’t already learned in my time at Animas that will help for my senior project, except that I need to be sure I use my time correctly. I need to be sure all of my plans are clearly laid out in advance and that I try as hard as I can to follow through on them. |
Justice Monologue #1
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Justice Monologue #2
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Final Project
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