2b The San Francisco Exploratorium

http://www.exploratorium.edu/h

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGMj4sIGYc0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXfVSAPzkcE&feature=related

3)
The San Francisco Exploratorium connects me to my studies of humanities because it helps people that go to it better understand how things work. People learning how things work are more likely to learn how those things help the world run. Basic science projects help a person understand difficult things. Some people shy away from things that look difficult to understand but once they see how they work people realize that it was never hard at all. The Exploratorium also goes into showing people about the earth and how it sustains life. It shows various aspects of the world such as plant life, insects, the night sky, water in fundamental ways.

4)
a. I chose the San Francisco Exploratorium. You can touch, create and imagine in this place. It’s great to play and learn all at the same time. Frank Openheimer founded the Exploratorium after his experience with his brother on the Atom Bomb. He was a physicist and also a rancher. He understood that for others to understand they had to not just see from far away but to touch and feel hear and even smell. He created a fun environment of science. There are science experiments everywhere you see. Things you can step into like in a bubble hoop big enough for a person to be inside of. There are lots of people exploring things they have never seen and like children want to touch and be a part of to understand.

b. The Exploratorium teaches people difficult things with basic concepts that they can understand better. Possibly giving them things to aspire to learn more from and become.

c. When I was in Elementary school I went to it and haven’t gone since. I remember it being a great experience because as a 12 year old you want to explore not only by hearing a teacher talk about something in a classroom but by experiencing the thing itself. I feel great about my choice because it had me thinking about when I went and how my mother experienced the time with me as well, she was chaperone. It was a great time of nothing but exploration and realizing how simple things that looked difficult to understand weren’t. It’s an amazing place to go to and just walk around only watching others play and learn.

d. I learned that Frank Oppenheimer founded the Exploratorium after his experience with his brother the ‘Father’ of the Atom bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer. I’d like to know how he came up with what would be a part of the Exploratorium.

5) Dawnyel wants to learn more about her small town within it is where her family resides. Its funny to think about because I live next door in Sonoma and it’s a pretty small town too but unlike Dawnyel my whole family does not live here so I don’t have stories from buildings where my parents got married or anything like that. I want to go back to the small town in Mexico that my parents were married and touch the walls of my Grandparents house. Knowing that because it is so incredibly rural it will probably never lose its small town feel. It relates to our class because she is learning about what surrounds her right outside her parent’s home. Her own history and she is who she is. I personally think its related to her personal history and the small town USA context.
http://2apetaluma.blogspot.com/

Assignment 1c

1. A. I picked Monica for my first person. She lives 4.7 miles away.
B. Next I picked Kendra and she's taking this class because she needs one more Humanities class to transfer to a UC.

2. A. On Monica's Blog she mentions that Paolo went to law school. He worked towards liberating those that are exploited for some reason or another.
B. On Kendra's Blog I learned that Paulo was born in Brazil and that it was there where his first theories came to fruition.

3. The information I've gathered from others students websites helps us understand and learn more about the study of humanities because it teaches us about the human condition. Why people learn and who they are as people. The study of humans in general how they are and work inside and out.

Assignment 1b

Paulo Freire is one of the most influential minds in the world of education. Throughout his life he created a system that allows people to learn for themselves. His various concepts such as "Empowerment", "Humanization", "Dialectic", and others are now used around the world in order to educate. He was a man that though of educating the masses through their own experiences and with those experiences create their own language and way to express themselves.

One of his most influential ideas that I believe is most important is his 'Banking' theory where a student, the bank, just takes in the knowledge the teachers is giving the student and basically regurgitates it back to the world the student lives in. This idea coincides with Mr. Freire and his belief that a student should not just receive information from his teacher, his peer, but be able to ask questions about the information given. Student and teacher developing a dialogue where they both give their ideas and thoughts and learn from each other on the basis of the conversation they are having and not just a one sided conversation.

Another important idea of his is that of the learning process. Mr. Freire believed that a person learns about the world around them and from that should actively think about and meditate about the situation that surrounds them. A person should be aware of the world they live in and because of it learn how to live in their world not a world dictated by those that tell them how. Mr. Freire explains that a person should not only understand their own world but try and change it and not live beneath another persons rules but create their own and with this their own language.


http://www.comminit.com/en/node/27123/36
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire