Category: Uncategorized

After getting to know the Town of Cary Public Works staff, I was allowed to view some sports fields that I will get to observe over the coming days. Today, I was stationed at the beautiful USA Baseball National Training Complex as they prepare for the upcoming DII NCAA baseball championship. I gained insight into the daily activity that the team does to maintain the high-quality playing surfaces (mowing, watering, cleanup, etc.) that makes the complex unmatched. Next, I gained some knowledge on general turf (the grass/surrounding area not on the playing field) and was also allowed to fix a broken sprinkler on the general turf behind the stadium field. Lastly, I took away the importance of the overall cleanliness of a facility.  Not only does the quality of the playing field need to be maintained, but many of the people visiting the facility are spectators or parents of the players, so the parts that these people use/observe are important as well. Awesome first day!

Alright, so this is a blog. That I am writing. Nice.

Now that that introductions out of the way, let’s start talking about what I did today with Mr. Greyson Davis and my WEP-Buddies, Sarah, Rohan, and Jack! The answer is mostly just learning about what we’re doing for the rest of the WEP. That being NFT!

Now, that begs the question for all of you less-tech-literate out there: what is NFT? Well, sit back and let me tell you. (As I act so high and mighty despite learning all of this literally a few hours prior). NFT stands for a non-fungible token, and it’s essentially a piece of media tied to a blockchain that says, “Yo! This thing is unique!” The NFT’s are then sold for prices because they’re unique. This entire thing relies entirely on the same principle as other cryptocurrencies, that being the fact that they’re only worth exactly what people are willing to pay for them.

Now, what I’ve been researching is how to create an NFT. I’m out of space for today, but enjoy a picture of the future NFT Howard!

Today while Natasha met with our host, Brenda Schick, Allie was busy doing both research for her project and planning the sophomore summit. Allie is working on a politics project based in Arizona aiming to add privately owned land to the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest and get funding to protect the land from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Natasha is working on a policy project based in Oregon regarding the climate impacts of a land conservation effort that incorporates conservation policy and the Biden-Harris 2030 Conservation plan. 

Today, Allie researched the positions of local and national representatives from this area in order to eventually write a memo outlining who would likely support efforts to transfer this land into public ownership. She investigated primarily the voting history and websites of Arizona House Member Brenda Barton, Arizona House Member Walter Blackman, and Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers. 

Meanwhile, Natasha began background research into the Biden-Harris 2020 Plan, learned specifics of conservation policy with the host, and created an outline for a memo which she will be writing in the coming days. This memo will focus on the climate impacts of a land easement on a certain area and also the impacts regarding socioeconomic equity.

Above is a screenshot from Allie’s project.

Today, we also learned the nuances of the legal system, including some Latin terms, legal definitions, and some broad terms. Here is a list:

Res judicata (claim preclusion): A Latin term for ‘a matter decided,’ which means that a criminal or civil court case can not have an appeal because that specific type of case has already been dealt with by the courts. Today, Professor Markham stated that over 700 sex offenders have appealed to the courts about the use of satellites to monitor them.  A judge will not want to hear all the cases, and will generally give a ruling that gives a ruling to all of them.

Recidivist: Someone that has committed more than one crime. In North Carolina, along with many other states, the more crimes you commit, the longer the prison sentence is. For simplicity, North Carolina has a table that lists the punishment for each level of crime (low-level misdemeanors to 1st-degree murder) and the severity of the sentence for each crime you commit.

Legislative Compromise: A compromise between members of Congress to pass legislation. For example, Senate Bill 300’s main focus is to reform the policing system in North Carolina and make people feel safer. However, the bill also explains that rioters should get harsher punishments, which has nothing to do with the overall focus of the bill. Professor Markham explained that members of the legislator will put random things into a bill to make it more acceptable for other members of Congress.

-Travis

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Judge Davidian at the Wake County Courthouse, and was lucky enough to watch live proceedings at the civil domestic violence court. The proceedings focused on domestic violence and because this was a civil court, restraining orders were issued in lieu of jail sentences (which would be in criminal court). It was a very interesting learning experience as I discovered that being a judge in civil cases meant that you have to be able to ask on-the-spot questions and synthesize the perspectives of both the plaintiff and the defendant to be successful. I was also able to learn more about Judge Davidian’s past career as a Judge Advocate in the United States Navy, which is something I would like to pursue as well! Overall, today was a great learning experience and I hope to learn much more about the intricacies of our judicial system in the coming days!

Today we kicked off our work experience journey with Vector Textiles and environmental modeling. Together with the team we planned out our schedule for the week and learned more about what our goal is during these 8 days, which is to investigate the environmental affects of permethrin when released into sub-Saharan Africa. It was great learning about how research-based projects such as these are conducted, and certain techniques that can be used to investigate similar problems. I also learned about how the specific chemical, permethrin, is more dangerous than it looks and is portrayed to the public, which gave me insight onto how other chemicals or ingredients might not be what they seem. Therefore, I learned to always double check what I am working with. Overall, it was a great start to the program and I look forward to doing more research in the coming days!

Today Travis, Miles, and I met via zoom with Mr. Markham a professor and lawyer at the University Of North Carolina Chapel Hill. We introduced ourselves and began to discuss what we can expect going further with the work experience.

As a group, we individually are going to explore pieces of Senate Bill 300 that interest us the most. We split the dense bill into 3 sections which after reading over the bill you can then choose to dive deeper and answer some research questions revolving around that section that interests you the most. Section one is about ankle satellite monitoring of sex defenders and if it is constitutional. Section two is law enforcement reform and increasing precautions in law enforcement fields. And lastly, section three is exploring over-criminalization which is trying to discourage civil crimes from being put on people’s records for life.

Mr. Markham also shared that we may have the opportunity to visit the General Assembly sometime next week as well as listen in on a court case.

– gabriella