Something I didn't know about my decade, Berlin in the 1980's, was that East Berlin was under great influence by the USSR. I had very little knowledge of our location during this decade, and I was surprised to find out that during the Berlin wall crisis the USSR had strong control of the Communist leaders of the East Berlin government. Because of this strong relationship, the leaders made a blockade and wall around their reign and closed most circulation, including people and most trade. This happened because of disagreeances between themselves and the, more prosperous and liberal, capitalist West Berlin.
In my decade and location much has changed. The wall is no longer up, and Germany has the general freedom that most Western styled countries have. Nowadays Germany inn sone of the leading countries in forward thinking actions and eco-friendly power sources. No longer is there a struggle between two directly opposing parties and the trade is very strong. All the things that once made Germany, are either nonexistent or far superior than they used to be. I am not sure if I learned about anything that has stayed the same, from what I researched, since most of my research was based around East Berlin and the actual wall crisis, although I am sure many of the cultural activities and beliefs have stayed the same.
My personal favorite artifact that was made in my group was the Berlin Wall Rap made by Noah and Dylan. It is my favorite because I had no part in the making of it. There were no flaws that I saw and because I hadn't worked on it, I wasn't as judgmental of the product. I found the rap very well designed. Noah and Dylan produced a very clean and they rapped in a smooth manner to the beat. I also enjoyed the slight ad-lib Dylan added in to put a little spice in a pause. The song related and rhymed to being trapped on the East side of the Berlin wall and had an actual story told. The narrator speaks about how he was trapped by the wall and the struggles of living conditions. At the end of the rap it narrates the freedom and joy felt by the release from the wall.
I think I learned the most about the economical aspect of the crisis, shown in many of our artifacts. In the diorama there are two distinguishable sides, the lush Western side of Berlin and the haggard West side of Berlin. The west side has a much more colorless setting because much of the trade was cut off. The East's sole supplier was the USSR, who made Vodka an easy commodity to attain. The West side is far more prosperous, showing people going about their business and walking freely. As the economy of the Western Berliner's grew the Easterner's crumbled. Eventually the leaders of Eastern Berlin had to cut their losses and merge back into society, letting all of the people they encased free.
If I could change one thing about this project I would have given our class more time. With the strange schedule of art and humanities constantly switching out I feel like we just weren't getting the time to put all of our effort into the project. In the last couple days of the project I felt like my group and I just pulled everything together. Even though, it did still turn out as a success, I would have liked a week more to smooth out our product.
The book my group and I read was 1984, by George Orwell. The book doesn't directly connect with our location and actual historical decade, because it was a book written in 1948 as a prediction of what 1984 would be like. We weren't able to find a book about the 80's in Berlin so we decided to read this book. I enjoyed the book very much for its speculations and theories, mostly because the ideas were so alien, but made sense. The book hardly related to our decade, except for the character living in a very controlled environment. Any move taken against the government of Oceania, Big Brother, no matter how small would be found and the victims completely changed in the end, blindly following orders.
In my decade and location much has changed. The wall is no longer up, and Germany has the general freedom that most Western styled countries have. Nowadays Germany inn sone of the leading countries in forward thinking actions and eco-friendly power sources. No longer is there a struggle between two directly opposing parties and the trade is very strong. All the things that once made Germany, are either nonexistent or far superior than they used to be. I am not sure if I learned about anything that has stayed the same, from what I researched, since most of my research was based around East Berlin and the actual wall crisis, although I am sure many of the cultural activities and beliefs have stayed the same.
My personal favorite artifact that was made in my group was the Berlin Wall Rap made by Noah and Dylan. It is my favorite because I had no part in the making of it. There were no flaws that I saw and because I hadn't worked on it, I wasn't as judgmental of the product. I found the rap very well designed. Noah and Dylan produced a very clean and they rapped in a smooth manner to the beat. I also enjoyed the slight ad-lib Dylan added in to put a little spice in a pause. The song related and rhymed to being trapped on the East side of the Berlin wall and had an actual story told. The narrator speaks about how he was trapped by the wall and the struggles of living conditions. At the end of the rap it narrates the freedom and joy felt by the release from the wall.
I think I learned the most about the economical aspect of the crisis, shown in many of our artifacts. In the diorama there are two distinguishable sides, the lush Western side of Berlin and the haggard West side of Berlin. The west side has a much more colorless setting because much of the trade was cut off. The East's sole supplier was the USSR, who made Vodka an easy commodity to attain. The West side is far more prosperous, showing people going about their business and walking freely. As the economy of the Western Berliner's grew the Easterner's crumbled. Eventually the leaders of Eastern Berlin had to cut their losses and merge back into society, letting all of the people they encased free.
If I could change one thing about this project I would have given our class more time. With the strange schedule of art and humanities constantly switching out I feel like we just weren't getting the time to put all of our effort into the project. In the last couple days of the project I felt like my group and I just pulled everything together. Even though, it did still turn out as a success, I would have liked a week more to smooth out our product.
The book my group and I read was 1984, by George Orwell. The book doesn't directly connect with our location and actual historical decade, because it was a book written in 1948 as a prediction of what 1984 would be like. We weren't able to find a book about the 80's in Berlin so we decided to read this book. I enjoyed the book very much for its speculations and theories, mostly because the ideas were so alien, but made sense. The book hardly related to our decade, except for the character living in a very controlled environment. Any move taken against the government of Oceania, Big Brother, no matter how small would be found and the victims completely changed in the end, blindly following orders.
This was the item I brought in for the class potluck. We were supposed to bring in a food or drink that we could relate to our book or decade location.I brought apple juice because in Germany, beer is a very common commodity. Of course you cant bring beer in to school, so I brought apple juice because it has a somewhat similar look.
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