For the past two weeks, I brainstormed some deliverables for my Signature Project. Thanks to my amazing classmates, I came up with many great ideas that I wanted to implement for the outcome of the project, including writing an Clock Article on the project, making YouTube channels, interview community members and even college professors, and making maps or simulations, in addition to writing a research paper. I had a really hard time deciding on the region I wanted to focus on. Nini and I have been doing English tutoring for an Emma alum's sister from Afghanistan and who is currently in Pakistan for a while, and we noticed many challenges, such as the shutting off of electricity, as causes of climate change. It sparked me to do this project. But at the same time, I took Latin American History and have always enjoyed learning Spanish, so I also wanted to do research on Mexico and the Caribbean. I talked to my family and mentors in my life, and decided that the choice of the region is not as important as taking action towards the goal of my project, so I chose to go with Pakistan. From writing my WHYS, I felt clearer about my goal of learning about environmental science and environmental justice and helping people to be aware of how our actions could result in a huge impact on people far away from us. Nini and I decided that we would each focus on a human rights issue in Pakistan that was influenced by climate change, and we hope to make a decision by the end of this month.
Coco
My name is Nini Yang, and I am a junior at Emma. The topic of my signature project is how climate change affects human rights issues in Pakistan. I want to do this topic because I have always been interested in the discussions regarding climate change. Last year my sister and I started offering English tutoring online to a sibling of an Emma alum. She fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan after the Taliban takeover and wanted to improve her English, hoping to be able to study in the US in the future. While tutoring her, we noticed that there were often network issues and electricity outages happening where she lived. After research, we learned that these issues might be a result of how climate change had impacted the economy of Pakistan, so we began to be interested in how climate change affects human rights issues in developing countries. As part of the ESYO, we will have the opportunity to travel to Mexico for a concert trip next summer, so I thought using this opportunity to stay there for a while after the trip to investigate how this issue comes into play in Latin America, but as Coco mentioned, we finally chose Pakistan as our region of focus because we were initially inspired by the issues there.
Nini
To leave an impact with my project in the Emma community and beyond, I will talk to the editors in chief of The Clock to see if I can publish some of my process in The Clock. I will also put together a research paper in the end. Last weekend I was able to get some research done. I found sources about how climate change in Pakistan affects its agriculture, electricity demand, poverty, and politics. Now Coco and I need to make a decision on which issue we each focus on. I also started pulling quotes from the sources that I can use to write my script for my first video, which will probably focus on the direct impact of climate change on people. My second video will probably focus on what makes Pakistan so vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We are thinking that our research paper will probably focus more on societal issues in Pakistan, whereas the YouTube videos will focus more on scientific information. My hope is to finish the script for the first video this weekend and hopefully record the video. My goal is to narrow down on my topic before next Friday. We will try to find an abundance of evidence by October so that we can start working on the paper.
Nini
The core concepts of my project are: the impact of climate change, the reason why Pakistan is so affected by climate change, the inequality and injustice of climate change, the effects of climate change on humanitarian issues in Pakistan. I will talk about the broader premise, such as the definition of climate change, of my research first. Next, I will go into the specific science of my project, such as why Pakistan is so affected by climate change and what are the geographical and human reason behind it. Then I will narrow down to the specific impact of climate change in Pakistan that I am focusing on.
Coco
Last year my sister and I started offering English tutoring online to an Emma alum’s sibling, who fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan. While tutoring her, we noticed that there were often network issues and electricity outages happening where she lived. After research, we learned that these issues might be a result of the impacts of climate change. I am Nini Yang, a junior, and my signature project centers around how climate change affects human rights issues in Pakistan. I hope to create a YouTube channel and a research paper to help more people learn about this issue!
Nini
Coco and I recorded an intro video for our YouTube channel over the past weekend, but the pace of it was a little too slow, and it was not interactive enough. After getting advice from Mr. Calos, We recorded the intro video again with a better pace. Last weekend was a very busy weekend, so we were not able to accomplish as much as we had hoped in our project. We did not have time to revise the script for our video, so this will be our main goal this weekend, along with writing up the script for the second video. I am listening to the Maintenance Phase podcast for inspiration on how to make my research-based videos more interactive: https://www.maintenancephase.com/
We are planning to post two videos in November and to decide on the narrowed down topic of our research paper. I still haven’t reached out to my friends or any adult for help yet, so I hope to do that in the next two weeks. I hope to spend more time on the project during Thanksgiving break to catch on the work I have left behind so far.
Nini
Last weekend we were able to record some videos for our YouTube channels. I am happy that we have actually started this process that seemed intimidating and complicated. The Thanksgiving break is an important time in our project timeline. There are a lot of things we can get done during this time. I hope to record at least five videos, so that I have the monthly posts ready before each month. This will allow me to pace my workload a lot better and to focus my attention on deeper research in the weeks after Thanksgiving. This week I have not spent much time thinking about the next steps for my project, as I am very busy with before break school work, so I hope that the break can be a time when I can really switch gears and catch up on the work that I have left behind.
Nini
Over the Thanksgiving break, we have been productive. Coco and I now have ten new videos, even though we may consider rerecording some of them. We started searching for graphics for the video, and we hope to start the editing process soon. We also uploaded our first video on our YouTube Channel. Over the next few weeks, we can start to advertise for our channel and organize its layout. Coco will not be on campus this weekend, so even though I can do some individual work, I don’t think I will make much progress. Next weekend, I hope to complete editing some of the new videos and upload them. Over the winter break, I will focus on researching how women’s rights are violated as climate change impacts Pakistan.
Nini
I changed the title of my project to Climate Change and Climate Justice in Pakistan. I think this makes it clearer what the project is focusing on. During the break, I plan to edit my videos and upload them. I may also make a few more videos. This week, I have not made much progress in my project. I plan to start on a “focus group”. We can pick 10 of our friends to watch our video. They will fill out a survey before and after watching the video. This can help us learn whether or not our videos are clear, informative, and educational.
Nini
Recently, Nini and I finished recording the first ten videos for our YouTube channel. In the process, we gained understanding of climate change, and some science behind different climate phenomena. We also started to do more research into climate justice. In order to know what we can improve on our videos, we created some surveys for a group of our friends to ask for their thoughts before and after watching one of our videos. We haven't got a lot of responses yet, but so far we saw things that could help us a lot. We also collected some books on our topic that we could read over the winter break, as well as reached out to the co-head of FairTrade about whether we could collaborated with the club. We are planning to advertise the channel once we have more videos posted. One of the challenges that we encountered is that we don't have a lot of experience with video editing, so we spent a lot of time figuring out how to add graphics, and our videos don't look very mature. We need to continue to practice and make better videos. One of our friend kindly offers to make illustrations for us, so we may get some help from her in our future videos as well!
Coco
During winter break, I plan to edit more videos to upload them and start researching on my narrowed down project on Pakistani women and climate justice. We will make more videos. For my poster, I am a little stuck on how to format it so that it looks more aesthetic because now I only have the elements I want on the poster. The idea I had when I made my draft doesn’t appeal to me that much any more. Coco and I just uploaded our first official video and started the focus group. We are still waiting for more responses. I am going to continue the editing process. One challenge in this process is that a lot of editing tools online are not free, but I am confident that I will be able to find something.
Nini
Over the winter break, I researched on the impact of climate change on women in Pakistan and found a lot of useful data. I wrote most of my research into my script but still have some left. Coco and I recorded videos based on her and my research. The quality of our videos has improved. We also posted a few new videos over the break. There have not been a lot of views but publicizing can be a later step. Our next steps will be to continue researching and recording videos, and we plan to post videos more frequently now. As the showcase comes close, we will publicize our channel more and start working on a presentation.
Nini
This month I should finish recording 6 more videos on climate change’s impact on women and farmers in Pakistan as well as Pakistan’s government response, international response, electricity shortage, and other topics if I find other interesting things. I will contact people to interview. Now I am planning to interview Khadija and maybe I will interview some Emma community members too. I will edit a lot of videos because I am going to speed up my YouTube post to once a week, and I will contact my Focus group again. I will also start to publicize my channel at the end of January. Tomorrow, Nini, Maya, and I will be making a MLK day presentation that is slightly related to my topic, so I will use the chance to promote my video. I will put a blurb on student weekly before the end of next week and I will contact EmmaGreen and possibly Fairtrade club about it too!
Coco
I finished the final draft on the poster over the weekend, and I am happy with how it turned out. In the next few weeks, we have to work on revising the blurb that we are writing for the Student Weekly and put it in. We will edit more videos and post them, as well as continue to do research on some topics that we want to dig more into. We will interview Khadija ‘19 sometime in the next months and hopefully feature other Emma students who have knowledge about this topic in our videos.
Nini
This week I was able to record another short video, and I also posted another video over the weekend. This weekend feels very overwhelming because there are a lot of assessments due at the beginning of next week. I hope to at least write up the interview questions for Khadija soon so that we don’t keep pushing back the interview. I will also try to give our focus group another nudge. By now only one person has watched our video and responded, not as much as last time. I think everybody is pretty busy with schoolwork but would still really appreciate it if they could spend five minutes of their day filling out the survey. I also hope to see the blurb in student weekly this Sunday!
Nini
Since the last post, my project has been on the student weekly and the employee weekly, and I have got some more subscribers. The views have also increased. I have almost recorded another video, and have written and scheduled an interview with Khadija. The challenges are that I did not get a lot of response on my focus group surveys, and that the views of my signature project are still limited. I have been very busy, so my progress on researching and recording videos is also slower. I have not reached out to clubs about advertising. I need to do them soon!
Coco
Over the long weekend, Coco and I interviewed Khadija Ghanizada ’19 about her thoughts on the environment and climate justice! The interview was great, and we learned a lot from her. I’m really excited to publish the video of the interview on our YouTube channel. For now, I will continue researching on the topics that we can touch on regarding climate injustice in Pakistan. I hope that we will get the opportunity to interview more people at Emma who have knowledge about this issue. Even though there’s not much progress on the subscribers and views of our channel, I’m confident that the interviews will make more people interested.
Nini
Coco and I participated in the Refugee Justice Jestermester and learned a lot! This experience actually helped me to understand better the experience of the Afghan student we have been tutoring, who inspired us to do this project. It also helped me learn about the status of people displaced by climate change and the challenges they are facing.
Nini
Over the spring break, Coco and I posted two videos, including one clip from the interview with Khadija. We also reorganized our channel page. Roz ’25 volunteered to have an interview with us before the break, and we just finished writing up our interview questions with us. I hope to interview her sometime next week. I hope these interviews will offer new perspectives that make people more interested.
Nini