For this project I researched animal protection laws on farmed animals along with researching and analyzing four animal protection/welfare organizations. The ones I researched were the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), and People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. I also wrote an argumentative piece describing why factory farms are bad and why the legislation for them should be better enforced, and created a "propoganda" art piece with a similar message. My final product was a site called The Chicken Coop which you can find here.
History: I researched four animal protection/welfare organizations and analyzed their efforts towards their goals and whether or not they achieved them.
LA: I wrote an argumentative piece on why factory farming should receive better legislation and why the current legislation should be better enforced.
Art: For the art portion I did a piece based off of the style of Sue Coe. I depicted a baby cow in intensive confinement as a sort of "propaganda" piece.
Process/Explanations
History
For the history portion I did research into four nonprofit animal protection organizations and analyzed their missions and whether or not they were effective in what they said they were doing. I also included the research done for the factory farming laws and piece on why the legislation for factory farms should be stricter as part of the history portion. My original topic was very broad and just on animal shelters, but I found it more interesting to narrow down the topic onto factory farming and to understand why the legislation for factory farms is not very strict.
Language Arts
For language arts, I did an argumentative piece on why the legislation on factory farming should be better enforced. I reasoned that the animal protection laws for factory farms were inconsistent and not enforced very well, the health effects on humans caused by factory farming is negative, and that factory farming has a large bad impact on climate change due to the unregulated manure that's dumped into lagoons, and large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
Art
For art, I did a digital piece replicating the charcoal style of Sue Coe. I originally had planned on doing a piece on a bigger scale, but I decided on depicting a baby calf in intensive confinement because that seemed like something that would be more impactful as propaganda. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the piece, and the only things I'd do to change it would be to make the piece overall darker for more contrast and also add to the fact to make people feel more for the calf. I'd also want to rearrange the words and maybe make the important part of the fact red lettering.
Art Process
Annotated Bibliography
"Animal Rights." Gale In Context Online Collection, Gale, 2019. Gale In Context: High School, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/XDSBPV071225812/SUIC?u=pl7053&sid=SUIC&xid=1fe446b3. Accessed 5 Nov. 2019. This section on the Gale database informed me on multiple issues within the overarching topic of animal rights, and was what I used to direct my research and narrow down to the topic I wanted to research and discuss. Conditt, Jessica. “Gaming Articles on Engadget.” Engadget, 10 Aug. 2012, www.joystiq.com/2012/10/08/peta-parody-pokemon-black-and-blue-fights-for-fictional-animal/. This article explained the parody game PETA created as an anti-animal cruelty campaign in response to Nintendo’s Pokemon franchise. I used this as an example of one of PETA’s controversial campaigns for my analysis of the organization. David N. Cassuto, Environment, Ethics, and the Factory Farm, 54 S. Tex. L. Rev. 579 (2013), http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/969/. “Ending Intensive Confinement in California.” Animal Legal Defense Fund, Animal Legal Defense Fund, 2019, aldf.org/case/ending-intensive-confinement-in-california/. This article explained a legal case in California where ALDF worked as a member on the Coalition YES on Prop 12 where they encouraged voters to support Prop 12, an expansion on 2008’s Prop 2. This extension would further expand the space requirements for farmed animals which were introduced in Prop 2 and would be a big step in ending intensive confinement in California. I used this information as an example of a case that ALDF worked on in my analysis of the organization. “Factory Farming: Animal Cruelty.” Research Guides: Student Project: Factory Farming: Animal Cruelty, Pace Law School Library, 11 June 2019, 4:15 PM, libraryguides.law.pace.edu/c.php? g=452979&p=3107600. “Factory Farming: Environmental Impacts.” Research Guides: Student Project: Factory Farming: Environmental Impacts, Pace Law School, 11 June 2019, 4:15 PM, libraryguides.law.pace.edu/c.php?g=452979&p=3107602. “Farm Animal Welfare.” ASPCA, ASPCA, 2019, www.aspca.org/animal-cruelty/farm-animal-welfare. “Farmed Animals.” Animal Legal Defense Fund, Animal Legal Defense Fund, 2019, aldf.org/focus_area/farmed-animals/. Fifield, Jen. “Farmers Push Back Against Animal Welfare Laws.” The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Pew Charitable Trusts, 29 Nov. 2016, www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/11/29/farmers-push-back-again st-animal-welfare-laws. Greger, Michael, and Gowri Koneswaran. “The Public Health Impacts of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations on Local Communities.” Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Jan. 2010. “Laws That Protect Animals.” Animal Legal Defense Fund, Animal Legal Defense Fund, 2019, aldf.org/article/laws-that-protect-animals/. “Philanthropedia.” Philanthropedia, 2019, www.myphilanthropedia.org/. This site gave me information on each nonprofit I researched: HSUS, ALDF, ASPCA, and PETA. The site explained each organizations’ missions and had expert analyses of the effects of each organizations’ actions. This was useful for me to understand more about how each organization operated, how their actions have contributed to its mission, and what they could do to improve. Preston, Caroline. “Nonprofit Group Attacks Humane Society Over Spending of Donations.” IPA Publishing Services, 11 Mar. 2010. This article from the newspaper The Chronicle of Philanthropy details how the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) took actions to create a site called HumaneWatch in order to discredit the organization HSUS. It explained that the credibility of CCF was rather lacking with even experts on nonprofit law questioning CCF’s nonprofit label, and CharityNavigator placing a donor warning on the charity. I used this in my analysis of HSUS because I believe it’s good to include so that people will be aware of this source and determine whether or not it should be used through an analysis of its credibility. “Your Guide To Intelligent Giving: Home.” Charity Navigator, 2019, www.charitynavigator.org/. I used this site to check each nonprofit’s financial and transparency ratings to see whether or not they were credible. I was also able to explain the 1/4 star rating HSUS had for Dec 2018 by comparing the ALDF and HSUS financial data on Charity Navigator. I learned that HSUS spent more money on fundraisers with a lower amount of return which lowered their overall financial score, especially in comparison to ALDF. I also saw that HSUS has also had to pay 12.5% liabilities asset instead of the preferred 0%-5% which also would have slightly dropped their overall financial score.