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Do you have questions about my assignments? Would you like to participate in an online discussion about the topics in this class? Go to my blog: Dr. Comprone's Blog
Extra credit assignments are an excellent way to improve your grade. Also, if you make over 10 posts on my blog during the semester, you will receive an extra 5% on your final grade.
1/22/09 First class assignment: go to my blog (see above) and describe the problems that you have writing and/or how you see yourself as a writer. You may sign in as anonymous if you would like. Also, your second class assignment is to print out Reading the Environment and complete the questionnaire at the beginning of the project.
The third class assignment: bring a printout of the following link to the next class on Tuesday. We are going to discuss how the death rate for pine and fir trees has doubled in places like California and Arizona. Can you imagine what the world will look like in ten years or twenty years? The link is here: trees dying because of global warming What do you think is a solution? My idea is to plant more trees. I just planted two more pine trees in my front yard. I think trees should be planted on every city street. Be prepared to write on Tuesday.
1/27/09 Today, we completed the freewrite. We discussed the assignments due for this class. The blog post is due by this Thursday. I would like the completed questionnaire to be turned into class by this Thursday as well. I would also like the 15 minute freewrite on trees to be turned in on Thursday.
The three questions for the freewrite are: Is the problem with trees dying out serious? What is the solution to the problem? How will this effect future generations?
For Thursday, bring a printout of Vaclav Havel's article to class. We will write about it.
On Thursday, we will also concentrate on revision of the freewrites we did in class.
1/29/09
We went to the computer center and discussed the blog and my website. You need to post a comment on the Vaclav Havel essay on our our blog. Take a quote from his essay and write about it on the blog. We will discuss grammar and revision on Tuesday.
2/3/09 Today, we are going to discuss and write about two issues along with the Havel essay: You should do a one page freewrite about electric cars. Do you think electric cars are the solution to the environmental problems we face today? Or are they just plugging into an electrical grid that is polluting the environment because we rely on coal to supply most of our electricity? Do you know the difference between plug-in electric vehicles and hybrids? See link Second Assignment: Obama's policies and the recession. Do you think it is smart to pursue investments in environmental technologies while we are in a recession? Do you think the government can give enough incentives for private businesses to invest in renewable energy? Do you think Obama's plan is ambitious enough (it is far less than the bailout money for big banks)? See link 2/5/2009 Today, we discussed Vaclav Havel's essay. We discussed Vaclav Havel's description of global warming. He describes global warming as a danger, but he doesn't explain what dangers it presents. Take a quote from Havel and write about it. Do you feel personally that global warming is a danger?
Watch Al Gore's video on the environment. Do you agree that the environmental crisis also exists because people do not care enough about their communities and don't get involved? Are you surprised about what happened to the polar ice cap? Are you surprised that most Americans do not believe global warming is a threat even though they know that it exists? Write a two page paper describing what you learned from his slideshow and lecture below:
Assignments for next week: Next week, we will watch "The Day After Tomorrow" after we watch a Powerpoint presentation given by myself about global warming and our climate crisis.
I also assigned presentations for every student in this class in place of a midterm exam. Please choose one of these presentation topics. This will be your chance to lead the class and to explore the topic of global warming more. Your presentation should be at least 10 minutes in length (at least 10 slides), and you should be prepared to answer questions from the class and the professor. You will be required to write a written description of your presentation and what you learned from it.
When you do your presentation, you will have to write a two page essay describing the material you covered during your presentation and state what you learned from the project.
Please choose a topic to do a power point presentation on (I have included links under each topic so you can get further information on the subject):
Poverty and the Environment slum dwellers What is the ozone layer? What is global warming? global warming What are carbon emissions? carbon emissions What are solar panels? What are renewable energies? renewable energy Will penguins become extinct? Will polar bears become extinct? polar bears What is Obama's plan to protect the environment? Obama's detailed energy plan during campaign What is the greenhouse effect? What are wind turbines? What is geothermal energy? What is clean coal technology? What is acid rain? acid rain Why is recycling important? How do fossil fuels affect the environment? how fossil fuels impact the environment How does the melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the North Pole affect the world's climate? What is the effect of global warming on the individual? global warming What is the effect of trash on the climate? How does pollution affect the air we breathe? What is smog and what are its effects? Will sea levels rise and flood Washington, D.C. and Florida? link 1 Should carbon emissions be regulated by the goverment? Are we addicted to oil? What is a hybrid car? What are fuel cell cars? What is ethanol? Will coral reefs disappear? What does it mean to live green? What are biofuels?link Is climate change really happening? Are the increase in wildfires around the world a consequence of global warming? Australia 2 South Africa wildfires Bird migration and global warming
2/11/09
Assignments due: TBA
Feb. 12/2009 Today, we watched the film Out of Balance. If you weren't in class, please come and watch it during my office hours. * write a one to two page paper on Out of Balance, the film we watched on Exxon Mobil and its profits off of fossil fuels that are polluting the planet. Do you think that we are headed towards a doomsday scenario because of our dependence on fossil fuels?
Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 Assignments due: * Blog Comment on Writing: On the blog for our class, post a comment about you past history as a writer. What writing problems do you have? How do you hope to improve as a writer? * Paragraph on trees article: Trees are disappearing on the West coast because of global warming. Write your opinion about what you learned from this article in a brief freewrite. trees dying because of global warming * Read the essay by Vaclav Havel in Reading the Environment. Write a paragraph on what you learned from Havel. Do you agree or disagree with his views? * In class Havel quote (this may be posted as a comment on my blog): choose a quote by Havel and write about it * In class, we revised four sentences students wrote. If you didn't complete this assignment, revise the first four sentences in the editing link under Spring 2009 course updates * We wrote about the possibility of electric cars becoming popular. Do you think they will help resolve the global warming problem? link * Write a paragraph about Obama's energy policies. We read an article about Obama's energy policies. * Fill out the entire questionnaire at the beginning of the Reading the Environment project * Write an in-class essay after watching the film Out of Balance Extra credit: Write a one page essay expressing your opinion about Obama's project to green the poor: link Extra Credit: Read this Washington Post article about why scientists cannot measure the impact of global warming now. Write down your views of the severity of the crisis: Climate change and carbon dioxide Extra Credit: Dwindling water supply could be a real problem in the future. You can write about this and read about it here, or maybe you would like to do your presentation on this subject: water
Tuesday Feb. 24th, 2009 Today, we finished watching the film The Day After Tomorrow. I also discussed the results of a recent MIT study on global warming and its consequences.
Write a two page paper on The Day After Tomorrow. Right now, Europe is in the grip of freezing temperatures, and the sea surface temperatures of the Gulf Stream are colder than usual, suggesting that some of the ideas in this movie could become a reality (maybe not so extreme). Read this article and see that some people have even frozen to death in Europe because of the extreme cold temperatures. If the Gulf Stream were to shut down, most of Northern Europe and England would be under ice. See this link: link
Information about global warming: Today, MIT released a new study that revealed that the earth can heat up to 12 degrees fahrenheit more by 2100 if we do nothing about global warming; on the other hand, if we reduce the amount of emissions, by 2100, we will have a temperature increase of 5 degrees fahrenheit. See link Thursday, February 26th Please present to the class as soon as possible. We also finished watching The Day After Tomorrow. There is evidence that the earth is rapidly warming up now--faster than anticipated. Consequently, scenarios the opposite of what is described in The Day After Tomorrow could occur. Do you think our government should take action? Do you think a catastrophic scenario could arise due to global warming as in the film? Write this paper in response to the film. Extra Credit: Recently, there has been increasing evidence that the pace of global warming is happening faster than anticipated, primarily because of the rapid development of industry in China and India (where dirty coal is used to produce electricity for billions), because of the release of greenhouse gases from frozen plant matter in permafrost near the Poles (at least 1 billion tons of methane, a greenhouse gas), and because of new data that tropical rainforests may actually start to produce carbon rather than absorbing carbon (because of the increased temperatures in the tropics, setting off massive wildfires). There is evidence that within 10 years, New York City could be hit by a major hurricane and the Southwest of the U.S. could suffer a massive drought, and in Africa, millions could die from lack of water. However, Exxon Mobil lobbyists are now saying that global warming is good for us. Write your response after reading this interview with a scientist from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change. See link Are you writing your paper on The Day After Tomorrow? If you want to look at an interesting view of what could happen if the earth went through a complete glaciation, covering all of the land and oceans with a thick layer of glaciers that would kill off everything on the planet, it has happened at least two times in the past. This theory is called Snowball Earth. Geologists and other scientist have documented how deserts on the earth were once covered with a layer of ice (see the video at this link): link
3/10/09
The following terms will be on the grammar test on Thursday: independent clause, dependent clause, subordinating conjunction, coordinating conjunction, preposition, linking verb, transitive verb, intransitive verb, simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, compound-complex sentence. The test will be multiple choice. Please finish your presentations on Thursday and please turn in all of your assignments.
3/24 Today, we read Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech in Reading the Environment, Part One (after the Vaclav Havel essay). Write a two to three page essay on Gore's description of the struggle against global warming. Does he persuade you that global warming is a threat? What analogies does he make, e.g. what does he compare the struggle against global warming to? Include quotes from his essay in your discussion of Gore's ideas. If you believe that there is a better way for him to formulate his argument, what would it be? 4/2 Here are the assignments for this course: * Write a two to three page essay on Gore's description of the struggle against global warming in his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. Does he persuade you that global warming is a threat? What analogies does he make, e.g. what does he compare the struggle against global warming to? Include quotes from his essay in your discussion of Gore's ideas. If you believe that there is a better way for him to formulate his argument, what would it be? * Write a two page essay discussing at least three facts that Dennis Avery discusses in his critique of the global warming movement. Do some research on the web and try to find legitimate sources of information about global warming from sites such as the NOAA website and the International Governmental Panel on Climate Change, or the EPA site. Is Avery making a valid argument? Or is he manipulating the facts? Lastly, state what you learned from this exercise.
Upcoming assignment: The Environmental Protection Agency has released a series of facts about the nature of climate change and its impact in the United States, region by region. How does the scientific information on this link influence the way you feel about global warming? How does the information from this site differ from the information on the blogs that we read in class? See the link here and write two pages on your response. EPA analysis of global warming
4/12/09 We discussed the Dennis Avery assignment and grammar in class. According to a recent study, global warming can be reversed to a certain extent if greenhouse gas emisisons are reduced by 70% by all countries of the world. If not, the earth's temperature will rise 4 degrees Celsius (about 6 degrees Fahrenheit) by the year 2100, with catastrophic droughts, hurricanes, floods, and scarcity of water. You may use this material in your essay refuting Avery's arguments. See this link: study
4/28/09 Today, we reviewed potential essay topics for the final exam. The following assignments are due by this Friday (this is the complete list of assignments that we have done throughout the semester): * PowerPoint presentation dealing w/climate change or some aspect of global warmin * 2-3 page paper on Out of Balance, a film about Exxon Mobil and their policies that influence the government (you may watch the movie in my office if you need to see it again) * 2-3 page paper on The Day After Tomorrow, the film we watched on a potential doomsday scenario resulting from global warming * a post on the blog about your writing skills * a paragraph on your views about how trees are affected by global warming in parts of the West Coast (see the link to the article at the beginning of the updates for this course) * an essay interpreting Vaclav Havel's essay at the beginning of Reading the Environment Part One. * post a comment on my blog on a quote from Havel's essay * Revisions of sentences we covered in class (or alternatively, choose four sentences to edit from the Editing link under Spring 2009 Course Updates) * Write a short essay on Obama's plans and his energy policy. Evaluate whether you feel that it is a feasible approach to environmental issues (read the article assigned at the beginning of the semester, see the beginning of the course updates for the link) * Write a short essay on Obama's plans for Americans to buy more electric cars. How would that contribute to the battle against climate change? * Complete the questionnaire at the beginning of the Reading the Environment project * Complete the midterm test on grammar * Write an essay on Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. Do you feel that he made a convincing argument about the threat of climate change and global warming? * Read the article by Dennis Avery and check the facts in the article. To what extent does Avery manipulate the facts about the topic of global warming? Are his facts accurate and reflective of the views of most scientists? Write a two page essay on the subject. * Watch the movie Arctic Tales and write a two to three page essay discussing what you learned from the movie. Did the movie change the way you viewed the issue of global warming? Do you feel that laws need to be in place that help protect the polar bear from extinction? * Final Exam: bring your exam permit to class at the time of the final exam. You should also bring several articles concerning the topic of climate change. Discuss what you learned from investigating the issue of climate change and global warming. Discuss whether you believe it is important that people become more literate about scientific issues. Lastly, discuss any solutions you might have to the problem of climate change.
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