Energy and Place Project
Essential Questions:
~How does energy production impact place?
~How does your sense of place, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions regarding energy production?
~How does energy production impact place?
~How does your sense of place, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions regarding energy production?
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Reflection
This unit was relatively lengthy and information packed, but had a nice variety of sources so we could make an informed decision on our personal ethic. We began this unit by studying environmental ethics and how peoples' lives have been shaped by their ethics. After that we studied different readings regarding environmental justice and fracking. Next was a lesson series about nuclear power and how it has affected populations in very different ways. After that we studied nature writing and how it influences a perspective and enhances your writing. Since, thus far, our work revolved around learning of various perspectives, the final step was to analyze each perspective and see which one we most relate with.
One of the problems that I have when doing research on a topic with a multitude of different perspectives is that I tend to agree...with all of them. Each perspective I read about had a viable justification to it, making me believe in that perspective. It was a challenge for me throughout this project to determine what I actually believed, not what others persuaded me to believe. This act is a lot harder than it seems. Reflecting on your own morals, philosophies and ethics cannot be rushed, and it requires more just plain thinking than I ever thought imaginable. However, once all the thinking and self-analysis is over, finding your own personal ethic is very rewarding and really helps you think about things in a new light.
After all is said and done, I ended up completing a project I can look back on fondly. One of the challenging things throughout this unit was having to put my thoughts and emotions into words. Imagine what it would be like to describe the color red to a blind person- it is most definitely difficult. Trying to have the reader experience the same emotions you feel when thinking about a certain topic was definitely the most challenging part of this unit. Another difficult part was incorporating the elements of nature writing into my piece while still making it cohesive. Nature writing was a requirement for this essay, but I couldn’t see how my perspective could incorporate these elements, as visual nature was not a prominent topic. I ended up using it alternatively, where I used the elements of nature writing without actually talking about nature. Here’s an example: “A steel gray flip-phone that displayed the time on the outside. The heavy, well-built phone felt energizing in my hand as I thought of how much cooler this made me. I even had a stylish blue case for it just so that it would stay in its pristine condition.” I used the descriptive elements of this writing technique but spun it to fit my perspective.
One of the problems that I have when doing research on a topic with a multitude of different perspectives is that I tend to agree...with all of them. Each perspective I read about had a viable justification to it, making me believe in that perspective. It was a challenge for me throughout this project to determine what I actually believed, not what others persuaded me to believe. This act is a lot harder than it seems. Reflecting on your own morals, philosophies and ethics cannot be rushed, and it requires more just plain thinking than I ever thought imaginable. However, once all the thinking and self-analysis is over, finding your own personal ethic is very rewarding and really helps you think about things in a new light.
After all is said and done, I ended up completing a project I can look back on fondly. One of the challenging things throughout this unit was having to put my thoughts and emotions into words. Imagine what it would be like to describe the color red to a blind person- it is most definitely difficult. Trying to have the reader experience the same emotions you feel when thinking about a certain topic was definitely the most challenging part of this unit. Another difficult part was incorporating the elements of nature writing into my piece while still making it cohesive. Nature writing was a requirement for this essay, but I couldn’t see how my perspective could incorporate these elements, as visual nature was not a prominent topic. I ended up using it alternatively, where I used the elements of nature writing without actually talking about nature. Here’s an example: “A steel gray flip-phone that displayed the time on the outside. The heavy, well-built phone felt energizing in my hand as I thought of how much cooler this made me. I even had a stylish blue case for it just so that it would stay in its pristine condition.” I used the descriptive elements of this writing technique but spun it to fit my perspective.
This project was jointed with my Chemistry class, with Chemistry focusing more on energy, and Humanities more on place.