Energy and Place Project
Project Reflection
The Energy and Place project allowed for me to explore a different variety of environmental ethics, while taking into consideration the idea of conservatism and preservation. As we unfolded the key components in this project we looked at a number of energy sources that are either a key to our environmental sustainability or detrimental to the health of our environment. We explored the use of Solar Power, hydro power, coal powered, and wind powered energy. Having this information, we were given the task of developing our own opinion and approach towards different energy sources. I was tasked with creating a Sense of place essay that incorporated elements of nature writing, in which we studied throughout this course, along with demonstrating my own sense of place and how I feel about the energy and environment surrounding in. In doing this, I wanted to find how energy production impacted my sense of place. My sense of place is Lake Powell, and with hydro power being a key component in the making of this lake, I decided to expose my spiritual connection to this place as well as my environmental ethic towards the beautiful place.
Throughout the course of the year I feel that my writing has improved substantially in many different ways and I have developed a strong base for good writing. Specifically though I feel that my writing has improved most during the course of the Energy and Place project. The reason I believe this has to do with the revisions that I was able to recognize on my own before peer critique and the final product was due. I feel that in past projects my ability to recognize errors in my own writing has been very bad. I would always get a lot of feedback on the first draft that was produced but I felt very confident in terms of descriptive writing and producing conveying thoughts. The main change that I was able to make in my writing was the idea of incorporating hydro power energy. At first I was going to have a short story that only exposed my feeling towards the reservoir, but I was inspired to create something more meaningful to me as well as the general public. I felt like my opinion about hydro power had to be introduced. In terms of spelling and grammar improvements in my writing, I found that breaking down sentences and eliminating run on sentences came to my best use with all the wordy paragraphs I was writing because my writing became more clear. Although I had a lot of improvements to make to the essay I felt that I was the strongest at developing nature writing skills because I have photographic memory of this place and it will hold with me forever. Writing descriptive language was my biggest growth.
When putting together my sense of place project, I did not want to be the typical kid that describes his connection to the place of birth or the place that you grew up in because we all have a connection to those places. I felt that my sense of place was rooted much deeper than your average connection. It wasn't being recognized for something mainstream, instead I wanted to recognize it for its rare beauty, as well as the realizing how fortunate we are to have a dam with the capacity that it holds. It is truly amazing and I felt I needed to express that. I grew as a person during this project because I was able to put the relationship that I have with Lake Powell in words and that is extremely difficult to articulate. This allowed me to appreciate things more as well as being environmentally cautious. It was difficult to explain how I felt about preserving the natural state of lake Powell but I made a change to it and it clearly shows how my environmental ethic has altered.
Peer Critiqued Draft
Revised Energy and Place Essay
Happiness and Meaning Project
Essential Questions for this Project:
a. What is the purpose of your existence?
b. What is happiness and what makes you happy?
c. What does it mean to live a meaningful life?
d. To what extent can literature shape your personal philosophy on happiness and meaning?
Link To Project Description:
https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/file/d/0B5ktO3NLUDlcems1NU1kbjZudWM/edit
Reflection:
Over the course of this this project, I developed a new understanding on the more specific goals and insights I have in my life. This train of thought can be broadly explained as a life changing experience being able to narrow down the key concepts in my life that make me the most happy and provide me with the most meaning. Although I have not developed an Ideal job that will provide me with purpose, I have adapted to the field of work that I believe I have the most interest in. I have found ways to express my values and hold true to my morals because I believe that It will make me a successful adult and businessman. In my personal Philosophy essay I talked a lot about how I was forced into thinking that playing hockey was a good idea. I never really took the time to realize that it made me happy but did not give me meaning. This idea can broadly represent how I want to change the way I perceive things. I want to be someone that is creative and explores what truly makes me happy and feel purposeful. Not the person that does something because people expect it or you want to impress them, do it because you love it.
What is the most healthy addiction for me?
What values do I want to stay true to?
Should the work you do be your identity?
Who has influenced my beliefs and standards on life?
What is the most healthy addiction for me?
What values do I want to stay true to?
Should the work you do be your identity?
Who has influenced my beliefs and standards on life?
Personal Philosophy Written Piece:
Morality and Politics of Justice Project
Thesis Statement:
"In order to ensure justice among citizens of the U.S, the federal government must legalize medical marijuana to increase the economic opportunity that is currently untapped. The legal product should be taxed, and the tax windfalls should be used primarily to fund our strapped U.S. public education system." The goal of this project was to articulate moral and political philosophies that we had been studying through the course of the semester into an op-ed and political campaign poster. In order for us to familiarize the moral and political philosophies, we studied the founding father philosophers. Then we were given four moral philosophies to study in depth to get a good understanding of different moral standards. We studied Libertarianism, Deontology, John Rawls Justice as Fairness and Utilitarianism. After we had a good understanding of different philosophies, we started to look at the security, equality and liberty of different political issues while applying our knowledge of philosophies. We then were given the opportunity to chose a political issue that we felt strongly about and we formed our own perspectives on the issue while incorporating different political ideologies and aimed at finding what the most just course of action should be for the government to take. Throughout the course of my own project I found that the most just course of action for the government to take with legalizing marijuana on the federal level would be to provide adults to liberty to choose whether or not they consume marijuana. I also looked into the medical benefits of it and concluded that the benefits of it outweigh the cost of not providing complete security. I used a philosophy from 19th century Utilitarian philosopher who claims that someone should have the liberty to consume or do what they please as long as it does not pose harm to others. I believe that this is a very strong point in my op-ed because it provides people that do not support marijuana with a sense of security and the people that are for marijuana a sense of liberty. After I completed my op-ed article I made an art piece that represented my argument in the op-ed.
The op-ed piece of this project was the most heavily weighted in terms of a grade but also very highly weighted in terms of of the time I spent refining it. I felt like this op-ed provided me with a great opportunity to express my perspective and improve a wide variety of writing skills. I felt like I improved most in terms of being able to incorporate evidence into my argument and transition between my perspective and the evidence I was using to support my claims. Specifically, I felt like I used strong claims that were followed by evidence to support my solution. In Paragraph 6 I stated, “According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, 17 percent of individuals that begin using THC in their teens can become dependent on other illegal and harmful substances in their daily lives. Studies have also shown that 18.2 percent of the adult population suffer from mental illness which can often times relate to substance abuse. Unfortunately, there are not enough programs in the country to address these issues. It would be beneficial to have federal funding available to support this need. This piece was refined to give the reader more context and reasoning to support my claim. I previously had little evidence and lacked a clear solution with persuasive word choice. I had stated, “Studies have also shown that 18.2 percent of the adult population suffer from mental illness which can often times relate to substance abuse. It would be beneficial to have federal funding available to support this need.” In the original sentence I had little context and did not provide the reader with concise information that helped argue my point. Overall, I feel like I really improved on my ability to use very specific word choice and use every word to its full ability because If not, i could have made my op-ed 3000 words. I also believe that It helped develop the overall reliability of my writing. Artist Statement: The purpose of my art piece is to visually transform the audience's emotion or perspective on my issue by incorporating different types of rhetoric and using ethos and logos to persuade them. In particular, I used pictures of kids that were medical patients experiencing different types of epilepsy and put them over jail bars that were covering the united states. I had put a marijuana leaf in replace of the 50 stars because I wanted to symbolize that these kids or even some adults did not have access to a drug that was proven to have positive effects on epilepsy patients. I incorporated a child and father on the outside of the United States claiming that they did not have the liberty to consume what they wanted and life liberty and the pursuit of happiness was beginning to become a legal problem. I made use of logos when I compared the the amount of Americans to the amount that found the cure. I used ethos by asking a driving question at the top of the poster to remind the audience of their most basic human right and how it is being taken advantage of by the government. Overall, I wanted to emphasize the fact that medical patients are not given equal opportunity and should have the liberty to consume what they please or what truly helps. I am very proud of the final piece that I produced because I feel that it really reflects my perspective and provides the audience with incentive to be more open minded about the drug because it gives rhetorical feelings of struggling patients. Overall, I feel like this project was a great way to express myself and use perspectives of other people to guide my own. It was a great way for me to really find the truth in something for myself and I will definitely be able to use this way of thinking for the rest of my life. I was able to get a sense of identification for my own political party. I can see how I will be able to apply this knowledge to finding the truth in other issues. I think that this type of expression is very important and even though the most challenging part of this project was expressing my perspective to people that did not agree with me at the exhibition, I feel like I learned a lot and was able to acknowledge other perspectives without judging.
Voices From the Animas ProjectLink to Story Corps Interview:The guest in this interview is the Owner and Operator of Mild to Wild Rafting Company. Alex Mickel has been in the rafting community of Durango for a very long time and has seen the Animas at many different stages. I wanted to get a business standpoint after the spill. How did the spill affect the way his business ran? What procedures are taken in order to sustain a successful business at this time? It is interesting to hear Different business methods because I feel that I think about things in the same sort way.
Op-Ed - Criticizing EPA, Fails to Progress Future SolutionsProject Reflection: |
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