1. Post your group's
presentation.
2. Reflect on the strengths
and weaknesses of the criteria established. Where these good criteria, or
should there have been different criteria established?
The criteria that the class
established, legitimate references and a good scientific method, were good
criteria for the assignment. One of
their strengths was that neither of them incorporated the content of the
paper. The legitimacy of the paper’s
content was not an item of debate. At
first it was a challenge to create a presentation that didn’t involve the paper’s
content, but I think our group put together a thoughtful presentation. Likewise, the other presentations that avoided
discussing the paper’s content were much stronger than the ones that did. In conclusion, the criteria were good, but it
may have been hard to stay focused on them.
3. Reflect on the strengths
and weaknesses of the presentations as a whole. Consider the "yes"
and "no" groups as a whole.
For the no groups, one of the
weaknesses was that one group said that the scientific methods were good, and
the other two groups disagreed. As a
whole, this is deceiving; what presentation do you believe? Maybe there should have been some
collaboration among the groups so that they were all presenting the same facts. It’s hard to convince an audience of your
point if your information isn’t consistent.
Another weakness I observed
was discussing the content of the paper in the debate. Our criteria didn’t involve the content of
the paper, and we were not evaluating the content of the paper; therefore, the
content of the paper was irrelevant to our debate. Discussing the paper’s content may have
influenced the audience to respond to the presentations differently by diverting
their focus from the criteria.
As a class, our presentations
improved from last time. Most groups had
one or two presenters which is much more formal than a group of presenters. It’s more conducive to give a persuasive presentation
with one really good speaker, rather than a group of students who vary in their
presentation skills and styles.
4. Reflect on the group
management of your group. What went well, what did not?
From my point of view, our
group had relatively open communication between its members. After our pre-presentation with Dr. Schultz,
we became particularly focused on only discussing the criteria in our
presentation.
Our group decided to go with
one presenter; which I feel strengthened our presentation. Our presentation gave the facts without going
into the content of the paper or adding unnecessary information. We defined the criteria and gave examples of
each. After deciding on that approach,
our group compiled our research to create a power point.
5. Reflect on the personal
"ethic" you felt in your group. Did you believe in your position?
Where you arguing against your beliefs?
While initially discussing
our assignment, my group as a whole thought that the other viewpoint would be
easier to defend. Some people in my
group felt very strongly that we were defending the “wrong” position.
I entered the assignment with
an open mind. After reading through the
paper once, I think it’s hard to say if the information in it is legitimate. However, based on the criteria that we
established as a class, I think that the paper is legitimate; many of the
references were from reputable sources, and as far as the scientific method
goes, most of the data in the paper is historical, this paper is just a report
of others’ findings.
I personally was not arguing against
my beliefs; I honestly don’t think that there is such a thing as a “perfect
paper”. There is bound to be bias in
almost every paper you read; as a researcher it’s difficult to exclude your
personal feelings and to write a completely objective article on your
research. I also think that good
information can come from sources that aren’t necessarily reputable; being a
reputable source is a matter of opinion.
I’m not trying to imply that you can trust all resources, but just
because a source hasn’t established a reputation doesn’t mean that they provide
unreliable information.
6. Did the class make the
correct decision when considering the broader impacts of the global
warming/climate change debate? Why?
The class voted and decided
that the paper was not legitimate today.
I don’t know that I agree with the reasoning behind this decision. I think that the “no” presentations as a
whole were weak; there was contradicting information in them, and many
questions brought up after the presentations were not sufficiently addressed. In conclusion, the class may have been right
in saying the paper isn’t legitimate, but based on the presentations in class,
I am not convinced.
7. Explain the statement,
"What we do in the US, soon will not matter." Provide evidence to
justify this statement.
Historically, the United
States is known to be a big, powerful country whose actions could impact the
world. China and India are growing
rapidly and are increasingly gaining power. Why would these expanding countries
want to comply with the United States’ quest to minimize carbon dioxide
use? China and India apparently don’t
care about the carbon dioxide use in the world as they continue to build coal
plants. In 2007, The Guardian gave a
report on the Global emissions since Kyoto.
In the report it states North America’s emissions to be 74,867 million tones
and it says that Asia produced 96,306 million tones of emissions. From this information it’s apparent that the
United States is not producing the most green house gasses in the world, and if
we were to limit our emissions, it would not solve the global warming
problem. Other big countries, like Asia
and India, would have to agree to limit their production of green house
gasses. This is true with any other
global issue, if one big country decides to make a change, it won’t impact the
world, all countries need to act together in order to make a global difference.
8. Explain this statement,
"What we do as individuals matters." Provide evidence to justify this
statement.
There are two meanings behind
this statement, first that having an awareness of events in the community,
country and world is important. If you
are not aware of an issue, you will not be able to act either against or for
the issue. You can’t stop something from
happening or support a cause if you are unaware of its existence. By being unaware, you give up the right to
make changes. Ultimately the things we
do in our life are our own choices, but we must be informed on current events
to follow our beliefs and implement our actions.
The other message in this statement
is that it takes one person to impact the world. If one person invents something, it could
become global. For example, the light
bulb, the assembly line, the internet, and facebook. It only takes one person to create a life
altering item, so really what we do as an individual could change the lives of
billions of people.
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