Earth Week Presentation

Assignment Instructions

What can you do to help the Earth?

Global warming, acid rain, mass extinctions.  You see it and hear it all over the news and it all seems pretty overwhelming.  There are some big problems to be solved in order to keep the Earth a good place to live.  But a lot of these big problems can be divided into many small tasks that we can all do our part to accomplish.  Take a look at some things YOU can do to help the Earth.

1. Recycle!

Nowadays, it's pretty easy to recycle.  More and more cities throughout the world are offering a collection service for various recycled goods, and those plastic bins are a common sight on residential curbsides along with ash cans.  Plastic bottles, glass jars, aluminum pop cans, and of course, newspapers all find their way into recycling bins.  Often, our recycling bins are fuller than our ash cans.  But how many things can actually be recycled, and what can various recycled materials be turned into?

2. Ditch the Car!

Most of the carbon dioxide that causes global warming, the nitrogen and sulfur gases that cause acid rain, and the particulates that form the "brown cloud" come from gasoline burning motor vehicles.  Your parents may be considering buying a hybrid vehicle that uses just a little gasoline to run a electric motor or a vehicle that runs mainly on clean burning ethanol.  Perhaps this vehicle may be your 16th birthday or graduation present.  Even better, you can get to where you're going on a bicycle, rollerblades, or just by running, all of these require no gasoline.  What sounds good to you and why?

3. Shut it off!

Although some communities are beginning to switch over to wind and solar power and other communities have been using electricity from dams for decades, most of the electricity in this country still comes from burning coal.  Until renewable power sources become widespread, you can do your part to use less electricity.  Shutting off the lights or the TV when you're not using them is an obvious solution, but there are other things you can do to use electricity more efficiently.  What might these be?

4. Waste Water?  No!

It's easy to think that the water coming out of the tap is limitless, but when you think about how little usable fresh water there is in the world compared to the salty water of the oceans, it can be pretty humbling.  As Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote of a stranded sailor's plight:  "Water, water everywhere.  Nor any drop to drink."  Some communities have tried to desalinize seawater, but most of us have to make do with using the limited supply of fresh water.  What can we do to use less water and how can we use some of the water we might have otherwise let flow into the sewers?

5. Compost!

How does your garden grow?  It used to be that a lot of us dumped laboratory manufactured chemicals dubbed "plant food" onto our flowers and vegetables.  But then we learned that these chemicals found their way into lakes and streams and caused algae to grow out of control, creating a stinky, slimy green mess that killed off fish and other aquatic life.  And besides, chemical plant food is expensive.  Compost is a lot better for your garden, easy to create, and essentially free!  Starbucks actually GIVES away old coffee grounds for compost.  What else can you use for compost and how can you create compost?

6. Green Eating

How did your dinner get to the table?  Until just about a century or two ago, most of us didn't go much farther than our own back yard to get most of what we needed to eat.  Practically everything we ate came from the family farm or from our neighbors' farms.  Recently, the development of refrigeration has allowed us to carry perishable food throughout the world.  While our menu is more diverse now than ever, this privilege comes with a price.  Vehicles used to ship food produce air pollution, and refrigeration expends non-renewable fuels.  Also, many natural sources of food, particularly fisheries, are being overexploited. How are some of the old ways of food distribution, like farmer's markets, coming back?  How are some types of fish being raised as livestock?

7. The Wind and the Sun

Fossil fuels.  They're dirty, unhealthy, and running out!  And yet we are still using them in vast quatities to run our cars, heat our houses, and give us electricity.  But we already know that there are better ways to obtain the heat and power we need.  Two of the best ways are wind and solar power.  Both of these will last until the sun burns out, which won't be for billions of years.  Both the sun and the wind can be used to create electricity, and the sun can also be used for heating buildings.  How have the wind and the sun been harnessed for heat and power?  What still needs to be done to develop wind and solar energy extraction?  How can wind and solar energy be used in your home?

8. Beat the Heat

There is more to conserving heat and heating fuel in the home than just turning down the thermostat.  Hot air is constantly escaping buildings to the outside and some methods of home heating are downright inefficient.  What can be done to keep more heat inside your home where it belongs?  What heating devices make the most of the heat that is produced?

9.  Use it again!

Bags, boxes, diapers, razors, plates, cups, utensils, etc.  Practically everything is dispensible these days.  It's convenient for us but bad for the earth when all of these dispensible items end up in the landfills and fail to decay for centuries.  Recycling is a good solution, but an even better alternative in many cases are items that can be reused such as cloth shopping bags and cloth diapers.  What other products do reusable alternatives to dispensible items exist?

10. Restore it!

One of the easiest and most direct ways to help the Earth is to give back to it.  Simply picking up trash on the street or in the park helps a lot.  Planting trees and gardens cuts down on atmospheric carbon dioxide, prevents soil erosion, and it looks nice too!  Sometimes, entire communities organize to clean up their neighborhoods and make them more beautiful, particularly on Earth Day.  What are some of the things that individuals and communities are doing for the environment. 

The Assignment

I have listed study questions related to the 10 methods described this presentation in Google Forms.  Each group should choose and answer one of these questions in detail by writing a group research paper and creating your own slide presentation with PowerPoint or Google Docs.  Each research paper/presentation should entered under its appropriate spot in Google Forms and make use of at least 3 information sources.  Research papers should be at least 5 double-spaced pages long and presentations should include at least 10 slides.  I have included some sources to start with in Google Books and Google News, but you can and should search for others.  Check Google Calendar for the timetable for this assignment and Knol for some exciting Earth Day facts.