Presentation Day

This week in SE class we will begin our first presentations. It is the first presentation day, so I will allow you to take a few minutes to touch up, fix, or put finishing touches on your visual material. Visual materials are very important for any presentation, so please have something to show during your presentation.

When presentations begin, we will make four groups randomly. Then, each group member will take turns giving your presentation. After everyone in each group presents, if we have time, we will change groups and continue a little.

We may go on to the textbook after we complete the presentations if there is time remaining. The next topic in our textbook is "Alternative Energy," is will focus on creating cleaner and more sustainable energy systems for the future. In this respect, alternative energy is a very important topic indeed. Of course, you know what that means: you have to design an alternative energy system yourselves!

Topic 2, Spring, 2018

Good day, students. Last week we completed our first pair and group presentation practice. I'd have to say that it went well considering it was the first try. I listened to most of you, and was able to hear quite a bit from both the girls' and boys' groups. I am thinking about having us do presentations in different formats for later in the class this semester as well. In the next semester, we will present often in front of the class.

In this week's class we will work on the next topic which we started briefly last week: the atmosphere. We all know how important the atmosphere is; without it we would not be able to breathe or live. It's amazing that this thing we can't see or touch (air) is something vitally important. When small particles contaminate the air, however, we can see the brown color, and this is what we call 'smog' in English. In the next class we will hopefully be able to finish sentences, move on to listening, and may even get to questions/answers.

At the end of this unit you will be putting your design skills to work again for the design and explanation of atmospheric and air cleaning machines. These are real machines that engineers and scientists have designed for this purpose. Yours will be equally important, so please make good designs!

That's all, see you in the next class.

First Design Project

In last week's class we finished the book portion of unit 1: What is Environmental Science? Your homework was to think about and try the first design: an environmental resource center (learning center). This center should be designed purely for environmental education purposes. It should contain various sections (as can be seen in the example) and offer interesting and useful information for visitors.

The homework was to start this design. In the first part of class this week, we will tweak and finish the designs. then we will have an opportunity to practice presentations in pairs, and then small groups. This week is the first presentation, so presentation points will be practiced. Later in the month we will create a larger version of your design (and sometimes will do it with a partner) to present in front of groups of the class. I will explain how to do this as time goes on.

After practice, we will probably go on to unit 2: The Atmosphere. We will do a short reading on the different parts of the atmosphere and the importance of the air we breathe. We hope to practice presentations on this week after next.

Please don't forget to bring all your books and notes to every class! If you forget your book, or neglect to do the homework, bookwork, designs, or don't take quizzes and tests, you grades will go down!

See you in next class and have a great evening!