Introduction

This is a core, self-graded, blog post activity.

You have a choice between (1) ways to reduce greenhouse gas emission at NVC, or (2) tracking your greenhouse emission contribution for four days.

Module Objectives Achieved

You will be able to…

MO 2.1 Recognize Earth systems. (5. #systems)

MO 2.2 Describe Earth systems. (5. #systems)

MO 2.3 Quantitatively evaluate Earth systems. (3. #quant; 5. #systems)

MO 2.4. Assess environmental challenges facing humans (6. #challenges)

MO 2.5. Use the vocabulary of env sci. in written communication (7. #vocab Course; 2. #commskills Core)

Task

1. Select one of the following scenarios.

Reduce Northwest Vista College’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Northwest Vista College has put together a committee of administrators, faculty, and students to recommend actions to reduce the college’s net emissions of greenhouse gases (both direct and indirect). As the principal student science advisor to the committee, you have been asked to develop a list of practical options that should be undertaken. What actions would you recommend for (1) implementation immediately, and which (2) more gradually (that is, progressively during the next 10 years)? Justify each of your recommendations.

OR

Tracking My Greenhouse Gas Emissions

For four days, make a list of your activities that result in emissions of carbon dioxide or methane to the atmosphere and (1) quantify those activities.* These should include direct emissions (for example, driving a vehicle) and indirect ones (as when trees must be harvested to provide you with paper, or when organic garbage is disposed into a landfill). (2) Estimate the percentage reduction in emissions that you think you could make without suffering an unacceptable degree of change in your lifestyle and articulate those.

2. Do the background research needed to clearly quantify your choices. Use authoritative references.

3. In your blog posting (this is basically a short paper) do these at a minimum:

Clearly define the problem.
Carry out your investigation.
Analyze and interpret your data.
Construct explanations and design solutions.
Develop an argument from evidence.
Use mathematical and computational thinking.
Communicate your information.

*Quantify basically means to use math and numbers as opposed to other peoples’ writing or your opinions. This can be done at a variety of levels. Here are some examples:

Levels of Carbon Dioxide Based on Driving Habits
-Low level: I drive a car to work that emits carbon dioxide (unacceptably low level, no math, no numbers).
-Low level: I drive a car to work 45 miles one way and gasoline has 8,887 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per gallon of gasoline consumed. (low level, no math, no reference to how you got 8,887 grams, besides, what American uses grams except drug dealers and doctors?)
-Higher level: I drive 450 miles per week and use 14 gallons of gasoline. That amounts to 276 lbs of carbon dioxide per week. (higher level because I did some basic math using my car’s gas mileage and the fact that 8,887 grams = 19.6 lbs according to the online converter I used.)
-Highest level (this is the level at which I expect everyone to be working): I drive 450 miles per week to work and commute 32 weeks of the calendar year for a total of 14,400 miles/year. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (n.d.1), my 2015 Kia Soul 1.6L, 4 cyl, Manual 6-spd car gets 30 mpg highway. So, that is 14,400 miles/30 mpg = 480 gallons of gasoline. If gasoline, when consumed, has 19.6 lbs of carbon dioxide (EPA, n.d.2), that equals 480 x 19.6 = 9,408 lbs of carbon dioxide annually. (This is the highest level because I did some math, showed the math, and showed everything I did to come up with the results, including where I got the numbers. [not because I figured a year rather than a week]).

Criteria

Your declarations page will have the following:

Blog post title: I used Activity 2.1 – Atmosphere as my blog title. And, the choice I made as the subtitle. (Example: Activity 2.1 – Atmosphere: Reduce Northwest Vista College’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions)

Level: Your work goes beyond just the textbook readings and Canvas readings/media. AND, I turned my work in on time.

Length: I wrote an investigation report of 500 to 1000 words.

Criteria: I used headers and sub-headers to clearly delineate these sections that I wrote about:

Problem
Investigation
Data Analysis and Interpretation
Explanations and Designing Solutions

Quantitative Thinking: I used high levels of quantification in my work.

Citations and References: I used in-text citations and complete matching references in my work.

References

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (n.d.1). Fueleconomy.gov: Find and compare cars. U.S. Department of Energy. Retrieved from https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.shtml

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (n.d.2). Greenhouse gases equivalencies calculator - Calculations and references. Energy and Environment. U.S. Department of Energy. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references

Note: (n.d.) is used in citations and references when there is no date. This is common on web pages. I put n.d.1 and n.d.2 because there are two EPA (n.d.) references. Without the 1 and the 2 you wouldn’t know which is which. Clear articulation is always needed in science writing.