One Project I worked on here at MSU was a group project in a climate science class to create an overview of two ways humans impact the climate on planet Earth. Then find three articles with reputable sources for both issues, and then provide an overview of the information in those sources individually, before providing an overview of the issue as a whole, and then create a visual model for both issues and an explanation of the model. The purpose of this project was to show our professor that we have an understanding of how human behavior impacts Earth systems and why it’s a problem.
Both issue overviews explained
Define the issue.
Explain why it is a problem.
Explain how it impacts local systems.
Explain how human behavior contributes to this issue
Explain how the issue relates to systems we learned in class.
The first issue we chose to discuss was deforestation. For this, we chose three articles that discussed deforestation and we wrote overviews of the information we found in the articles. The three articles we chose were.
Climate change article summary:
Climate change | Definition, Causes, Effects, & Facts | Britannica
NOAA Amazon Article Summary:
Deforestation, warming flip part of Amazon forest from carbon sink to source – NOAA Research
Deforestation article summary:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/deforestation
We then provided an overview of each article, before creating an overview of deforestation as a whole, and creating this model using a site called “Sage Modeler”
We then write another overview explaining the dynamics represented by the model.
The next issue we discussed was plastic in the ocean, where we included the following sources.
The world’s plastic pollution crisis, explained article summary:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/plastic-pollution
Plastic pollution in oceans and on land article summary:
https://www.britannica.com/science/plastic-pollution/Plastic-pollution-in-oceans-and-on-land
The true cost of plastic pollution: effects, impacts, and hopeful solutions article summary:
https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/stories/true-cost-plastic-pollution
Just like before, we wrote an overview of each article before reviewing the issue as a whole. We then created and explained this visual model, that we also create with “Sage Modeler.”
The final thing we did for this project was create a work cited page before turning it in.
Overall, this project helped us refine our ability to do research as well as comprehend scientific principles, and become more aware of how our actions impact the world around us.