The objective of the research report for this course is to develop in students an appreciation of the need for transparent, accountable and sustainable decision-making by any and all individuals, communities, public and private agencies, governments and corporations. By applying the two analytical ‘tools’ described in the first half of the course — Franklin’s concept of redemptive technology and the ecological calculations associated with the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) — students are expected to critically assess a technology or practice of their choice that has been or is being developed and/or adopted as a response to one of Canada’s many environmental challenges. The expectation is that your research effort into the nature of a specific technology or practice will be as thorough as possible an application of these two methodologies, given the available information, and will allow for an informed opinion as to the merits of both the technology itself and the utility of the tools you have applied to support your conclusions.
These two ‘tools’ students will be applying are very information-dependent and, arguably, are absolutely necessary for making informed and responsible decisions about the development, utility and adoption of any new technologies. The decisions we have to make as a country about how to respond to climate disruption, the over-harvesting of our natural resources, choosing between economic and ecological growth, and the push for greener and more sustainable technologies, are all many and varied, often promoted for political and idealogical reasons, with less emphasis on the actual efficacy of or necessity for effective technological innovation.
So your jobs are to do just that. Examine a technology or practice in order to demonstrate (1) the quality and quantity of available information (indicating the relative level of transparency); (2) whether it should be developed or adopted as a result (by incorporating the ecological decision-making tools); and assessing whether there is the commitment and opportunity to monitor the technology or practice over time in order to ensure its positive contributon to sustainable development, allowing for some form of adapive or flexible decison-making into the future.
With all of the above in mind, I would like students to read over and view a few examples of critiques of some well promoted and/or villianized technologies and practices. We will discuss these examples during our first two or three Zoom sessions:
The first critique is Mark Mills’ 2020 report “MINES, MINERALS, AND “GREEN” ENERGY: A REALITY CHECK”, from The Manhattan Institute in the US. This is a report on the oil and gas industry sponsored by Alberta’s Provinicial Government which argues in part that there is ‘poor’ science associated with the contribution of oil and gas to climate disruption. You don’t need to read the whole report, but please make note of some of the examples of the evidence they offer to support their arguments.
A second example is an article on Lithium mining from BBC News.
The third is a film produced by Michael Moore titled “Planet of the Humans” that can be rented from Youtube for $4.99C. If you can find a free site, please share. Appreciate this film for its critique of the relative sustainability of renewable energy systems and the rhetoric associated with their promotion by various environmental groups as necessary alternatives to fossil fuels. You should watch this entire film. It is well worth while and resulted in a lot of push back from the ‘environmental’ movement.
This major report can be an individual or small group effort (but no more than three students).
Students will be responsible for applying the TWO tools listed above and described on the course outline. All reports must include an introduction to both the technology or practice under study and a brief description of how the two analytical tools will be applied for the analysis of the technology or practice. The reports will be judged according to how well the tools are understood and applied in the report; the research and writing efforts; and the number of students contributing to the report. There must also be a conclusion which (1) summarizes the positive and negative characteristics of the technology or practice relative to the environmental issue it is intended to address; (2) makes an informed recommendation about whether the technology or practice should be adopted, developed or discarded; and (3) critically assesses the utility of applying the combination of tool used to make these decisions in the first place.
Choose any one of the following broad topic areas:
…and check out Bloomberg Green’s latest ‘green technology’ news
* Any natural resource extractive or processing activity (oil, coal, minerals, esp. gold, copper and uranium)
* Carbon neutralizing technologies (including carbon sequestering, carbon trading)
* Renewable energy systems
* The Petrochemical industry
* Communications technology (cell phones, computers, internet cabling, etc.)
* Industrial agriculture (hog, cattle, chickens, field crops)
* Ecological farming
* Hard rock (open pit) mining
* Waste management technologies
* Urban sustainability technologies or practices
* Building construction
* Bio-engineering and genetic modification
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The final submission MUST include a complete and well formatted bibliography that reflects both your research efforts and the analytical tools you have employed. Reports must reference all secondary information adequately and appropriately to a well formatted bibliography or risk a grade of ‘0’.
Each student or small student group (no more than three people per report) can select whatever topic they want to explore from the above choices.
Possible formats and suggested lengths for the major report can include…
– report-style – individual approx. 2000 to 2500 words; 2 students approx. 2500 to 3000 words; 3 students approx. 3000 to 3500 words;
– powerpoint or keynote – individual approx. 20 slides; 2 students approx. 25 to 30 slides; 3 students approx. 30 to 35 slides;
– website – individual approx. 1500 to 2000 words; 2 students approx. 2500 words; 3 students approx. 3000 words with an easily navigable and well illustrated design.
HERE ARE TWO EXAMPLES OF SOME SUCCESSFUL POWERPOINT FORMATTED COURSE PROJECTS converted to .pdfs for easy access. Note the text-rich slides along with images and bullet-point slides.
PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY:
The method of submission of the course projects is through the D2L course shell —> assessments —> assignments —> CGEO 702 Term Project and submit! Once graded, you will be able to see your evaluation via D2L as well.
…for websites, upload to the D2L course shell a .docx title page with the course name, your name(s), student number(s) and the website address to the D2L course shell —> assessments —> assignments —> CGEO 702 Term Project and submit! Once graded, you will be able to see your evaluation on the title page document via D2L as well.
All projects must have a title page with all student names and student numbers and course ID. Websites must remain online until the end of the Winter 2022 examination period.
REPORT GRADING RUBRIC out of the 40 marks:
5 marks – description of the technology or practice being examined and reason(s) for choosing the decision-making approach(es) or tool(s) being applied in the report.
5 marks – the quality of the research that supports the analysis of the technology or practice. This includes the variety and substantive nature of your research resources.
20 marks – an in depth assessment of the technology or practice demonstrating a sound understanding of the how and whyof applying the decision-making tools that will determine your report’s conclusions.
10 marks – a well argued rational for determining whether the technology or practice should be developed and/or adopted and any other relevant recommendations such as the utility of these decison-making approaches.
Remember that marks will be deducted from the final assessment of the reports for grammatical and spelling errors, sloppy or inappropriate report design, and incorrect or inadequate referencing and bibliographic formatting.
MAJOR considerations for the different submission formats:
For Powerpoint or Keynote – there must be absolutely no content in the ‘notes’ section; there should be a combination of text-rich and point-form slides and images, and ascribe to all of the same referencing requirements as any written report.
For Websites – once the URL has been submitted for evaluation, there must be no further edits to the submission and the site must be easily navigable and ascribe to all of the same requirements as any written report.
For all report formats – all figures (maps, images, charts) should be included in the body of the report (not placed in an appendix at the end) and introduced and referred to appropriately in your narrative.
Writing your report in general:
…..refer to any of the following Style Guides – APA; MLA; and Chicago
…..all essay content that is not your own opinion or your personal observations (that is, all secondary information sources) MUST be sourced in your essay to a bibliography using the same format style as your in-text referencing;
…..try not to include more than two or three (at most) direct citations. The report must be largely written in your own words;
…..and images, charts and maps in your essay must be sequentially numbered (Figure 1, 2…n) and sourced using the same format as you would for your direct citations;
…..DO NOT number the pages of your report or include a table of contents or an abstract;
…..DO include a title page and a complete and properly formatted bibliography;
…..DO proof your report thoroughly for spelling, grammatical, sentence structure and referencing errors before submitting it for evaluation.
…..and if you are working with a small group of students, please email only ONE submission per group effort.
GENERAL COURSE POLICIES
It is the responsibility of the student to submit all work in a timely enough manner so that all deadlines are met and that any submissions, attachments or emails, are both openable and readable. You can do this by checking your ‘sent’ folder in your email application, opening it and ensuring that your files have indeed been sent and are readable. Any submissions that cannot be opened will receive late penalties until the instructor receives a submission that can be evaluated.
Any work submitted for grading must conform to a recognized referencing and bibliographic format such as APA and MLA. The final written content will be judged according to the quality of (a) the research effort; (b) writing, referencing and presentation styles; and (c) the general content and organization of your essay (including the coherency, breadth and originality of your discussion and conclusions) and, of course, the relevance of your report to the topic.
Ensure that all requirements of the project are satisfied as detailed in the project outline and during class discussions and workshop sessions.
Always include at the beginning of your essay a title page with your name, student number, course number and title, instructor’s name and the title of your project.
Any essay that is plagiarized in ANY way or not referenced adequately will be given a grade of ‘0’ and NO re-submissions will be allowed. It is the responsibility of students to acquaint themselves with what constitutes plagiarism, and what are appropriate bibliographic and referencing formats.
To help students in these areas, please read the course and Ryerson policies included on the electronic copy of your course outline and refer to the course website outline for links to Ryerson’s plagiarism policy and Ryerson’s Writing Centre. We will also be discussing many of these issues during the one hour workshop sessions.
