For the energy debates we were put into a group of four or six which would be preparing to go against three other groups on a subject of fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and renewable energy. To prepare for these debates we needed to learn about the pros and cons about the cost, environment, health effects, infrastructure, and the sustainability/longevity of the type of energy. When we are preparing we don't know if we are going to be either pro or con fossil fuels, nuclear, or renewable energy until we are sitting down in front of our component. All the information and research that we gained is all put into a document called the CER document which we would have on the day of the debates. I learned that although renewable energy is one of the cleanest energy in the world is releases a lot of carbon dioxide when building the wind turbines and the solar panels contains a rare metal that is found deep underground. Although renewable energy relies on how the climate is, Tesla recently created a battery to store all that energy for when the climate is not in favor, but those batteries are expensive and make it difficult for everyone to go 100% renewable energy. If you want to learn more look at my CER document below.
Academic and Life Skills
An academic skill I developed through this project was group work, communicating skills, and researching skills. I learned more about group work throughout this project because we all needed to distribute the same amount of work to everyone, but at some points it was very difficult because on person didn't really do anything. The way I over came this obstacle was by communicating with my partner and giving him ideas on what he should work on and making sure he was contributing to the group. My partner was able to find very useful facts for the CER document.
A Life skill I developed is being more careful in what I am doing in the world and if it releases a lot of carbon dioxide. Before the energy debates we took a quiz to see how much carbon dioxide we are realizing each year, the results I got was around 16,200 carbon dioxide and that is with skipping some questions since I didn't know the answer to. Now instead of going in a car to places that are not far away from my destination I would choose to walk.