Fun with Geography: April 2010

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Unit 4 Long Term Project

In the interests of staying on track, we are going to do some project work while the essay process is underway.

See the project outline below.

Your Long Term Project for Unit 4 will be due Monday, May 17, 2010.

The marking rubric is available on the network in the Geography pick up folder. It is a word document appropriately named "powerpoint rubric."

Geography 20G - Unit 4: Long Term Project

Prepare a PowerPoint presentation that deals with a current urban development issue. Your presentation should be five to seven minutes in length and should:

· Clearly define and explain the issue you are addressing
· Present either through a “sell”/justify a position approach or clinically discuss several positions

You may use the site below to assist you in preparing your presentation.

http://www.actden.com/pp/

A presentation rubric will be added shortly.

Presentations will begin after a suitable work schedule has been arranged.

The following are potential topics. Others may be considered but must be approved by the instructor.

New Urbanism - What is it? What does it look like? Where is it taking place?

http://www.newurbanism.org/newurbanism/sitemap.html

Evaluate the proposal referred to as “Victory City”.

http://www.victorycities.com/

Evaluate the concepts put forth in “Sustainable Urban Design and Climate”.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/environ/design/design.shtml

Discuss strategies for Downtown revitalization.

http://www.emich.edu/public/geo/557book/dt.frameset.html

Examine and discuss efforts to reuse “Big Box” stores that are no longer in operation.

http://www.bigboxreuse.com/

Debate whether or not sports facilities assist positively in urban renewal.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0000300

http://www.naiop.org/foundation/ares07mixeduse.pdf

http://www.ualberta.ca/~bhumphre/papers/pfm2003.pdf

http://www.informedesign.umn.edu/Rs_detail.aspx?rsId=2265

Discuss various ideas for urban renewal.

http://www.creativecity.ca/resources/making-the-case/urban-renewal-1.html

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The Essay

Over the last number of days, you have written an in class essay and you have been working on the objectives for each part of the essay. Below is a summary of the class notes for this section:

The essay assignment typically comes in two forms -- a question or a directive.

for example:

What is the most important characteristic required to be successful in school? (question)

Discuss the most important characteristic required to be successful in school. (directive)

The most important thing to remember when writing the essay is to make sure you understand the question and answer the question directly.

Below you will find the objectives we discussed for the introductory paragraph (in order of importance - NOT appearance):

1. Answer the question (thesis statement)

2. List of supporting ideas (evidence which will serve to prove your thesis)

3. Introductory statement (this is the first sentence in your essay)

Next, you will find the objectives for the body paragraphs (in order of appearance):

1. Topic sentence (from your list of supporting ideas and relates to thesis)

2. Supporting details (logically prove why the thesis is true... between 5-7 sentences)

3. Transition sentence (make the connection from the present supporting idea/topic to the next supporting idea/topic)

You have all written an introductory paragraph, the first paragraph of the body, and a conclusion based on the in class essay you were assigned. All students were checked to ensure that each paper fulfilled the objectives above.

After successfully completing this task, you were assigned another in class essay. This particular assignment made use of the material in the textbook from Chapter 15. The essay question for this assignment was as follows:

How have past treaties failed to meet the needs of First Nations people?

Make sure you can identify which specific sentences accomplish each of the objectives outlined above for both the introductory paragraph and the body paragraph.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Oh Noooooo!

Test is Thursday! Don't let the test run you over. Study!!!!!!!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Global Warming - Reality or Fantasy?

You have seen both Al Gore's, "The Inconvenient Truth" and the program called "The Great Global Warming Swindle."

You now have two options for your next assignment:

Write an explanation of why global warming is a problem caused by man that requires the collective action of everyone to save the world.
Write an explanation of why global warming is a farce created by people who are against progress and are anti-business.

Be sure to support your answer with sources which you cite under APA style guidelines.

Your work should by approximately 800 words. You have the next two days to work on this assignment in the lab. The assignment will be due Monday, April 19, 2010.