March

March 3rd, 2021

After this midterm, I'm going to maintain the focus on the environmental impact. I've already analyzed the economic impacts in the past and the entire midterm was about researching and investigating the impacts dams had on the surrounding habitat and wildlife. I enjoyed preparing for the midterm which is why I'm similarly focusing on a different environmental impact this month but with a more current event. This brings me to this month's essential question, which is: To what extent has COVID affected our carbon footprint?

The resources I'll be using for this month are the SUPA databases, the GALE databases, as well as Google. I might use Google only initially in order to gain some more search terms I can use for the two databases but I might also use it at the end when I'm well-informed about my question and have more specific search terms. I worked really well with the GALE databases in the last investigation and it'd be good to continue working on my researching skills with scholarly articles. I didn't try the SUPA databases though, which is why I'm going to use them for this essential question.

My Essential Question: To what extent did COVID affect our carbon footprint?

5 Vital Subquestions

  1. What impact has the ban on/decrease in traveling with airplanes had on emissions and fossil fuels?

  2. How has staying at home changed our carbon footprint?

  3. How many environmental impacts as COVID had and why?

  4. If the effect COVID has was positive, should the circumstances (like the lockdowns, bans on traveling, bans on social gatherings, etc.) be replicated by the government in the future?

  5. Were these impacts long-term or short-term and why?