April 21st, 2021
Unfortunately, the symposium is coming up. That means this year is sadly nearing an end, and I'll also have to get incredibly stressed while writing this final speech that'll end this year-long research. I'm dreading the second thing more than the first thing honestly. However, I'm pretty excited about my big idea for the speech: overconsumption.
As a reminder from my previous post, one of my lingering questions was about the overconsumption that occurs in the US. I have more of a personal connection to this topic because I hate generating useless waste, and it's something developed countries are an expert at doing. For example, food gets treated as an expendable commodity that gets thrown out if it's not eaten. Plastic containers, masks, and electronic items get treated the same way and generate a lot of litter, leading to increased water and land pollution. This is how this speech would connect to my year-long investigation. I've focused on the environmental impacts that certain things (like dams and COVID-19) have had for the past two SDAs so I don't think it'd be a bad idea to keep that pattern, but maybe bring more of a personal stance on it (not that the past SDAs didn't have it, it just wasn't made obvious in the final projects).
While the format isn't new to the audience, the topic I'm exploring definitely is (when considering what I've researched so far this year). I hope they won't find a summary of my idea in a Google search. Anything is possible if they really scour the internet but I won't be relying on solely one source so they shouldn't be able to just find the focus of my speech anywhere on the internet. I also believe that this is an interesting idea, more than my previous ideas. Overconsumption has the potential to have a more intimate connection with the audience because it's something we humans do: consume and sometimes overconsume. Bringing this issue more to light would be intriguing.
I think the best way to hook my audience in this speech is to convince them that this is a problem they're involved in. It's not like my speech is about dams, where it's a lot harder that they're directly involved with constructing/supervising dams, or about COVID-19, where they might not be scientists or government officials creating the policies to keep people safe. My speech will be more about the everyday habits that individuals, like them, partake in and how to maybe become more eco-aware or eco-friendly with these habits of consumption. I'll definitely work on how I'll hook the audience though.