During this project, we were given about two weeks to design a possible way to solve a world problem. My group chose ocean acidification. One of the specific facets that I researched was the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. We organized our time in a Gantt chart, and practiced annotating text in class. We found reliable sites (e.g. .edu, .gov, etc.) and found relevant articles to research. The solution we ended up designing a prototype for was using iron-rich minerals — such as olivine — to absorb large quantities of carbon emissions that have been absorbed by the ocean. I believe this idea was originally propounded by the New York Times. However, we didn't have any olivine, so we substituted calcium oxide and demonstrated its affect on 75-grams of bromothymol blue after applying carbon dioxide. This caused it to turn from yellow back to blue. The problem with actually using calcium oxide is that it can be harmful if it comes into contact with living tissue and/or is ingested. Also, after absorbing carbon dioxide, calcium oxide turns to calcite which could also be ingested by marine life. Our presentation is somewhat repetitive because we attempted to divide and conquer — so to speak. Also, we tried to adhere to the Three-By-Five rule.

The blue bars are the original pH levels, the red are the pH levels after applying carbon dioxide and the yellow, after adding calcium oxide.

During this project, I feel that I did a good job thinking critically and maintaining appropriate character. I thought critically when helping convert our slides to adhere to the Three-By-Five rule, and also by researching minerals that we actually had that we could substitute for olivine in the presentation of our prototype. I also feel like a maintained appropriate character well by doing my best to be productive and stay on task — although, naturally, some goofing off was inevitable.

In the future, I believe I could do a better job being culturally competent, and creative. During this project, I was barely culturally competent; I did try to find some solutions to specifically help inhibit future bleaching events of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, however the solution we used is such a massive task that global help will be necessary to evenly distribute minerals so as not to poison marine life. We did not really look into how this solution is being — or could be — implemented around the world. We probably should have. During this project, I think that I was not very creative because my group ended up using an idea that had already been propounded. I did brainstorm several good ideas, but, since we didn't use them, they don't count. Also, our prototype would not have been possible at all without Ms. Vogl's help. If that were the case, our presentation would just be an abundance of information, which would have made it tedious to follow.