Solve A World Problem
Content
But how do you lower the demand of crude oil? Well, gas isn't the only thing that crude oil is used for. Crude oil is also used for plastic products and construction supplies. If we spend less money on these other crude oil products, the demand for crude oil products will lower, as well as the price of crude oil. Also, as gasoline prices are directly proportional with crude oil prices, the prices of gasoline would lower as well.
To get all of this information on crude oils and gas pricing, I rigorously read four articles for information on the subject, and took annotations on each paragraph, and copied multiple graphs. You can find them on the slideshow, but they are also included here. My annotations on the four articles, in a previous assignment, is also included in the page as well. There is also a summaries of the articles, and an overview of everything that I had learned.
I followed the engineering cycle fairly well in this project- we started with a problem that we had to solve, then we researched the problem (the bulk of the work, brainstormed solutions, designed a prototype, and made modifications to our work. We did this, our protype being the PSA of lowering crude oil demand and the modification being making that PSA into a observable, more interactive poster.
Evidence of Work/ Overview
Above is our slideshow, which was the bulk of our project, showing our research into the problem and our solution. We also made a poster, advertising our solution.
For this project, we had new groups to work with. My groupmates were Mason Alcorn, Caetano Lataliste, and Teddy Stafford. We were tasked with solving a world problem, which we had to choose. We chose rising gas prices, mainly at the choice of Teddy and Caetano. We chose this as our problem because currently, our gas prices have skyrocketed. This is especially a problem in California, where we live.
We researched three articles each and got enough on the problem of gas to find multiple solutions. Our three best solutions consisted of switching to energy-efficient vehicles, lowering the demand of crude oil, and repealing acts that limit oil supply and slow oil travel. We cut off the third option, because that wasn't something that any person could contribute to and something that you would need political power to pull off. We also cut off electric vehicles, because they tend to be very expensive and not something most people can easily buy. We ended up with choosing to lower the demand of crude oil.
I quickly made a slideshow with all of our researched information and the rest of my group made a poster advertising the poster through spending money on PJ pants and less money on products made with crude oil. In addition to the slideshow, I made flashcards for our group to assist them through the presentation. By the time the last day to work had rolled around, the PJ poster wasn't done because one of our groupmates was gone from school, so I finished the slideshow early to help work on the poster. By the time the day to present had rolled around, we had a complete project.
Reflection
In this project, I would say that I did a much better job of being a leader and taking charge, which was something that I had needed to work on since the second project I completed. I did this with coming up with the solution of our problem and doing our group slideshow entirely myself, as well as playing a big part in coming up with the idea for our poster and what we would advertise our solution as. I was also very productive and would take time out of the school day to work on our groups project. If I had to work on one thing for my project, it would probably be being more empathetic towards my groupmates. I can do this by being more acceptive about the amount of work my group does, even if it is a little.
The Six C's:
Character- I was kind to my groupmates the whole way through the project, even when they were not much help to complete the project
Cultural Competence- I was culturally respective while doing my project, without the solution nor my prototype being something harmful to a certain race's culture
Critical Thinking- I took charge with the critical thinking, choosing our group's solution with something that I thought was out of the box compared to what other students would have done.
Communication - I was very communicative with my group, communicating what work I would do and what work my groupmates should do to help out
Collaboration- I was a good collaborator, being respective of my groupmates' idea and integrating them into our solution and prototypes
Creativity- I was creative in this project, finding an out of the box solution and an even more out of the box modification of making a poster tied to PJ pants