Geology Project

The Science Toolkit teaches you how to recognize biased media. Your task this time around is to get creative. 1. Choose one item on the Fracking Scorecard (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.(Toxic chemicals, cement, earthquakes, water use, air pollution, oil & gas companies, global warming, or the advantages of natural gas). - I HAVE CHOSEN CEMENT! 2. Do some external web research so you can be an expert on that component. Make sure and cite your sources. 3. Create a media product such as a news article. You may be as creative as you like! (Doing a news article, shoot for a front-page story in the New York Times they have average length of 1200 words, which is 2-3 pages of regular text). You get a choice: - Option 1, Pretend you are an oil and gas company publicist trying to produce your own communications product that makes fracking look more safe. - Option 2, Pretend you write news stories for an environmental advocacy group and trying to produce your own communications product that makes fracking look as evil as possible. In either case, your task is to make write an article that is as biased as possible, but that doesn't LOOK biased. It should follow the checklist in the Science Toolkit. In that it should: 1. Appear to come from a credible source. 2. Give proper weight to the evidence. 3. Properly acknowledge scientific uncertainty but not overstate it. 4. Doesn't blow controversy out of proportion. 5. Give proper citations and describe how to find more info. 6. Provides strong evidence that backs up all the claims in the article. HERE IS A LINK TO THE SCIENCE TOOLKIT: https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/sciencetoolkit_02 Your product should deal very specifically with the one item on the fracking scorecard that you chose. It should not be a general look at all fracking. It should demonstrate that you really understand the issues at hand with that aspect of fracking safety. It should utilize resources beyond what has been presented to you in class. Here's an example of the types of things you could say in your submisison... Let's suppose you take the side of a cigarette company and want to convince readers that cigarettes are perfectly harmless. What should you write? - BAD: "Cigarettes are perfectly harmless. People have been smoking them for years. My great Aunt Zelda is 95 years old and she constantly reminds me, 'I smoke, I drink, and I gamble. And I'm still here.'" - BETTER: "'Our lab has been researching the effects of cigarettes on both lab animals and humans for more than three decades, and we have yet to see a correlation between illness and smoking' says Dr. Evilla of the Institute for Creative Cancer Studies." - BEST: "A recent peer reviewed article in the internationally published New Britain Journal of Medicine concluded that there is no correlation between illness and smoking. The findings by Dr. Evilla and his research lab at the Institute for Creative Cancer Studies are based on a 30 year study of lab animals and humans." Criteria To Complete this project: -Gives proper weight to evidence that backs up all the claims made. -Properly acknowledges scientific uncertainty but doesn't overstate it. -Gives proper citations and describes how you can find more information. -Presents the material in a creative and convincing manner -Work is complete