Current Event Essay
Topics for the Current Event Essay might include:
Renewable/nonrenewable resources, energy resources, minerals, rocks, plate tectonics, earthquakes, earthquake prediction/forecasting/mitigation, Earth’s interior, volcanoes, volcanic eruption prediction/forecasting/mitigation, intraplate volcanism, deformation, faulting, mountain building, Isostacy, weathering & erosion, soil, soil conservation, landslides, surface water, groundwater, aquifers, flooding, deserts/desertification, glaciers, ice ages, geologic time, age of the Earth, relative age dating, radiometric age dating, extinction events, origin of Earth’s atmosphere, origin of Earth’s oceans, oceanic ridges, seafloor sediments, continental margins, deep ocean trenches, ocean waves/tides/currents, Earth’s seasons, greenhouse effect, ozone hole, albedo, humidity, clouds, precipitation, cloud seeding, fog, air pressure, wind, El Nino/La Nina, monsoons, air masses, weather fronts, thunderstorms, tornadoes, tornado prediction/forecasting/mitigation, hurricanes, hurricane prediction/forecasting/mitigation, sea level rise, ocean acidification, climate, or climate change.
Once you find a primary source article that you are interested in, search for at least one additional RELATED source article to add further support & details to your primary source.
Additional Information:
What is a Critique?
A book report only summarizes the article.
A critical essay is you explaining what you think of their data. For a 1000-word essay, the summary should only be about two paragraphs long.
The rest of the report should be your thoughts about the topic.
Analyze the pros and cons of the article.
Is the author presenting good science or just opinion? Is the author a recognized expert?
How could the article be improved?
What is Good Science?
The instructions above ask you to evaluate whether the article is ‘good science’.
Explain why. Start by asking yourself these questions:
Did they try and use the scientific method (Ch. 1)?
Did they support the conclusions with facts? Did they provide the facts or a reference to them?
If the answer is no to any of those basic questions, then it’s probably not good quality science, and you probably need to find at least 1 more supplemental article to add additional support to your essay.
