Standards redux

As I posted earlier, I was thankfully able to find a standard that emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of environmental science. My project addresses this by explaining the environmental nature of the local versus organic debate, and also the health, and economic nature of the debate. In order for environmental issues to be addressed, it is important for students to understand that other factors will also necessarily come into play.

Wishing: a natural byproduct of wondering

First: a link to my final product.

I think that every information inquiry project that pertains to something that I "wonder" about ends up with additional "wishes" which lead to further inquiry. Here are some of my wishes.

• I wish that there were real "answers" to the local versus organic question. There are many interesting avenues of thought, and they are of value, but I get the impression that when teaching to standards, lessons need to be a bit more concrete than this one.
• I wish that I had a bit more free time so that I could develop a final product that included more multi-media. I was able to include some in this blog, but not in my final product.
• I wish I had been able to find more technical data on my subject. I found many opinion pieces, and some of them included the data from some scientific studies, but I think that my project was missing the punch of hard data.

And to illustrate the circular nature of personal inquiry...

• I wonder if within a few years, more will be certain in this debate.
• I wonder if, as fossil fuels become increasingly expensive, more farming might become organic due to the scarcity or expense of pesticides and fertilizers.
• I wonder if I could live on a "100 mile diet" if I needed to do so.

I'm not certain that I was supposed to leave this assignment with as many questions as I brought to it, but that seems to be the way it has turned out.

The 8Ws served me well, and I appreciate that the model allows for the repeat of some steps if the information found initially leads to new questions and new directions. I found that after Wiggling and Weaving, I needed to revisit my topic formulation (wondering) and then so some more Webbing. Some of the other models seem a bit simplistic, such as the ISP model by Kuhlthau, which seems to go straight from information collection (stage 5) to search closure (stage 6). Adjustment for additional questioning doesn't take place until the final "reflection" stage. I would rather not begin anew once my project is finished!

Wrapping and Waving: the delivery of a product

It has been necessary for me to print a hard copy (sorry trees) of my research in order to process it and highlight the key information for inclusion in my final project. This is (for me) the most tedious part of the Inquiry process.

Once the final product is complete, I will post it, and my "Wishing" post here in my Inquiry blog. Wish me luck!

Another nice video clip to evaluate

Click To Play

Weaving and Wrapping: decisions about content delivery

It looks as if that diagram that I did was really part of the Weaving process. What it showed me is that I don't really have quite enough information to make a "wow" project. I've been looking for additional information, and I think I'm making good headway. My next step will be to add to my Inspire diagram and then decide what format to deliver my project in (Powerpoint, Webquest, MSWord document, or Pathfinder are options that come to mind)

These folk seem to be making something good happen. I'm not sure yet if I can use any of the information in my project, but I thought I'd post it here until I have time to review it in more detail.

Wondering redux

With a standard that is pretty wide open, and very little in my Inspire diagram, I think it's actually time to widen my focus a little. Rather than focus only on an "Earth Science" perspective, I think we can broaden into the economic and health issues that are involved in the "Local versus Organic" debate. So on that note - back to Webbing!

A little something about Standards

I'm not a teacher, and I'm not a school media specialist, so I don't really have a working background with standards. I'm not going to pretend that I'm a fan of this "standards" thing. It seems like every time somebody reinvents the wheel, more time is spent justifying a job through documentation and less time is spent actually doing the job. For many years I worked in a homeless shelter as a case manager, and that certainly become the case with that job over the years. Eventually I was spending so much time writing about what I was doing that I no longer had time to do everything that needed to be done. Where's the logic?

Now that I've vented - I was able to find a standard that I think my project addresses well. I'm using Indiana's high school standard for Environmental Science, Advanced. This standard can be downloaded as a pdf file from the Project 1 Links list at the right. It works well for my project because my project is somewhat interdisciplinary, and one of the goals of this standard is to show students the interdependence of science, math, and technology. More on addressing this standard later!

Wiggling: using and evaluating information

I have used a very simple Inspire diagram to organize some of the information that I have found on my topic so far. While I know it's pretty basic, this type of visual organization really helps me to stay focused on the direction in which I am proceeding.



If you click on the image a larger view will appear.

The "Wiggling" and "Weaving" steps are closely related. In the Eisenberg and Berkowitz Big 6 we see that these two steps are combined into one step called "Information Use" in which information is extracted from the total accumulated. In the "Information Use" step, a determination is made about which information is important.

Webbing: the quest for quality information

If I'm going to do my personal inquiry project on the local versus organic debate, it's time to start sifting though information.

First I have to figure out what I'm looking for. It seems to me that what I'm going to need are these main items:

1. What are the benefits of organic food?
2. What are the benefits of local food?
3. While it would be ideal to be able to purchase both, on balance which is most important ecologically speaking?

Results of initial web search:

I found these articles which looked like they might provide some good information.

16 Organic Apples and a Gallon of Gas by Christopher Wanjek
Chews Wisely by Samuel Fromartz
Eating Better Than Organic by John Cloud
Health Care Benefits Now Offered At The Supermarket? by Shane Heaton
Local or Organic? I'll Take Both by Wendy Pennybacker
Local food 'greener than organic' by BBC News
My Search For The Perfect Apple by John Cloud

I've decided to take some of the key points from these articles and make a diagram using Inspire to help me determine whether I have any holes in my content. More on that in my next post!

Wondering: Which to choose?

I think that my choice of topic should be determined at least in part by which topic I am able to form the most interesting and important questions about. I'm tending toward the topic of organic vs. local because I've been a proponent of organic produce for many years, but I have recently been hearing more about the importance of local produce, and in our area it is often not possible to meet both objectives at the same time. So which is most important?

Questions that would need to be addressed include: What are the advantages of organic produce? What are the advantages of buying local produce? (In this investigation we will focus on the advantages for the environment - kind of an "Earth Science" perspective) Are there any drawbacks of either local or organic? Can there be any realistic measure of environmental impact?

More on these later!

Watching: the development of possible topics

Since personal inquiry involves the exploration of a topic that is of personal interest, I thought I'd start by making a list of possible topics in this post. For this post I will simply put the possible topics in list format. I find each of these topics interesting, but would need to expand my knowledge in order to create a project on any of them.

• Buddhist precepts: maybe something pertaining to Samsara?
  
• Eating organic versus eating local: which is most important?
  
• U.S. Government: Democracy or not really?
• Labor Day: is it really just a day off for grilling?
  
• Climate Change: at hot time in the old town tonight
  

Test post

Just wanted to try a test post on the new personal inquiry blog. I haven't started thinking about topics yet, but at least now I have the blog set up so that I can circulate the address.