Pollution is not an Illusion.

It's finally our final action project for our Fuel class. I wasn't really a fan of this course so I am rather relieved. For our final action project we were asked to write an essay on how we can reduce our carbon footprint. In unit 3 we studied pollution and how we can reduce it and how we produce it. In the Fuel class itself we learned all about energy, pollution and how we use it. I thought this AP was rather boring as this is a STEAM class and we are writing an essay which seems like more of a humanities thing. I thought the subject was interesting though because it was something that was specific to each person and how they could reduce their individual footprints. I thought the most challenging part was just connecting the whole thing together. It was difficult to answer some of the things in the rubric. The most rewarding part was seeing the essay all laid out and pretty. (That's always my favorite part.)

KVDP, Deaths form air pollution, 2012, Wikemedia

Solar Panels: The Bright Future

For our 2nd unit in our Fuel class, we learned all about physics and energy. We did some experiments on potential energy and also played around with systems of equations and other math concepts. Fuel class itself is all about well, fuel and pollution, resources, and energy. I learned a lot of math concepts in this unit. Most of them weren't new, but I was glad I got a chance to review them again and feel more confident. For our 2nd Action Project, we were asked to pick a renewable resource and research it to try to sell it to a company looking to switch. We were to make a 2-3 minute infomercial about the resource, its advantages and disadvantages, its history, and most importantly; try to figure out how much it would cost by using functions and graphing. I am most proud of how the video came out. I have never used any video-recording software before, but I used Screencastify which was super easy to use. My video is about solar energy, and specifically why the superstore Wal-Mart switched to solar energy. In the end I think the most challenging part was calculating the functions because they were pretty rough estimates.

Solar Panels: The Bright Future! from CM on Vimeo.

Natural Gas: A Comparison Around the World

For our first unit of Fuel, we learned all about graphing, calculating slope, Point slope formula, the periodic table, chemistry, and much more. For our first action project we were asked to pick a nonrenewable resource (which we had studied) and make a slideshow comparing the U.S.'s usage to another country's usage. I chose Natural Gas. We had to make a graph showing consumption of our resource and calculate lines and where they intersect. We also had to research the molecular structure and the risks and dangers of using our resource. I really liked this project, I thought it was really nice how it covered all of the topics we learned about in class and tied everything together into one slideshow. I learned a lot about natural gas, of course, but I learned a lot about math. The thing I am most proud of is just finishing it on time, as I have been really overwhelmed lately. The thing I thought was the most challenging was not getting all the math confused with negative signs and just generally getting confused or messed up.