Grade Breakdown

Assigned readings are useful for understanding the topic at hand. Students will need to do this before the class period and answer a few questions to gauge understanding. Some assignments will have an in-class and at-home portion to complete.

Includes attendance and contribution to class conversation. One absence will not affect your grade, but please send me an email to let me know you will not be attending. Please be prepared to work in groups and present science-based opinions to the class. A common method to gauge attendance will be commenting on videos via Discussion Boards. Attendance and Participation are vital when we have presentations from classmates or visitors.

Two attempts each. Each quiz is worth approximately  6.67% of your final grade.

Each presentation is worth approximately 8.33%. These are group presentations, where you will discuss your beat with an overall update. You will be in a different 3-4 person group each time. See the Mini-Presentation guidelines →

Students will form groups of 2 (or 3 in some cases). Each group will choose an area in the world that has been impacted by energy sourcing and discuss how the local (and global, if appropriate) environment is affected — for example, a particular coal mine in a community and how it has negatively and positively impacted that area socially, economically, and environmentally. It is recommended that you pull from your “Beat Assignments” as you will be an expert on the topic by then. 

The group will prepare a presentation lasting about 6-8 minutes. The presentation can take any form — a PowerPoint or Google doc with recording, a play, an artistic rendering of a story, etc. Be as creative as you wish; just be sure the message comes through. More details will follow.