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• 1 2020-12-11T18:56:32+00:00 The Dangers of Overpopulation and How They Affect the Human Race 13 By Christopher Hoile, Teddy Moore, Reilly O'Conner, and Noah Weinstein plain 2020-12-18T04:58:28+00:00

  ABSTRACT
  For our presentation, we are going to be talking about overpopulation and how it is affecting a variety of aspects of our society and our environment. To do this, we are going to be presenting in the form of a podcast. We all thought this would be the best form, as our mode of presentation is audio-focused. In order to get some multi-modality in the mix, we will be recording our podcast, as well as showing some photos in order to incorporate some visual-focused topics. For our podcast, we will each have a topic of discussion that we will be explaining to the best of our ability through our own opinions and factual research. In our podcast, we will be talking about a variety of issues related to overpopulation: food shortage, and other natural resources used up by overpopulation, how our massive carbon footprint is affecting our climate, how this many people in this condensed of a space is affecting other life forms, such as animals, plants, and other forms of wildlife, and how people are affected when it comes to a financial point of view. For example, how there aren't enough jobs in our economy for everyone to live care-free. 
  
  
  Reilly's Reflection
  If I had more time to work on this project, I would. I enjoy learning new information but the fact that this project educated me and will hopefully educate people about overpopulation and climate change to accurately convey the importance of these issues. As a group, we intended to spread awareness of these issues. We hope that people will reflect on the information they have been exposed to and react according to their beliefs. I found it challenging to tailor the information to our class setting and people attending the scholarly symposium. However, during researching information, I realized it would be better to sound as professional as possible to make sure any audience would recognize the information that I was presenting to be trusted and not falsified. Also, I unknowingly presented the projects differently in both settings. When I was in class I only included the most relevant information to ensure that the class would pay attention to everything I said instead of tuning me out after talking for so long. When I was in the academic symposium, I tried to include all the information that I researched because, in this setting, I thought it would better to seem more prepared with the amount of significant information concerning my group’s topis instead if too little. As I was researching the information for this project, compiling all the information, and deciding what to present I saw myself as a newly educated person about overpopulation trying to seem knowledgeable on the subject. In actuality, I knew very little about the topic but, with the research I did, I knew enough to feel confident about the information I would relay to the audience at Chapman and the people in the symposium. If I could engage with larger audiences and present information that I found interesting, I would consider this. Throughout the whole process leading up to the academic symposium, I found all the research interesting because the topic of overpopulation was new to me. I have learned a lot from my research, which has made me more aware of my environmental impact. Proceeding with this project, I strive to limit my carbon footprint while also trying to mitigate the carbon footprint of the people around me in the most polite ways possible. When I was working and collaborating with my group, we never ran into any issues and everything went as well as we had planned. Everybody was on top of their portion of the project. When we needed to come together at any point, everyone was up to date and ready to work together. Also, everyone in the group gave constructive criticism and acted on the suggestion of the other group members, and allowed for a collaborative project that everyone had a say. Throughout this process, I have grown in the ways of learning how to efficiently research and compose a presentation including significant information on a given topic. I have also learned how to productively interact with a group in a time-efficient manner. However, I would like to learn how to improve all of these components of presenting information in a group setting while also striving to learn more information that I do not know to be more versed about knowledge in general.

  
  
  Teddy’s Reflection
  Before going into the meat of my experience in this class, I just wanted to say this: before going into this class, I was fairly certain I had signed up for writing about comedy. This isn’t to say that I was upset about being in this class, it’s just to say that, over the course of this semester, I became pleasantly surprised about how much fun I would have venturing into new types of writing and stretching my viewpoint. I was also able to stretch my creative side by doing a podcast with my project partners, which is something I’ve always wanted to try out. During my high school days, podcasts and comedy specials always fascinated me, and being creative to a crowd was one of my bucket list items for my first semester in college. Unfortunately, COVID delayed those plans, but this class and project were able to light that spark up again. If I were to continue doing this podcast, I don’t know if I could have the knowledge about the environment to make it environmentally focused, but it would be nice to bring it up every once in a while to bring it back to it’s roots, but also to help my understanding of it along the way. Along the steps of this project, it definitely was weird trying to find my audience. In the beginning, I was just trying to think how I could make the podcast good just for my class, but in the long run, we had to make it not only factual, but entertaining for the big audience we had to present to at the end of this journey. Not only that, but we had to find a way to work around all not seeing each other in person, since COVID restricted that opportunity. Thankfully, that was another light at the end of this weird tunnel. This is because, after months of using Zoom as a format of both conversation and entertainment, it made the process not only easy for us, but easy for our audience to engage while watching. We got a great note in a small group that the Zoom format actually made people feel more in tuned with the conversation, and I’m glad some people feel that way. It’s always nice to hear good feedback on something you’ve worked hard on, and that, along with many other things, added on to my want to do more creative work outside of this class. To wrap this all up with a nice bow, a poignant note on all projects(in school or in life), is to find the right people. If I didn’t have a supportive teacher, helpful co-workers, and engaging classmates, I don’t think this project would have worked out well for my group, or any group in particular. This project and class have helped me grow in many ways that will outlive my college years, and I can’t wait to see what comes in the future. I know it’s helped me grow by showing me that my goals don’t have to stop because of obstacles, and no obstacle should stop any person from perusing dreams of their own.
   

  Christopher's Reflection
  If time permitted, I think that I would keep working on a Podcast. As an acting major, this is something that really excites me and makes me want to keep working on it. The day that we recorded the podcast was so much fun and it was great being able to see everyone’s different ideas and hear what we had all been working on separately. It was really interesting having to create the project for two separate audiences because I had only really listened to podcasts that were designed for the general public. Having to make sure that the podcast was intellectually stimulating while also down to Earth was a challenge but I think that as a group we worked really well together and ended up with a great final product that anyone could listen to. This project definitely challenged my idea of what kind of a scholar I was. I had no idea that we could create something like this as well as we did. I had always convinced myself that it was a lot of work to get a podcast up and running and yet we were able to get it done in a week or two which was incredible. I had no idea that I was able to be such a detailed writer and yet we were constantly blowing ourselves away with the quality of work we put in. In Chapman and out of Chapman I now feel far more confident in my abilities to contribute to a project like this while remaining intellectually stimulating through my work. This is very exciting as it makes me feel like I can work on more difficult work that can branch the realms of the general public and a scholarly audience. I can definitely see myself working on more projects like this in the future and am actually in the process of making a podcast with my roommates because of this project.
  
  The collaborative aspect of this project did have its own unique challenges but overall was helpful to have. There were multiple times where I felt as though I was being suffocated by all the work I had in various classes and my group mates were always understanding. It was also great because each one of us brought a different skill set to the work that allowed for our project to get done from a variety of viewpoints. This made it possible for our work to branch the different worlds of audiences and allowed it to be impactful to everyone who saw it rather than just actors or English majors. I grew a lot during this project, not only as a student but as a professional. This made me excited for future projects that I can apply these skills to like the podcast I am creating in my free time. I would like to continue getting better with writing. Since I am a dyslexic, this has always provided a challenge to my life but working on a podcast almost fully eliminated this. I didn’t have to write everything down which made the work so much more exciting and interesting for me. I am glad to have done this project and am looking forward to continuing growing as a person, student, and scholar.
  
  Noah's Reflection
  If time was allowed, I would continue working on the project for sure. The part that was the most fun was gathering the information and actually recording the podcast. If I was to continue to work on this project I would create more episodes with my group mates, most likely continuing the theme of the environment. I thought it was great being an author to two different audiences because it helped me grow in the way of thinking about how I want my work to be represented in front of each different audience. Both creating and presenting were different in each way because no two audiences are the same. I wouldn't say that I see myself differently as a writer, composer, or rhetorician, but I see myself as more capable of creating valuable projects such as the podcast. The podcast that I created turned out to be much better than I expected, and now I understand the creative process behind making a podcast as well. I also practiced the skill of presenting in this class as well and became much more comfortable in the role of presenter. I think that it was really neat to be a part of the scholar's symposium, but I do not think that I am especially encouraged to be a part of larger academic communities like this one. Not that it was a terrible experience, but nothing quite encouraged me to do it again. Collaboration definitely affected the process. Both my teammates and I are quite the procrastinators so, at the beginning of the process, it was hard to get any work done. Through time, my group encouraged each other to be more on top of our work, and in that sense, I grew. I worked through everything with my group, and they worked through everything with me. Because of the collaboration of this project, I was able to create something that I would not be able to create myself in the time given, with the quality it had. My groupmates and I bounced ideas off of each other and spread out work in order to create the best podcast possible to present to multiple audiences. Collaborating also helped the presentation process because it was never just one person present, we all shared little parts of the presentation collaboratively. I definitely grew in this class and I grew in more than one way. First off, as I said above I grew in the sense that I became a better group mate. As I said my group and I were not the most functioning group of students at the beginning of the creative project process, but as time moved, my group and I got more cohesive and our ideas became real. Communication between group mates is key and I definitely grew in that respect as well. Another way I grew was through presenting a lot in this class. Although it was on zoom, I still took my presentations seriously and I learned what information to add to the presentation, and what aspects to take away in order to create an engaging presentation for my audience. Sharing the right information in presentations is key because it is what keeps everyone engaged and interested in what you are saying. This makes the presentation experience more rewarding because it shows that people are interested in the work that was created. Similar to presenting, my skill in facilitating group discussions also got better. By the end of the class, I was able to easily facilitate a group discussion that would keep everyone engaged and interested in what other classmates and I had to say. Overall, this class has helped me develop many important skills by practicing them.