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Writing and Rhetoric About the Environment

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Impact of Unclean Water on the Environment LINK TO INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT: https://www.instagram.com/uncleanwatermemes/

ABSTRACT
Our purpose for this project is to research and bring awareness about the deficiency of clean waters as well as the different causes of it around the world. We will be making a presentation that includes GIFs, as well as the modalities of text/language and short films that will bring to light the importance of water cleanliness. Our plan is to explicate the effects of unclean water and elaborate about the specific causes such as lead pipes, human waste, and pesticides. For our research methods, we will use business and environment-related articles that explore the negative effects poor water quality has on individuals and communities. We will also research by watching documentaries and taking small clips that will benefit our project’s topic. As we are not able to meet physically to film something, we will create our own GIFs by researching effective ones on the internet. GIFs are a great way of gripping the audience as its nature appeals to a wider demographic. They are funny and easy to consume. As we look through these effects, we can expect that consumption of unclean water will generally lead to lack of brain functionality, diseases like Typhoid, Cholera, Dysentery, and even death. In regards to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, the specific harmful effects were an increase in high blood pressure, kidney disease and infertility. Also, we realize that part of our project is to determine what causes communities to be exposed to unclean water and how the government is working to prevent this from happening. As we research deeper into the subject and the causes, we can find and expose certain businesses around the country that are the leading causes for unclean water and think of alternative ways of functioning.

Discussion Question: How realistic is it to end the global water crisis and what must governments do?

Samantha's Reflection
In my course expectations, I wrote that I wanted to learn more about the environment and how different changes of the environment can affect a person’s perspective and personality in multiple ways. I also expected to be exposed to many different inspirational perspectives as we analyze articles and share our thoughts. Throughout the course work and the creative project, I became more aware of numerous issues with the environment and gained an insight to how everyone around me felt about these issues in class. It was quite interesting to be exposed to many different opinions on current environmental concerns. I felt more engaged with the topic since they were all issues affecting today’s society, and I felt more motivation to agree or disagree with my peer’s responses. Also, working on the creative project was a very interesting and fun experience as I have never created a social media account for a presentation project before. However, in order to bring more awareness to the public, I thought that making a social media account was the best way that also fit with our main medium of short films.
Within my course expectations, I also wrote that I would like to improve my critical thinking and writing skills. I felt that I have improved in writing concisely and in a way that would best convey the message I wanted to deliver. I’ve learned this mostly through the poster assignment as we created multiple drafts of the abstract and practiced making it sound clear and concise. There are still many things I need to improve on, however, through this class I’ve gained insight on methods of how I can enhance my writing, as well as knowledge of environmental issues.
If I had more time, I would continue to work on the creative project since it has unlimited potential as a social media account and can only grow from here. I would improve it by mainly creating better quality meme posts, including useful and interesting information about unclean water issues, create and share more films, and try to expose it to more people. In an academic setting however, I do not feel too encouraged to share this work with an academic audience because it seems to be a bit uncommon to present with a social media account rather than with experimental data and articles.
The collaboration aspect of the project allowed more to be accomplished during this process. We gave each other insight on each other’s thoughts and ideas allowing us to catch and fix mistakes more easily. I felt that having a collaboration for this project really allowed us to think of creative ideas by sharing each other’s perspectives. Sometimes, it was a bit difficult to figure out a time to meet and it was challenging to make sure everyone was engaged and did their part. However, overall it was a fulfilling experience and I learned a lot about how to write for an academic, research setting and how to work as a group while making a way to bring awareness about environmental issues.

Khenny's Reflection
Over the course of the semester. I have enjoyed learning and engaging with the topics of the class. I believe that I have grown as a writer and thinker as we worked to develop our rhetorical writing skills. The ability to be persuasive in writing and speech is incredibly important and that is something that I focused on improving this semester.
If time allowed, I would continue to work on my project as the global water crisis is the number one reason for deaths and diseases around the world. Having lived internationally in countries such as India, I have seen this issue first hand and how it affects communities. It really makes you grateful for everything we are fortunate for and makes you want to help others. I would go beyond the instagram page and poster created to create even more awareness by perhaps working on a more comprehensive presentation that went more in depth and also by setting up a fundraising event. I think what my group did with the sharing of memes and GIFs was a first step in raising awareness; however it could definitely be taken to the next level. The topic of environmentalism and climate change in general is such a hot topic in today’s day in age that I was glad we got to spend an entire semester learning and discussing it. While being aware that climate change was prevalent, I never had a sense of urgency about it. After watching and reading about the various videos and articles pertained to climate change it has really given me a new perspective.
     I enjoy working on creative projects as it provokes me to think in a different way than I would if I were studying something out of a textbook so the opportunity to work both on a creative and scholarly piece of work in the class was enjoyable. Creating a concise and persuasive abstract is something I personally became more proficient in while working on the poster project.
     I believe there is still room for improvement and that the more I write the better I will become. I would like to work on writing pieces for articles related to news or current affairs as that interests me and would also benefit my skill set.
     After this class, I have developed a growing sense of motivation to fight against climate change harder and to take on a more active role in raising awareness for others and myself. In my day to day life I feel myself thinking about climate change more often than before. I am also a team player in that I value collaboration. I love to bounce ideas off of others and come to a conclusion that works best for the team. Working on a group project during COVID came with its challenges, but it taught me to be adaptable, which is a key strength. I am proud of the work we were able to produce not having met once in person rather only online. I will continue to hone my skills beyond this class as I will be using these skills in whatever work I find myself in.

Samith’s Reflection
After learning about the tragedies occurring in Flint, Michigan, I have gained a deeper understanding of the importance of clean water. I am thrilled that this class has given me and my group members the opportunity to learn different ways to inform communities about the importance of clean water. I'm excited to use rhetoric for any projects or assignments that I will receive in the future. If time allowed, I would be open to continuing work on our project because It would be interesting to manage a meme page. The short time we spent posting on the account was quite enjoyable, but sadly, I feel it wouldn't be possible to continue posting on the account due to how time consuming it would be to manage an active Instagram account that posts accurate and funny memes and GIFs daily or even weekly. The balance between creative and scholarly work was actually enjoyable. It was nice to be able to be serious about the topic and show some shocking facts while finding memes that were relatable and understandable to different audiences. I enjoyed presenting to both audiences but I felt it was easier to present to the scholarly work rather than the creative work because we could just follow the script and there was less room for error. After the completion of this class, I definitely have gained some more confidence when it comes to writing an effective project that uses each rhetorical skill. I do plan to use rhetoric in the future for any projects I pursue and I'm excited to show the skills I have picked up in this class to my future project partners. I felt like it was a possibility that I would engage with these communities academically because I saw some of my friends appear in the breakout rooms as judges and I considered following the same path in hopes to expand my knowledge on different science topics or to have something else to add to my resume. Collaboration definitely motivated me more to work harder on the project because I enjoyed working with my group mates. It was a lot easier to go through the project with them because whenever there was a problem, one of us had a solution. I felt my ability to work cooperatively in a group has improved thoroughly throughout the course of this project. I would like to continue to grow on my presentation skills because that was where I was most uncomfortable during the project. I also feel that having good presentation skills will benefit me any time in the future. Over all this whole project was a enjoyable learning process that I gained many rhetorical skills from.