Wednesday, April 2nd

Learning Goals:

• Critically discuss the arguments outlined in "Bakken Business" and determine if you think drilling in the Bakken is progress.

• Begin to understand the field of environmental ethics

Starter:1. ***Get out your "Bakken Business" readings for me to check annotations***
2. Discuss with a partner: 

Partner A: What is your understanding of the project at this point?  Summarize your idea in as much detail as you can summon as if you were explaining this project to potential donors to our school.   
Partner B: Fill in the gaps. Add details about the project your partner neglected.  Use the project overview document and/or the white board on the side wall to assist.

AGENDA
1. Finish Stations activity from yesterday

2a. Get out your copy of "Bakken Business" and complete Question #1 on this handout with a partner.

2b. Whole class Discussion of homework assignment "Bakken Business": 
BIG QUESTION: Is the oil extraction in the Bakken progress?

3. Read the first page of the ppt note-taking form and follow the directions to complete page 1. (You'll need to DOWNLOAD this form if you're taking notes electronically)

4 Ashley’s ppt lecture “Introduction to Environmental Ethics”

5. Introduction to homework reading: "The Land Ethic" by Aldo Leopold, vocab overview + discussion questions

Homework:
Read and annotate "The Land Ethic" by Friday
QUIZ Heads Up! (Tuesday of  next week)


IMPORTANT DETAILS ABOUT BURNING NATURAL GAS (as mentioned in "Bakken Business")
NEW TOWN, N.D. — Across western North Dakota, hundreds of fires rise above fields of wheat and sunflowers and bales of hay. At night, they illuminate the prairie skies like giant fireflies.
They are not wildfires caused by lightning strikes or other acts of nature, but the deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rushing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field and take advantage of the high price of crude. The gas bubbles up alongside the far more valuable oil, and with less economic incentive to capture it, the drillers treat the gas as waste and simply burn it.

Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.

The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.

All told, 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the practice is still common in countries like Russia, Nigeria and Iran.


Honors Book Club Lunch Meeting Agenda:
Go over THIS helpful packet of reminders and resources
* Reminders on Book Club requirements and where resources are located
*Half the Sky content is tough!

Deadlines
* Project Proposal due April, 25th
* Half the Sky seminar is on Friday, May 16th
*Seminar is due by midnight on Thursday, May 15th (emailed to Ashley) or you CANNOT participate in the seminar and will be stripped of your honors credit!
* Half the Sky project with the rubric and any necessary artist statement or reflection attached due on Tuesday, May 20th