Environment
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Research Project Assignment
For your research project you will 1) choose a specific individual environmental situation to research, and get that topic approved, 2) learn as much as you can about that situation by reading, researching and listening to personal stories of those who have been affected, and then 3) produce a paper that describes that situation and analyzes it in terms of human rights norms. The paper will a) be addressed to your classmates, will b) describe that specific environmental situation for them and will c) describe how it stacks up when viewed through a human rights optic. So let’s look at this in steps: 1. PartnersYou can work on this project alone if you wish, but you may also decide it’s best to work in groups of two or three (not more than three). Learning about the situation you choose could entail quite a bit of time and work, so having some help with that portion of the project could be good. If you do choose to work with others, though, each person will still write their own individual paper to turn in. 2. Choosing a topicYour first step is to choose some environmental situation to study and analyze. It could be a pesticide spray situation, an industrial pollution situation, a smoke pollution situation, an indoor air contamination situation, something related to schools, to artificial fragrances, something related to agricultural practices or forestry, to clean surface water, to clean drinking water, about access to public spaces, something related to global climate change, etc etc. There’s a very wide range of environmental situations you could potentially choose to study. It should be a situation in which there has already been some environmental activism involved so you’re not starting completely from scratch. It should be a situation in which there are clear impacts on human persons, families and/or communities. The human impacts could be health related, personal, economic, societal, biological or any other kind of adverse impact that affects humans. Biological, health and economic impacts are the clearest and would work best for this assignment. You could also choose a situation (like global warming, for example) that risks causing overall general degradation of the habitable environment which thus could potentially impact human living conditions. Whatever topic you choose it will be best if it is a situation where the impacts on humans are obvious, egregious and documentable. If there is research about adverse impacts in the peer reviewed literature, all the better. Large scale insecticide and/or herbicide applications would be examples, especially if the pesticides are applied aerially or are liberally broadcast in public spaces. Industrial emissions would be another example, especially if on a large scale and/or if the emissions disproportionately impact low income, minority or disadvantaged populations. Burning of woody biomass, a newly emerging technology for producing electrical energy, produces air emissions (particulates and gases) that can have significant documentable health impacts. The situation you choose does need to have clear adverse impacts on humans, though, because the human rights standards, norms and documents that you will bring to bear on the situation are themselves directly related to humans. It would also make the human rights issues more starkly clear if there were corporate interests directly profiting from the situation, or benefiting in some way from state actions or from a state's failure to act. The situation you choose could be geographically near you (which would save you time, but might limit your choices), or some distance away from you. It could be a currently ongoing situation (which may make it easier to find activists and other parties to talk to), or a past situation. You could get ideas for topics by talking to someone at one of the environmental organizations in your area (such as the Washington Toxics Coalition in Seattle, for example), or by contacting one of the national or international environmental organizations, of which there are hundreds – Pesticide Action Network is one, for example, that has offices all around the world – and speaking to someone there. They would be able to suggest possible situations of concern that you could become involved in. 3. Getting your topic approvedYou’ll need to get your topic approved by Tuesday afternoon of week three. N.B.: The approval process often takes several back and forth emails, which means it can take several days or a week, sometimes longer, before a topic finally gets approved. You'll want to start the process asap so you can be sure to make the deadline. You can expect me to reply to emails within 24-36 hours (sometimes sooner, but not always) so you’ll want to start early. The way you get your research topic approved is to send an email -- send it to my regular email address, rather than sending it inside the Angel system -- with five items on it:
4. ResearchThe first thing you’ll want to do is talk to people, preferably leaders, who have been actively involved in the situation you’ve chosen, and get suggestions for how best to research that situation. They should be able to suggest books, journal articles, reports, studies, official government or industry documents, websites, etc. You’ll want to rely on materials that are as authoritative and credible as possible. In most situations there will be individuals, families or communities that have been or will be affected by the situation. Personal accounts, whether written or recorded, of how individuals and families have been adversely affected do constitute evidence and do count as research, so you will want to collect some of those personal narratives if possible. 5. Human Rights researchIt will also be necessary to research human rights documents that you believe may be relevant to the environmental situation you’ve chosen. You will be reading some of those documents as part of regular assignments for this class, but you may find it useful to explore a little further than that. Access to most relevant human rights documents can be found on the Human Rights Documents page of the Environment and Human Rights Advisory website. 6. Your paperYour paper should be clearly and simply written and should be well documented. That means it should be based on research, should be footnoted (using any of the standard citation formats), and there should be a bibliography. The final paper will be posted into the Research Projects forum in the classroom. In addition:
If you are working with other students on your project, each person will need to write their own individual paper. 7. Project Self EvaluationFinally, after you have completed your paper and presented it to the class you will need to complete a Self Evaluation of your research project. That Project SE Form should be completed and submitted within a week or so of turning in your paper, and definitely no later than the final day of class.
You will definitely want to get these assignments completed on time – both getting your topic approved by Tuesday afternoon in week three, and posting the completed project paper by the deadline – because there are onerous consequences to one's grade if any part of this assignment is completed after the deadlines. Click here to see information about the odious consequences for lateness I hope your research becomes an interesting and learningful (?) project for you.
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