The ANWR project to me was a very helpful project informing us more about the world and our natural resources. Oil in our country is one of the top products we need to survive everyday whether we are using it for our cars, or in our homes. Knowing more about how we drill for oil in Alaska and how it affects the wildlife and environment is to me a little disturbing. About a month ago I was watching the news and they showed that there was a huge oil spill in ANWR. This project also informed me more on how the government feels about ANWR and what political figures support drilling in ANWR or impose it. To me this project will also help me later in college for debating issues concerning the government, and the environment. All in all this was a great project helping in many ways. This will be very useful project for reference in the future.

This project was possibly my favorite project during my school career, not because of the subject; I did care about the subject but I wasn't high on my agenda, the subject was somewhat far from home and not the most interesting thing in the world. The real fun and interesting thing was the format and open structure. The way that it was given to us was really good because we got to choose everything form the topic to whose side we were on. The freedom mainly made us do this: research topic given to us by the teacher, decide our point of view, then figure out a media to convoy the info to those were presenting to, then create the media from all our research, and finally present the project to the class hopefully showing them what you wanted to see. Though some struggled thorough these types of projects, but I like the freedom to do what I want to do because with that freedom I am able to explore the more creative side of the projects. The rules that are put in place usually only squander the creativeness and freedom, with an open ended activity such as this when we choose our own groups and choose our sides I think that we are more inspired and determined to work because we can get more evolved. I believe that this type of project should be a staple for all of classes and should be the main project type for the whole district.

For the ANWR project, my group and I spent about 65% of the time researching the facts. We decided that instead of choosing one side to present, we'd split the presentation. Half (of the group) would present the pros of drilling and the other half would present the cons of drilling. We then split the research. The group members presenting the pros side researched on Pro-ANWR websites and the group members presenting the cons side researched on Anti-ANWR websites.

I was part of the group who presented the pros, although, personally, I'm leaning towards not drilling. I found that the amount that the amount of pro-sites were basically equal to the amount of anti-ANWR sites, Finding information was relatively easy. I found a speech written by a woman who's family had lived in Alaska for years, so she was basically a Native Alaskan. She stated that she, along with the people in her village, supported drilling because it would bring value to the area in which they lived. Along with the speech, I also found a Top Ten Reasons to Support ANWR page. Included with that is 1. Only 8% of Alaska would be considered for exploration, 3. Many jobs would be created, 7. Imported oil is too expensive, and 10. More than 75% of Alaskans support it.

The final process of the project was putting it together for a presentation. Our group created a split poster, half pros, half cons, and then we presented it, showing both negative and positive sides to drilling in ANWR.

During this ANWR project we weren't given a rubric at first therefore it was difficult to start out. I'm used to always getting a format of the things the teacher wanted with how many power point slides, what specific data to research, and how to some about putting in all together.

We were given an extremely long time got researching , which was fine, but I think we needed more group time to share our data so we can start to think of how we wanted to present it. If we were given a rubric sooner the understanding of the project would have been easier.

I liked how we were given enough time for this project because there was a ton of data having it to be confusing to put together, therefore time was an important factor. Working independently was new for me, but having that much freedom on where and what to do with this project made me see that even though it was a group project, I couldn't fully rely on anyone else. This gave me a glance of how project in the future at college would be like, since giving all of these rubrics wouldn't be a number one thing.

Overall, the topic was decent and related to our studies perfectly. Maybe if the groups were smaller, we could have seen more of the thoughts of what others have felt about ANWR's drilling in Alaska.

This project was different from all other projects I've done in the past, in the sense that we weren't given exact directions to go by. We were given the freedom to research whatever aspect of the ANWR controversy we felt drawn to. One problem with research though, is that we were given way too much time. I think we spent over a week in the computer lab researching for this project. Most of us were slacking off by the second day because we already had most of what we needed. We only needed 2 or 3 days to research.

One of the best skills we learned from this project was how to organize all of the information we found into an interesting and enlightening presentation. Between five people we found a huge volume and variety of information. We boiled it down to get the most important and fascinating facts.

We also learned excellent group working skills. We separated different aspects of ANWR between the five of us, each having a slide to talk about in the Power Point presentation. It was great trying to work with each other to come to a compromise.

There were two main problems there were with this project. First, we were given no directions, but then were given a rubric on what exactly we had to talk about two days before we were supposed to give our practice speech. My group had to completely change our speech around. The second was that each group talked about the same thing. The presentations weren't informative to us, because we had already learned everything through our own research. It was rather a pointless project in that sense.

There were many pros and cons to this ANWR project that would leave me to give it a moderate evaluation. Things could have been a lot better.

With the ANWR project, I really enjoyed working with the people in my group. It was very helpful to pick my own partners because I know who I work with better. We all got along very well and got done what we needed to get done. It was also very helpful that we got a lot of class time to work on this project. That meant that we didn't have to make time to see our partners outside of class. Making it purely in class, meant that we didn't get the feeling that I was being rushed. I really liked that the teacher didn't tell us exactly what she wanted done. That gave us a chance to be self-directed learners. This skill is necessary for us to have once we proceed into the future. A lot of other projects that I've done in other classes weren't nearly as helpful. My other teachers would give me a complete outline of what they wanted on the project, which didn't give me much room to expand my ideas. Overall, I really enjoyed the way the project went and how my group's presentation turned out. The teacher gave us the room we needed to learn on our own and learn how to work with our peers.

I think that the ANWR project was okay. If the group that you were put in works well together and follows through, than very little guidelines would be well fit for this group. If the group that you were put in doesn't work well together and doesn't seem to follow through, than it might be hard for that group to be self-directed. Personally, I think this project was alright because my group worked well in some areas and worse in others. I think this project forced me to become a more independent worker. I had to research the information that my group chose to find.

Altogether this project was less structured. We weren't given any guidelines whatsoever except to help our teacher come up with a rubric and when to go to the computer lab / library to research. This project was very open ended which was good, but bad also because I think it would be harder for the teacher to grade. If there are no "outlines" for the project, than how could someone do that bad on the project? I know that some students got horrible grades and yet they tried.

I liked this project to a certain point. It just got too old because we got so many days to work on it. I like a more structured project with due dates and deadlines. It helps me finish things more proficiently.

When my class studied ANWR, I was very interested and eager to share my opinion. My group thought that oil drilling in ANWR was wrong, but we also presented both sides. I thought that researching on both sides was a good thing to do because you know more about the situation. I also think that studying ANWR is good for weather and environment students because it's a learning experience, students should know what 's going on in the environment and I think ANWR is perfect to learn about. To most teenagers, oil drilling may not seem that important to them, but I was really surprised when my class studied oil drilling because we were all interested in it. I liked the way teacher handled the project because she gave us something to research with some resources, and then we had to find the info and answers on our own. I thought that was a good way to get us students to do an actual project. On other projects, there are many tasks you have to complete, but in this one, we all did it in our own way. Overall, I enjoyed studying ANWR; it was a great learning experience.

When I first stepped into my weather class I had no idea what I was doing. So ANWR being my first project, and a big one for that fact, I had no clue what was going on. We had a lot of time to research ANWR which I thought helped me out a lot, but since it was a group project I thought that we needed more time to get together to figure out what was going on. Since I knew nothing about this subject nor was anywhere near interested in it, it was hard for me to understand the information I was taking in. I like the fact that we got to choose who would be in groups, I also liked that we got a lot of time in the computer room to do research and the power point. The power point was a good way to present the project, it helps everyone see what you are talking about and see pictures to elaborate the presentation. The thing that I did not like about the power point is that I think there were too many people in the group so not everyone got a chance to put their ideas on it. Maybe if some group members work on the power point other may work on another aspect of the presentation. It was hard for me to understand what the ANWR was about and what all the information was telling me. When I read something on it, I would forget which I believe harmed the performance of myself and the group. I thought I was a hard topic to have to do your first project. Even when watching the other presentations I still could not understand what was being said, all I heard was words I did not understand or sentence that did not make sense. This might have been a better project if we talked more about ANWR in class ahead of the time of the project, and had it at a different point of the class. If I had prior knowledge on the subject it would have been easier to understand and to prepare for the project.

Although I did not like at the time, not having set requirements and models turned out to be a great help when completing the ANWR project . It was good to be able to follow our own directions and create a product that we felt covered the topic thoroughly. This allowed us to be self-directed learners, which is a skill that will be vital to us in college. This project helped us understand that we must be in charge of our own work, and that teachers will not always be there to spoon-feed us information and directions. While it was a bit frustrating not knowing exactly what the teacher was looking for, it helped us to come up with original ideas and quality work. Not having specific requirements helped us to become independent learners, and do the work for ourselves, rather than copying a teacher's example. I felt that not knowing what was on the rubric until right before the presentation allowed me to go beyond myself, and come up with new ideas as to dividing up work and presenting the information. I found it extremely helpful to work with a group on this type of project, because although we did not have much direction, we were not alone or confused. I feel that too often, when given a rubric, kids deliver presentations that lack creativity and will do the minimum amount of work in order to give the teacher what they want. With this project, we didn't know exactly what she was looking for, and caused us to work harder overall. This ANWR project gave us a good feel for the type of projects that we will be facing in the upcoming years. It was extremely beneficial, and taught me a lot about my strengths and weaknesses as an independent worker.

Even though the ANWR project took forever to complete I enjoyed it a lot. I liked this project because I think the topic of ANWR is interesting and the outcome of what they do to ANWR will affect me sometime in the future. This project was also I good idea because my group was able to pick a side on the topic and research on how we felt about it which was way better than just getting an assigned topic/stance on an issue. Although this project was hard to stay on task because we didn't have a set calendar and rubric it taught me a lot about being a self-directed learner, which is going to help me a great deal in the near future. I also thought this project was awesome because we could set it up how ever we wanted and be as creative as we wanted on the power point.

Overall I might have not like this project at the time it was assigned but when I look back on it this project has taught me a lot. From how to be a better self- directed learner to being more aware of my environment.

The ANWR project that we did at the beginning of the year was to me, an easy project. Though we didn't have a lot of guidelines to work with, being in a group of people that you can work well with made a difference.

Some of the things that I didn't like about the project were that we didn't get a grade sheet until the end. That made it hard because we didn't know what kind of requirements that we had to meet in order to get the grade that we wanted. We also didn't get a worksheet to follow as we were doing the project to tell us how the project should be done. That caused a lot of confusion for my group but eventually it was worked out.

Some of the things that I liked about the project were the deadlines for each section of the project. We were able to take our time with all the research and put it all together on a power point. If we could n't meet the deadline, we were able to get an extension which helped a lot with some of our work. I also liked how it was a group project because I feel that I work better with others and since we got to pick our own groups that made it a lot easier.

Compared to other projects that I've done in the past, this was probably one of the easiest ones only because we got to do it the way we wanted to, have our opinions in it, and take as much time as we needed to on it. The other thing that makes it different from other projects was that we didn't have a grade sheet until the end and we had to guidelines to follow as we were doing the project. I enjoyed working on this project and learning about ANWR and being able to put my opinion into what I think should happen to it. If a project like this were to come up again, I think that I would do very well on it and put a lot of hard work into it as well.

This project was very challenging in the beginning. The reason why is, is because we had nothing to work from. We did not get a rubric until the middle to the end of the project. Then when we got the rubric, we had to go back and try to fit in the information required. On the other hand, I think it prepared me for college in a way. In college, you don't get handouts, and rubrics of what the teacher wants. That's what my teacher did. I think it helped me.

There were a couple things that I did like though. One would be how long we had to work on it. We had close to a month. We got to take our time, and think out what we were going to do. The other thing I liked was how we got to pick our own partners. It makes a big difference when you are working with someone you don't know, or don't like. Compared to when you work with your friends.

Overall, I enjoyed doing this project. There are just a couple of adjustments that need to be made.

The ANWR project for this semester was basically an independent research project on the drilling of oil in Alaska. In small groups we took many weeks to gather information from many different vantage points, form our own opinion, and present it in a professional way.

What was good about the project was that we had lots of time to complete our research. It gave the assignment a more relaxed feel and allowed each individual and each group to work in a style that fit their learning curve. Also since it was so independent I felt it forced me to retain the information I was compiling a lot better than in past projects I've completed. Something else that was different about this project was that we could present the information with our own opinion and interpretation. That aspect helped to motivate me personally.

There is one part regarding this task that was both a pro and a con. That task was having less structure than I've ever experienced. It was good because I didn't feel forced and it was comfortable to get my research done. However it was partly negative because it was very easy to slack off and procrastinate in the long run. The only other negative thing I feel from this project is that if someone isn't interested in this particular issue, then they are kind of forced to care about it. Some may consider that a positive; making teens aware of important problems. But for a high school student it could be seen as a negative as well.

Overall I believe this project was worthwhile and taught students to be self directed learners.

Doing this project was vary enjoyable because it gave me a chance to actually go off on an seeming in tangent and really explore the subject without concerning my self with senseless busy work. The freedom of being able to actually present, edit, and compose a peace of work in this manner remind s me of home schooling. It was hard to get back into the flow of things, an Ubiquities feeling of freedom.

Being able to work with people that I could actually deal with mad doing this project vary fun and made it easier to collaborate with them, making the overall project every project for that matter unique, with their own unique facts. This is also doing impart because the teacher didn't give us a hard line set of things to research. So even though mining the moon for He3 might seem unconnected, but the full alternative is quit relevant. That is why I like this form of learning because you open your self to new and interconnected ideas that would have seem pointless otherwise. In fact that is how I found out about He3. I was a dentists office and I saw a since magazine that said an abundant fuel alternative, I might not even have cot my eye otherwise.

Before we started studying about the drilling in ANWR, honestly I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know that there might be oil in Alaska. I didn't know America's having a problem on deciding whether to drill or not to drill. In other words, four or five months ago (when we first started talking about ANWR) was when I first heard about it.

We had a really long time to prepare for the project, which was really cool. We didn't have any stress from the pressure of having a deadline. Moreover, I used to listen to the teachers directions and never really think on my own. This project had taught me how to be a little more independent. If you ask me to compare this project to all the other projects I've done in my life, I'd say this was my favorite one.

Even though we had a lot of time, we didn't just goof off everyday. We were taking out times, but we've learned a lot. I've learned a lot . In some of my other projects, I had to rush through everything. There were times when I did learn some stuff, but it didn't stay in my mind as long as this one. All in all, this project was one of the most fun and stress less project I've had.

Without going through this project, I wouldn't know anything about ANWR or what is going on in Alaska. Because we did, I am informed on a timely issue and something people are going to be talking about for a long time. In the beginning of the project, along with everyone else, I was very confused on what exactly we were supposed to be doing. Once we began organizing things on our own, it became a lot easier. The project could get frustrating at times, trying to find the right things on the internet, working with your groups, and getting everything approved. While we were working, it was an individual effort and at the same time, a group effort. You needed to find your individual information, but you also needed to depend on you group mates to help make some of your grade and get things done. I am going to be honest, while we were researching; we were given a large amount of time to find our support for our opinions. I noticed that a lot of the time, people (including me) weren't staying on task and slacking off on what we are supposed to be doing. When we began sharing our final product with the class, I saw that a lot of the information we found was very similar to other groups in the class. Over all, I enjoyed working on the project, it gave the students a lot of freedom, and it definitely prepared us for what college is going to be like.

To be completely honest, I did not like the researching about ANWR project. First off, I found it pretty boring, it was about a pretty uninteresting topic in my eyes. I really don't care at all whether or not people drill for oil in Alaska, and I don't think that I have a right to tell them what they should do just by doing some research on the internet. I think that I will leave this decision to the profession als. Before doing this project I had never even heard of ANWR. It is something that I think doesn't even really effect me that much. Doing the actual project was not that hard because we had plenty of time to do it and we were working in groups. I think that the project should not be so long and not require learning about every single detail of ANWR, because it's just unnecessary. The rubric that we used, was given to us late so we had no real direction of what we needed to do for the project, and the rubric I felt kind of took away our freedom of finding out information that we found important. Overall I felt that it was a terrible project and I would not recommend doing it again.

After completing the ANWR oil drilling project I feel this project should be carried on to next year, and many years to come. It's a beneficial project that is very worthwhile to complete. It's educational, and really gives you an understanding of some earth wide issues that are important to learn and know about. Oil drilling is a big issue throughout the world, which is why I am so happy that I've gotten to know and understand this a little more. I am against oil drilling because of the bad effects it has on different environments and the animals in those surrounding environments. So I really felt we complete a very worthwhile and beneficial project but the project setup itself was the downside. In completing this project, until the very end, there were no grading rubrics, guidelines, requirements. we were just told to go research information on Oil Drilling in ANWR and then to choose a side on whether we are for or against it and create a presentation out of it. The project was laid off to be pretty basic and simple but then when it got down to actually presenting it, we were then faced with a detailed and specific rubric, and not many of my group's specific information fit into that rubric. The rubric was the problem with the project, we should've gotten it up front, the first day we started the project so we knew what to research, how we should research, how to set up our visual aid, it would've given us more direction towards a better, well developed presentation once we completed the research and design part of the project. Overall though, the project was beneficial and very worthwhile and I would recommend this to all students next year and in many years to come. This is a wonderful, educational project to have students do.

I think that the project that we did on A.N.W.R was a little bit of a challenge for me. There are many reasons for this,one of the biggest t reasons is that I am a person who likes to have set directions to follow. Most of the time if I don't have set directions, I have a really hard time figuring out what exactly I Need to do. Even though it was hard for me working in groups made it little easy.

It was also easier for me because I was able to work and get along with the other people in my group. There were many days that we worked on the project and I was very confused. The other people in my group were very helpful and understanding. They were able to help me a lot. I had fun with the project but it was very hard for me because there was no real set direction. I really enjoyed learning about the reason for ANWR and overall I had A lot of fun with it.

Created for the Fermilab LInC program sponsored by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Education Office and Fermilab Friends for Science Education, and funded by United States Department of Energy, Illinois State Board of Education, North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium which is operated by North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), and the National Science Foundation.

Authors: Students
Created: Fall 2004
URL: http://www-ed.fnal.gov/lincon/act/examples/studentreflections/anwr.shtml