Driving Questions
Good projects start with intriguing questions. Let’s collect our Driving Questions here so we can borrow and build on each other’s ideas. Please add your ideas to the list.
Whose mess is this?
How do we know what’s true?
How have man-made disasters affected our food supplies?
How do disasters shape culture?
How does the planet’s health affect our mental health?
How safe is our water?
Why do we have a love-hate relationship with oil?
Who are the unsung heroes of a crisis?
How can the Principles of Green Chemistry help prevent future disasters?
How can games help us learn about complex environmental systems?
How can we protect a special place (or species)?
Do small steps really make a difference when it comes to energy use?
What is the impact on children's health? Nutrition, physical, mental, emotional well being?
Can broadcast journalist be objective?
How can students around the world help clean up the spill?
How can students who live far away from the direct impact of the oil spill understand that even the small steps they can make to help in some way, shape or form, matter?
How can students use what they understand in math be applied to understanding the spill?
What is the role and responsibility of human beings in the living world?
How do changes in the environment (oil or the chemicals they use to absorb the oil) affect the survival of animals in that environment?
How do animals interact and depend on living and nonliving things in the environment?
How does this disaster in off-shore drilling affect relate to local/coastal issues with offshore drilling?
Fight for your life: water wars. The Gulf Oil Spill is only the latest disaster to affect massive amounts of water, the source of life. Look at droughts in our Nation and in the world, accidents like Chernobyl, and you'll see more and more that the world is in a simmering war over water. What about where you live? What are the challenges to your community and water, and what plans are there for it? Will you need to fight for your "life", and how?
Can oil production and wildlife coexist?
How can migratory species be protected? (You might choose to focus on sea turtles, birds, or marine mammals.)
How do events in the Gulf of Mexico affect other places?
How do events where we live affect the Gulf of Mexico?
Are Lousiana's wetlands really "America's Wetlands"?
Who's an oil genius?
What's so tricky about oil?
How can robots help us repair damaged ecosystems, or oil rigs, or prevent further accidents such as the BP Gulf coast oil spill of 2010?
How can we balance our need for oil and oil-based products with taking care of the environment?
How can we assess the environmental considerations associated with the extraction and use of renewable and non-renewable resources?
How will the evolution of sea life be affected by the oil spill?
How can public policy address the points in the oil production process where a mistake can lead to substantial damage to the environment and people's lives?