Introduction
Making ourselves aware of the problems faced by most people who live in cities is a way of becoming more environmental conscious or helping come up with solutions for them. Sometimes simple solutions, thought up by ordinary people, make a big difference in everyone’s lives – Creative thinking may lead to extraordinary solutions for city problems. People who face the problems tend to be more realistic about them, they’re the ones who “suffer” the impact of them – from a daily traffic jam to floods or criminal activities.
Authorities are the ones who have to come up with solutions but those solutions may also involve everyone’s change, development of new habits and way of thinking.
Read: http://bigthink.com/experts-corner/more-people-more-problems-future-proofing-our-cities
Task
In this webquest you’re going to search for vocabularies related to problems found in your hometown or neighborhood. Your task is to point out the biggest problems in your hometown or neighborhood.
By using information on the web, design a fun activity such as a video, a quiz or a slideshow to present your classmates with an illustrative list of problems found in your neighborhood. Try to also present solutions for them.
Process
Point out the problems:
The idea is not just present new vocabularies and point out mostly complained problems in your neighborhood but also and most importantly: present solutions for them – What should be done by authorities back in your hometown?
Take photos of the problems which can be visualized or write a description of problems which can’t be shown in a photograph.
Useful websites:
http://pt.slideshare.net/KapilKalra1002/problems-of-modern-cities (examples of slides)
http://www.ada.gov/civiccommonprobs.htm (solutions provided by specialists)
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/15-current-environmental-problems.php
Evaluation
Activity 1:
Each group will present their project and you’ll judge the solutions which were presented by the other students in order to solve the CITY PROBLEMS - Evaluate the solutions and choose who would be most qualified to be the town mayor.
Grading Criteria: 0-2 – Unusual or nonsense solution for the problem
3-5 – A not very effective solution or a rather not clever one.
6-8 – A good solution, although a not very creative or environmental conscious one.
9-10 – Excellent and well-thought solution. How come we’ve never thought of it before?
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Activity 2:
After the winner (the most qualified person to be the mayor of their town) is chosen, you’ll have to write a self-evaluation (120-300 words) about your participation in this webquest.
Conclusion
By pointing out problems in your own neighborhood/town you’d be evaluating the quality of the place you live and how serious the problems you face are. By listening to other people present real problems in their neighborhoods you’ll be able to compare different realities and help in the thinking for creative solutions. The world we live in has been facing several changes due to the dramatic growth in its population. The solutions for city and environmental problems may be the key to mankind’s survival and continuation on this planet – the solutions may be just around the corner – Our neighborhoods may be just the first st
ep.
