20 Jan P.S. Go beyond obvious electric

LAS432 Technology, Society, and Culture

Week 1 Team Discussion

This week you will begin to engage with your team to brainstorm ideas for the Course Project. First, it is important for you to get to know each other and collectively explore your interests. Since it takes a while week 1 for teams to bond, let’s each get a head-start. For your initial post, explain what you think the role of environmental ethics is in society. Use your own original words + ideas as the dominant portion of any written work in this course. As part of your response, highlight one key technology that you think illustrates your ideas.

P.S. Go beyond obvious electric cars/ GMOs/ alternative fuels/ recycling/ global warming/ cloning/ genetic engineering/ nanotech etc. choices. I’ve taught this course since 1997, so I want to see fresh topics; I’ll “send you back to the drawing board” if the same-old/ same-old is proposed. Look at Course Project Overview for an alphabetical list of a few general themes for you to riff on, adapt, and expand; week 2’s lesson (see my reply below) offers conventional topics. Week 1’s lesson has a few main themes. You have until the end of week 2 to choose a topic, so week 1 is instead getting a team together as to who does what, and making a charter.

Click here to find teammates and go here to begin forming team project duties

I much prefer that you all discover your own technology not mentioned. Innovate and open up new directions. Think beyond what we plug in, turn on, emit, grow, process, and/or consume. Be very creative in how you interpret “environment”–which after all spans our whole surroundings on Earth. And “techno” comes from the Greek for “art/ craft/ technique” so that offers intriguing options: technology is far more than what you plug in, turn on, or charge. Think of applied “skills.”