Objective:
What’s your better idea? It’s easy to criticize; it’s harder to create. But this is your time to leave your mark.
How do you think we should balance the needs of people and nature? How can research and story help your idea become a reality?
Write a story that presents your research findings in order to advance your vision for balancing the needs of people and nature in your community or in our country.
Process:
You investigated why this class – why research and storytelling – matters. You brainstormed a series of questions and then dug deeper. You took your research, decided on the one better question that must be answered and created a plan to do just that. Now it’s time to bring together everything you’ve learned and done. The answer to your better question is how you think we should balance the needs of people and nature. And that answer? It will be uncovered by your research and your research will be the basis for your story.
Your research and story should play to your interests and strengths (if you love math, focus on financial analytics; if you love sports, find an athletic angle: after all, nature intersects with every facet of society). Maybe your research will aim to uncover new knowledge to better inform an important debate, or maybe it will focus on finding a solution to a stubborn problem. Maybe your story will advocate for your research finding, or maybe it will simply state the facts and let others decide how to act on your findings. No matter your goal, your research and story will help shape the future of our country.
Skill Development:
creative thinking, research, organization, responsibility, leadership, time-management, independence, collaboration, critiquing, reviewing, communication, self-starting, self-regulation, critical thinking, citizenship, awesomeness
Final Product:
Your guiding question will drive your research and you will produce a story and short presentation based on your research finding.
Research: Your guiding question will drive your research, and you will use the tools you’ve acquired in this class to uncover the answer, utilizing the Curated Library, your old-school library (either/or in your school or your community) and, of course, the Internet more broadly. Remember to take good notes and to find reliable sources of information, always referencing your work.
Story: Here’s where you get to be creative! You choose the medium you think best plays to your strengths and still enables you to share your research: a journal article, an opinion editorial, a blog or magazine-style essay or a short story. In all cases, what really matters is building your skills as a storyteller, a critical skill that will help in most careers. Need help on structuring your story? We’ll guide you.
Presentation: Work with your teacher to decide how you will present your research and story. This can be done conference-style (how research findings are often presented) or pitch-style (a style that might help if you plan to publish your story).
Tips:
- Decide on the story format that you want to use to present your research. This could be a journal article, an opinion editorial, a blog or magazine-style essay or a short story.
- Your story should be built around your guiding question and the answer you uncover. Remember, use the foundation of the work you’ve already done in this class, but if your question still doesn’t feel right, it’s okay to change it.
- When doing your research, be sure to look for reliable sources of information that can help you to better understand the topic you are writing about. This will help you create a story that is both accurate and compelling.
- Develop a narrative (even if it’s just your research journey and the facts you uncovered) or plot that will help engage your readers and keep them interested.
- Once your research informs the basic outline of your story, write a rough draft. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling at this stage; just focus on getting your ideas down on paper.
- After you have written your rough draft, go back and edit it. Look for areas where you can improve the story with quotes and anecdotes or narrative development and better pacing. Make revisions as needed.
- Once you are happy with your story, finalize it. Check for grammar and spelling errors, and make sure that your story is well-organized and easy to read.
Rubric:
Be sure to read and understand how you will be evaluated on your final project by your teacher.
In Case You Missed It: Why Nature?
Balancing the needs of people and nature is vague. We get that. And it’s intentional.
Why?
We didn’t have to pick nature – two bears – as our metaphor for the challenges we face or the lessons that must be taught. There are always other metaphors. There are always more pressing issues, more socially relevant issues. But for each of those issues – rightly or wrongly – we can’t always agree on right or wrong. Or even where to start.
But nature? We know that before we start debating the value of a park – and before we get into how best to, yes, balance people and nature – if we stop and really look at this?
We can all agree that this is beautiful.
By really stopping to appreciate this scene together, we can see that our natural inheritance is our common humanity. It is what makes us equal. It is what unites us.
Remember what we said when we started: it’s impossible for everyone to agree on how best to strengthen our economy or advance social justice or steward our natural environment. But by finding a common starting point – by using nature to move us away from what we disagree with and toward what we can agree on – we hope that we’ve helped you be more open to listening and learning from those you agree with and those you don’t. Even more importantly, we hope we’ve helped you reimagine what’s actually possible when we work together.
Just like our two bears.
That’s why this is Nature Labs and that’s why our challenge to you is to balance the needs of people and nature. It’s something absolutely critical and it’s a gateway to so much more.
So, what should balancing people and nature look like to you? No clue! And that’s the point. Even if nature is the metaphor – the lens – you can take this in any direction you want.
Maybe you think the best way of balancing people and nature is to ensure every Canadian has an affordable home, because it’s only with this type of security that our population can turn their attention to safeguarding biodiversity. That’s fair.
Maybe you believe that Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of your community need to gather and really listen to each other’s hopes and fears before trust can be built to work together to balance people and nature. Good idea.
Maybe you think the loss of a species in your region will cause a cascade-effect that will not only harm the ecosystem you call home, but will destroy the economic and cultural cornerstones that make this place a good home. For you, maybe you want to change development or recreational practices or protect habitat. That’s a worthy idea too.
Maybe you think we need to help an industry under siege stay viable to support jobs that, byway of taxpayer dollars, will fund that better balance between people and nature. Or maybe you think we just need to invest in your new innovation because, if it succeeds, that’s how we can balance people and nature. Or maybe you think we just need newer nature stories, as that will inspire the population to think of better ways to balance people and nature. Brilliant! Awesome! Absolutely!
You see where we’re going with this? All of these ideas are right. Your idea is right. That’s how we want you to envision balancing the needs of people and nature.
We’re not here to tell you what to think, just to make sure that you do think. And as long as you are thinking critically and are doing your research and are listening and weighing the opinions of those you disagree with? Your idea will contribute to a better Canada and a better world; your idea will help create a better balance between people and nature. As we keep saying: you’ve got this!