Coal's Toll on the Environment

Tonight I put together my entire website. I was unhappy with how my first template looked, so I started from scratch and chose a new one. I also added to my mind map and came up with a new essential question. Fortunately, I accomplished my goal and officially realize that coal is not the energy resource of the future. I'm happy I was able to work on something that constantly had me changing my opinions based on new information. I really enjoyed this project. I learned a ton about coal. Whether it was the new clean coal technologies, how coal is mined, or what its effects on the environment are. Throughout this project I was fortunate enough to try many different sources. By the time I was finished I felt truly accomplished at how many articles I had read on the topic. I would recommend this project again and I definitely look forward to making websites using Wix in the future.

Today I started putting my information into my website. I made two sub articles about Coal Ash and coal contaminated sites. This was a crucial day for me because I finally started working on the website. Tomorrow I plan on continuing working on my website and adding in images.

Mind Map The objective I have for this project is to prove that coal is an unsustainable energy resource for the United States. I am doing this because I previously had to defend coal as the best energy resource. The only way I can reverse my bias is to look at coal from the other side. I started with looking up the following vocabulary: Coal ash Peat Lignite Bituminous Coal Strip Mining Reclaiming Strip Mining Acid Deposition Mercury emissions Carbon Dioxide Coal Dust Waste Coal Scrubber Next, I came up with primary and secondary information Primary Resource Use Risk to Miners Secondary Climate Change Cash Ash Coal Dust After that, I decided that I will present the information I find with a website. I want the website to be so thorough that students in future years use it as a resource for the environmental science view on coal. I am worried my previous bias will make its way into the project, but if I stick to the facts, I will feel better...

This year I was enrolled in the AP Environmental Science class at Wilton High School. Throughout the year we have learned about many different environmental issues. We had a project on energy resources in the United States and my group was assigned to defend coal as the best energy resource for the nation. At first, I felt slighted. Coal has been proven to effect the environment in many negative ways. However, while doing the project, I started to see that there is no such thing as a perfect energy source. Also, I was able to see how much the United States uses coal today. Throughout my passion project I will be looking into the negatives attached with coal, similar to the energy resource project, but this time I will be digging deeper into these issues and explaining why the United States cannot continue to use coal as an energy resource.