YES:

• school teacher (Miriam Schwartz)
• Mayor (Ali Sahin)
• Graduate student (Majid Sahin)
• Lawyer A (Vadim Shteyler)
• Victim A (Neyra Azimov)
• Lawyer B (Adiba Ishak)
• Doctor (Haran Ratna)
• Environmental Protection Specialist (Nicole Babushkin)
• EPA (George Papadopoulos)
• Contractor (Colette Salami)

NO:

• Grace’s Environmental and Health safety Officer (Miriam Harari)
• Long time Grace worker (Charissa Cheung)
• Lawyer (Nickeitta Leung)
• Grace’s CEO (Jonathan Lin)
• Production Manager (Alessandro Alempijevic)
• TBA (Salim Hasbini)
• TBA (Kyulee Seo)

JUDGES:

• Bushra Wazed
• Ilya Ryvin
• Alexandra Chudner
• Chinemerem Eze

MODERATOR:

• Jonathan Chang

• The debate for Issue #2 is whether you agree or disagree with this statement “The Grace Company should be held responsible.” Please watch the Youtube video for an introduction at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04iyh_g9XFA
• Please let me know ASAP if you want to be a judge for Issue #2. We can have 5 judges again this time. If you have been a judge before, you cannot be a judge this time. I will post the names of the judges as soon as I hear from 5 of you.
• For EVERYONE except for the judges, please email me by the end of Wednesday (10/1) your side and your role. I will then post the names on each side, as well as your contact information.
• By 10/15 (Wednesday), EVERYONE except for the judges will need to post a position statement, AND by 10/22 (Wednesday) a short video. The short video must be something that you recorded, relevant to issue #2, limited to 3 minutes maximum. It does not have to be that you are making statements. You can be creative on this!
• Everyone will have chance to read the posted statements and view the videos in the week of 10/15-10/29, to prepare for the debate on 10/29.
• We’ll meet on 10/29 to start the debate. Look for more announcements prior to that date.
• In redard to the term poster project, here is the list of topics & groups: (1) Green Market - Babushkin, Azimov, Schwartz, Cheung; (2) Tap water vs. bottle water - Ishak, Salame, Chan, Harari, seo; (3) NYC public transportation development - Leung, Papadopoulos, Ratna; (4) Jamaica Bay - Alessandro, Tlya, salim, Bushra, Jon; (5) Waste disposal - Chudner, Shteyler, M Sahin, A Sahin, Eze.  Please let me know if you want to change.
• Judges for Issue 1: please email me your 2-3 page summary as soon as it is ready.

Macaulay Honors College

Seminar 3 2008

Meet the Scientists

Please note that you are NOT required to choose from one of the following topics. You should come up with a better title after you’ve done some research on each topic. This list is preliminary, and I will add a few more later.

1. The redevelopment of Gowanus Canal - environmental, economical, cultural, and social constraints.

2. Should environmental quality monitoring devices be permitted in public spaces?

3. Should the govern pay for the Newtown Creek legacy?

4. What is the priority at Jamaica Bay for ecosystem restoration?

5. Post-911 air quality: who is to blame?

6. NYC should place priority in public transportation development.

7. Why the air conditioner in classrooms not fixed?

8. What should we do about our nitrogen problem?

9. If tap water is better, why do many people in NYC still drink bottled water?

• Watch video clips, especially those from your opponents. Review their position statements.
• Organize your idea and prepare questions for your opponents.
• Identify potential weak points of your presentation. Be prepared to answer questions from your opponents.
• If you are a leader, you need to have an overall view of your team, and prepare the summary statements.

Attached please find a 2-page document which helps you to examine a position.

How to examine_a_position.

Each judge should review all the video clips carefully. For each student, please rate on a scale of 0-4 (0=poor and 4=excellent) for the following categories:

• Time management;
• Verbal techniques;
• Organization/flow & effectiveness;
• Confidence & manner (e.g., did the student rely too much on notes? does he/she have some bad habbits while speaking?)
• Eye contact;
• Knowledge on the subject;
• Did the student speak appropriately for his/her role?
• Did the student appear to have done enough homework?
• Did the student provide useful empirical evidences to the argument?
• Is the presentation interesting?
• Was the student perceptive to the weak points on the opposite side?

In addition, for each student presented, please write one aspect that you think he/she did the best and one aspect that needs improvements.

We will have more videos uploaded next week. You don’t have to submit the scores to me now. Please wait until you have watched all the debate videos for Issue 1.

Joshua

Thanks to Ilya who has successfully uploaded the video clips of the presentations to Youtube.com. Slightly later today I will post some info on how to analyze each presentation and the tasks involved.  Please comment on this blog website rather than the Youtube site, als keep the posts and comments under this folder for Issue #1. Thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CHC3Fall08

Have a good weekend.

Joshua