CI class: links for "Energy Sources"

Hi everyone, 

I hope you all had a fun Mid-Autumn Festival long weekend!  I love Moon Festival!  I love the moon and moon cakes and pomeloes...!  

For our class, I hope that all of you will research and talk about the topics that interest you.  As we mentioned before, if you can't find a topic you like within the theme "Energy Sources," then feel free to talk about something else!  :D  

And it's okay to attend even if you haven't got a presentation: then you can just listen to other presentations and ask questions and join in the discussions.  But everyone's welcome to present, and I'm sure you'll find that the challenge of presenting your ideas in English will be a fun way to use and improve your language skills.

The goal of our class is to use English to discuss "contemporary issues," and I hope everyone will enjoy themselves along the way, so please don't let yourselves stress out about the presentations!  Any type and length of presentation is okay; please prepare the kind of presentation that you feel most comfortable and happy giving. 

Researching in English and in Chinese are both fine, and there's lots of interesting information to be found both on line and in the library in the form of books, magazines, and newspapers.  

For Thursday's topic, I won't send out any articles for everyone to read, because I expect everyone is interested in researching different types of "Energy Sources," and I'm hoping that we'll have presentations on a wide variety of topics within the theme.  

But here are some internet links which will take you to a lot of interesting information, if you haven't found enough on your own yet! 

* Here's the page where I found one of the definitions of energy, as well as the energy consumption pie chart that I drew last class (this site says it's for kids, but don't knock it!:  I found the information to be clear, concise, and helpful!!  :D    ). 

http://www.eia.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=about_home-basics

The same site has a good page which introduces energy sources:

http://www.eia.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=2

And here's a quiz to try, just for fun, from the same site: http://www.eia.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=quiz#top-container

*A google search is always a good way to uncover information on a topic!  go to:

http://www.google.com/  

For example, a search for "energy sources" gets you this page of references:  http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&biw=995&bih=638&source=hp&q=energy+sources+&pbx=1&oq=energy+sources+&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=2872l6065l0l7147l15l10l0l1l1l0l

Some other keywords to try are the various sources themselves, such as "solar power," or "nuclear power," or "alternative energy sources," or "fossil fuels."  

*Try the Scientific American magazine for some interesting and in depth articles!  

This page shows all the topics you can search for at the Scientific Am. site, and at the top of the list is "Energy and Sustainability!"  Depending on your interests, you might want to try: "alternative energy," "fossil fuels," "geothermal energy," "hydro-power," "nuclear power," "solar power," "tidal power," "wind power," and "energy technology." http://www.scientificamerican.com/all_topics.cfm

Here's the Scientific American's "energy and sustainability" page:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/energy-and-sustainability

*And TED is a website of talks on a huge variety of topics, including energy!  Here you don't have to read: you can just listen!!  

The TED website home is at: http://www.ted.com/

You can do a search in the top right corner.  

Searching for "alternative energy," for example, gets you to this page:  

http://www.ted.com/talks/tags/name/alternative+energy

From there you can find talks about:   

fusion:  http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steven_cowley_fusion_is_energy_s_future.html

wind & kites: http://www.ted.com/talks/saul_griffith_on_kites_as_the_future_of_renewable_energy.html

planning for the end of oil:  http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_sears_planning_for_the_end_of_oil.html

the future of cars: http://www.ted.com/talks/reinventing_the_car.html

(and lots more!!)  

Many of the TED talks have Chinese subtitles, so you can read Chinese while you listen to English!  You can choose your language under the video where it says "Subtitles Available in"...  

Depending on what happens next class, we'll decide our next research direction.  When our classes are on broad themes (like "Energy Sources" for this week), we will all be reading different articles and presenting on different topics.  

However, sometimes our classes will be on a more specialized topic, and for those classes I'll suggest articles for all of us to read together and discuss.  

See you soon!  Have fun!  Feel free to ask me any questions you've got!  

Sincerely, Abbie