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At the beginning of the year, we were given an assignment
that focused on our discovery subject. First, we had to give our
discovery subject a survey to complete to help us understand their
environmental views. Then, we had to describe the results of their
survey in an essay. Finally, we had to research the environmental issue
that our discovery subject believed was the most important. Through the
process of completing the discovery project, I built upon my
communication skills, and my critical thinking skills. First of all, the discovery project improved my communication skills. The second part of the assignment asked me to describe the results of the survey in an essay. I had to take the little information I received in the survey and expand upon it without adding my opinion to it. For example, question 33 on the survey asked if Carla's opinion about the environment had changed in her lifetime. Carla replied, "No, because being on a farm you are always concerned about the environment"(Discovery Survey). From that answer, I had to write a paragraph without adding my opinion. In order to do that, I had to look back at my interviews with her in the previous NCLC sections. When I did that, I was able to see several instances where her family was concerned about the environment. For example, they had to be careful about the types of chemicals they used in their garden, and they had to make sure the feed that they gave the cattle had no added chemicals to it. I was able to communicate her opinions clearly whithout adding my opinions. |
Finally,
the discovery project helped me build my critical thinking skills. The
final part of the project was researching an environmental topic that
our discovery subject believed was the most important. Carla chose
recycling. I had to find several different authors who discussed
recycling. Some of them had the same opinions and others did not. For
example, some authors believed recycling was worth the investment, and
others believed recycling was too costly. I took all of these ideas and
put them together in my paper. I summarized each ones argument and
compared them to the other arguments. This project helped me improve my
critical thinking skills by teaching me to use multiple opinions to
prove a point. The discovery project helped me build upon my communication skills and my critical thinking skills. It challenged me to keep my opinions out of the paper and only use the opinions of others. I struggled a bit with summarizing the arguments about recycling. There was so much information from each author, and it was hard to decide which pieces of information were relevant to my topis and which ones were not. When I finally completed the assigment, I had built upon the critical thinking skills I already had. I was able to take information from several authors and put it into one coherent paper. I grew a lot through writing this paper, and I know that these skills will help me in the future as I go on to the next section and when I go to work in the real world. |