Essay Assignment One

Due date: see syllabus
Three Copies Peer Review: see syllabus

Assignment Length: 3 FULL pages minimum, double-spaced, 12-point font

Assignment Goal

The goal of this assignment is to successfully argue using supporting evidence and excellent summaries about whether or not you believe New York is prepared for climate change.



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Assignment Description

This assignment offers students the opportunity to do some problem solving about whether or not New York City is ready for climate change. 

This assignment will be a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg on New York City's preparation for climate change. The letter will blend into an argumentative college essay: the introduction will contain a 2-3 sentence thesis statement that argues if you believe New York is or isn't prepared for climate change, and why you believe what you do.

You will summarize the science on climate change from The Climate Casino to support at least two of your claims. This will probably take up the first two paragraphs of the essay. For these paragraphs you will create topic sentences that explain how the science of global warming affects New York City.

The rest of your letter/essay will address specific choices New York is making to prepare for climate change. If you want, you can use the New York Times article that we're reading for our first blog for these paragraphs. You may also refer to anything involving Hurricane Sandy.

Students should also visit the "PlaNYC 2030" website. This website is about some of the steps New York is taking to deal with global warming. On this site, students should read the opening webpage. They should then pick ONE of the links under "Popular Links" and decide if these steps are or are not addressing the climate change threat narrated by The Climate Casino.

Assignment Process

For this assignment you will build on our course reading and our first blog assignment. For this assignment you will need to be familiar with all the course readings until the essay comes due.

Blogs and Twitter assignments will be relevant to the assignment as it develops. As these assignments come due, there will be an opportunity to discuss the New York Times article and the PlaNYC 2030 website.

There will be opportunities to compose different parts of this assignment in class labs, but students should begin budgeting their time now according to their needs.