5150  Class Presentations

 

Class Presentations are to be about 15 minutes long, with an additional 5 minutes for questions, a total of 20 minutes for each group (typically 2 or 3 people).  That allows us to fit in perhaps 4 presentations before our 15 min. break, and 3 presentations after break—for a total of 14 over two weeks. 

      You can present on the same topic as your final paper, or something different.  When we have group presentations, done by more than one person, it’s common to find the presentation being related to, but not exactly the same as, the final paper, since the group will try to find common ground for the presentation topic.  For example, a pair might do a presentation on Community Power in Ontario, and one of the students might do his/her paper on WindShare—or vice versa.  Then there can be lots of overlap between research for the paper and presentation.  But it’s also possible to do completely different topics; perhaps you’re doing a paper in another class that might be a presentation in our class.  If they want, both students can do the very same topic for presentation and paper, but usually it’s more interesting if they choose to do topics that are slightly different from each other for their respective papers. 

 

Presentations are usually in Powerpoint, but don’t have to be.  (See image above).  About half the class will present on December 1 and the other half on December 8.  We will try to accommodate your preference for your presentation date, and if we have too many on one day, we will try various bribes to induce someone to switch.  If that doesn’t work, we’ll hold a lottery.  In the past the latter strategy hasn’t been necessary, since there are advantages of presenting on either day.  Presenting on Dec. 8 gives one more time to prepare, but may conflict with other course deadlines, and presenting on Dec. 1 gives one more time to incorporate class feedback into one’s term paper.  (5150 Term papers will be due on Dec. 17). 

 

Here are some topics from last year:

  • Industrial Ecology
  • LEED Building Assessment
  • Vertical Farms
  • Comparative Renewable Energy Policies
  • Bilan Carbone greenhouse gas emissions accounting system
  • LEED for Neighbourhoods
  • Carbon Offsets
  • Local Wind Power
  • Waste Management and Business
  • CSR and Sustainability as Comparative Advantage
  • Green Building
  • Green industrial design

 

Here are topic suggested by some of you for this year:

  1. Green business NGO: can an NGO run better if it is run as a “business corporation”?
  2. certification (food LFP)
  3. EPR  does it really work?
  4. certification green buildings LEED
  5. The geography of fair trade
  6. renewable energy
  7. industrial case studies
  8. green marketing

 

As this gets figured out, topics and dates for the presentations will be posted here.