Sherry’s Blog

Recently in Geography 9, we have started learning about resources. One of the most commonly used resource in our world is oil. We use oil for everything. Even things that you would not expect to have oil in it, such as toothpaste.

Today in class, we had a debate about oil. Our topic was: Oil is an essential part of our life. Therefore, our main goal is to drill for more oil anywhere. I was against this topic. We tried two different styles of debating in class. The first way was debating on the internet. Ms. Holley opened up a forum on moodle, and each of us started new topics about whether or not we should or should not be drilling for more oil. This style of debating was a bit confusing and awkward at first, but once we all got used to it, it suddenly became fun. We debated over the internet, typing out our thoughts as fast as we could. It was supposed to be a “silent debate”. Near the end, the whole class was really into it.

The second style of debating was an actual live debate. Ms. Holley divided our class into half, each half having the same equal number of people against the topic, and for the topic. The first five people, myself included, were instructed to all sit down at a table and then, simply begin debating. Starting it was a bit awkward, but once we gotgoing, alot of us got really into it. We got aggressive, and started using hand motions and body language and talking much louder trying to overthrow our opponents and telling them that their ideas were wrong. However, the problem with this type of debating was that it was total chaos. In the end, only about two or three people were really engaged in the conversation, and the other two of three people tried to join in the debate, but failed since the others were being so loud and completely over voiced them. The first round, I was actually one of those , and I didn’t really notice it, but the second round, when the other half were going and I was watching, I began to notice the fact that only a few people were seriously engaged in the conversation.

Picture Credit:

http://www.nd.edu/~sheridan/Debate.gif