Brainstorm project topics

  • provide at least 3 possible topics for your project
  • for each of these project topics, outline 3 smaller questions that you have to answer to get at your larger question.
  • include a few sentences on how you think you might try to answer these questions

This is to give you practice decomposing questions and thinking about what sorts of issues you are interested in solving.

In [ ]:
Does placing solar panels on your home actually reduce CO2 emmissions in the US?
    1) How many lbs of CO2 are emmitted when creating one solar panel?
    2) How many lbs of CO2 are you using when you have a solar panel?
    3) How many lbs of CO2 are you emmitting without a solar panel?
I would look up statistics on the average household emmissions and compare that to the statistics with houses that have solar panels. Do houses run completely on solar panels or does it just remidiate the energy  provided from our local energy company? I would also look up statistics about the panels themselves on how efficient they can be and which ones are being used. How much emmissions is actually produced to make thses panels and are they affordable to the greater population.
In [ ]:
How many units of energy of energy does it take to produce 1 acre of corn and how much energy is produced from the corn itself?
    1) How many tons of corn is produced in the average acre?
    2) How many joules of energy is used when farming and harvesting 1 acre of corn?
    3) How many calories comes out of 1 ton of corn?
Looking up the calorie content for a lb of corn and converting it to a ton. I would then search how many joules of energy is used from the equipment that farms and produces the corn. From there I would see the average production of corn per acre. Are we using more energy then we are producing??? 
In [ ]:
How much CO2 is emmitted from the use of your own personal computer?
    1) How much CO2 was emmitted creating your computer?
    2) How often and for how long do you charge your computer in regards to kilowatt hours?
    3) How much CO2 is emmited from 1 kilowatt hour in your area?
Looking at myself I charge my own computer 4 days a week 1 hour each day. I would look up how many kilowatts it takes to fill the battery. I would research how much CO2 is emmitted from 1 kw/hr in my area.