Energy and Place
Essential Questions:
1. How does energy production impact* place?
2. How does your sense of place **, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions regarding energy production?
1. How does energy production impact* place?
2. How does your sense of place **, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions regarding energy production?
Sense of Place Writing
The overwhelming scent of pretzels, sweat and the over-compensation of the teenage boy force its way into my nostrils. Sighing, I pull my hoodie farther over my head and shrug my backpack more snuggly on. As I fight against the crowd, my sister’s advice reverberates throughout my head: Elbows up and don’t stop for anything. Hiking the pack higher and lifting my elbows shoulder height, I shove myself through the crowd and cram myself into an empty alcove that’s laying off to the side. Sitting on a worn bench, I just watch people idle by; families with young children, groups of gossiping teenagers, mothers dragging around their hormonal pre-teens. I hate everything about this; the sickly sweet scents mingling with the warmth that is created whenever there is a large gathering of people. A movement catches my eye, and I turn my head quickly then recoiled back from the stench. The security guard stumbles towards me, each of its limbs slowly becoming animated, one by one. As it approaches me, the gears start grinding against each other until the eyes starts glowing. I would call the guard a ‘he’ but it’s impossible to call them humans. These people are kidnapped from their homes, tortured within an inch of their lives, placed into a medicated coma and then mixed with machines. They died pretty quickly but the machines kept their bodies moving. This particular guard must have been dead for a while, by the acrid stink wafting off of him.
“Do you need assistance today ma’am?” The voice monitor crackled alive. With the jerky movements from his legs compared to the rocky stature of the upper torso. The thing about these guards was that if you don’t respond, they will follow until you answer. “I-I-I’m fine. Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.” I stuttered out, trying to back away quickly. His body shuddered and compacted down into itself. I trip back into the large crowd, unable to shake the feeling of being watched. A few hours later, I have forgotten about the security guard, but I am now more observant of the dark corners. I look up just quickly enough to see a boy grin and hide behind a pillar. My curiosity gets the best of me, so I fight my way through the crowd. I lean against the cool pillar and slowly slip around to the other side. The last thing I saw was the boy smirking before a sharp pinch in my neck and the blackness clouded my vision. I wake up, lying face down in the bed of a moving car. Duct tape covers my mouth and hands. A string of curses float back from the driver’s seat, a squeak of brakes and I get rolled over onto my back. A hunched figure turns around and scoots closer to me, leaning over. The stink of his breath washed over my face, causes me to hold back my gag reflex. “Oy! She’s awake! What should we do? We aren’t even close to the safe house.” He yelled up to the driver who, in turn, yanked the steering wheel left, causing the contents of the car to shift. “I’m kind of busy right now! Just knock her out again with the tranquilizer.” A deep voice yelled, from the front. I start to wiggle away from the looming figure, but he traps my legs between his. “You aren’t going anywhere. The boss is very interested in you,” he mumbles to me, before the prick in my neck and the clouding blackness. Pacing back and forth past the windows, Regina didn’t even appreciate the view. The anger bubbled inside her as she fought the urge to swing at a standing guard. “The nerve of those boys, they don’t listen to anything that I say. They just had to run off and kidnapped the specials,” her voice reverberates throughout the quiet room. “Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am. The boys have returned and they have something they think you’ll like,” a guard spoke up, interrupting her, mid-rant. “What!? Where are they right now!?” “Umm, they are in the dungeon right now, attempting to get the girl in into her cell. She’s not too happy to be here. Montgomery is freaking out” Pushing past the nervous guard, Regina stalks down the numerous flights of stairs and finally pushes the heavy, barricaded door into the dark dungeon. “What is wrong with you!?” She yells, entering into the room. Both boys jump about a mile in the air, and look sheepishly in her direction. “Oh, uh morning ma’am. How is your day going?” The bigger of the two men asked. “Shut it, Montgomery. I will deal with you later. Hugh, I am going to kill you when I get my hands on you.” She rushes forward and starts to chase the lankier of the two. He dodges out of the way, laughing at the apparent threat chasing after him. “Regina, you know that you’d never kill your best hunter! I am a one of a kind, and you’d be poor without me.” He chuckles, just slipping out of her grasp and hopping onto the table. “Don’t you want to see what I brought for you? I found it in the mall, with a surprise in the backpack.” The curiosity got the better of her, and she slowed down to look into the murky cell, at the figure lying on the stone ground. The body shifts slightly, and lets out a little moan. “Why didn’t you put her in the cell next to the explosion survivor that Meg brought from the hospital? She is just out in the open cells, someone might see her!” “We seriously just drove up like six minutes ago, and she’s not the lightest thing in the world after trying to sneak in here.” Montgomery announced, stepping forward from the shadows. He was a large boy, but had a baby face and a mop of blonde hair. He was the youngest hunter that Regina had, but just his size made him threatening. Hugh, on the other hand, has dark hair cut into a slight Mohawk, with tan skin and a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Well, we just went out for a quick snack and BAM there she was, just talking to the mechanical guards.” Hugh said, hopping down from the table. The girl in the cell started stirring a little more, a grunt escaped from her lips. “When she wakes up, bring her to my room. I want to talk to her.” Regina said, turning her back on the boys and stalked back through the door. Waking up on the cold, hard floor was not a cheerful experience, especially with one watery light off in the distance. The dim bulb casted shadows on the walls, moving in the slight breeze wafting down the stair case. Lurching up to the locked gate, I try to fit through the holes, but my shoulders are too broad. Snarling profanities, I step back from the gate and look at my surroundings more clearly. Three sides of the cage was concrete with no cracks, an unblemished exterior. The fourth wall was the grated metal, with no hinges or gaps for a door. |
Running my hands across the entire barrier, hoping that my hands will catch on an out-cropping of metal or a crack. Nothing. A bang is heard over-head and thundering feet down the stairs startles me, and I rush away from the gate. Glancing up the staircase, the looming figure shuffles down, in front of the dim light, keeping his face in shadow. A jangle of keys rings across the room, the reverberation was like the lighthouse on a stormy night.
“Uhh, excuse me? A-are you awake?” whispered the man, “M-my name is Montgomery and I am here to take you to Regina.” “Regina? Who is she?” I reply, slowly standing, trying to glance at Montgomery’s face. He slowly shuffles forward, keys in the oven-mitt sized hands. With the light slowly crawling across his features, becoming clearer. The blushing baby face becomes clearer, as he struggles with the lock. “Montgomery, do you need help with the key?” He blushes even harder, dropping his head onto his chest. He fits the key into the lock and pushes open the hidden gate. I back up slowly in the cell, my back hitting the cold stone. Montgomery follows me in, one hand outstretched and the other fumbling behind him. A massive hand grabs my wrist, and with a click, the cuffs snapped on. A chain was connected in the middle of the cuffs and continued on through into his hands. With a sharp tug, he pulled the chain taunt and lurching me forward. Falling to my knees, the room reverberates with the crack of bone onto stone. “Ohh, my god! I-I am so sorry,” he rushes down, places his hands in my armpits and lifts me into a standing position. He helped me walk a few steps before letting go. “I’m okay, Montgomery. I just wasn’t expecting to be moving,” I whisper, my fear becoming obvious the more I spoke. He takes the lead, the chain dragging across the ground. I stumble up the dark stairs, tripping on the excess chain. Entering into a well-lit area, my eyes are instantly drawn to a raised podium, with a single person, pacing back-and-forth. The fear started to bubble inside me, nausea making my head roll and I stumble backward, straining against the chains. “Ma’am, the prisoner is awake and I brought her here,” Montgomery yells up to the podium. The figure turn quickly, glanced to see who was speaking and stepped off the side of the platform. She gracefully fell about ten feet until landing in a crouched positioned, and stood straight up. She stalked towards me, her eyes trained on my, like a wild cat who trapped its prey. I shuffled behind Montgomery, hoping to avoid the piercing glare emanating from her. She swung her arm out, and I flinched instinctively, but realized she went to shake my hand. “My name is Regina, and we need to have a talk. Monty, please take the handcuffs off and you, girl, walk with me.” Montgomery turned to me and quickly undid the handcuffs, then backed away to disappear into the shadows. Rubbing my wrists, I walk around slightly, trying to look for an exit. “I know what you are trying to do, and you can’t get out of here. We have guards at every door and window, cameras set up, and also some more secret security systems,” she says with a slight chuckle, staring at me, “Come, we are going to go for a walk. I want to show you something.” A guard appears out of nowhere, handed Regina a book and scuttled away into a dark corner. She sauntered past me, grabbed my upper arm and dragged me through a hidden doorway. “To begin, we have your bag and we searched it. Why did you have that bomb in your bag? Is that why you were at the mall? To try and lower the population? Or just because you are jealous of what they all had?!” Her questions are being shot at me, like bullets from a gun. I only just realized that my bag was gone off of my back. “Where is my bag now!? I only had the bomb because I want the government to pay attention to the deforestation to build those stupid malls! Nobody there even knows what happen to the forests and mountains to get the Rue 21 and the Orange Julius!” my voice ringing through the empty hallway, the anger over-powering the fear. Regina just chortled, and shook her head, causing me to get angrier. “Why are you laughing!? You probably just tore down an entire forest to build this castle!” “You silly girl, have you not heard of the kidnappings of the Leaders of the World? The bombings in government buildings? That was all my idea. I have been controlling the take-down of the government, and it looks like you were going to be my copy-cat.” She says with a smirk. I just gape at her, my brain going blank with awe. She starts to walk slightly faster. “Wait, you? Did you know what I was going to do? Why are you talking to me not punishing me? Cause I would have ruined your plans?” I stumble out, tripping over my feet to catch up. “Just a few more minutes and I’ll show you why we are keeping you alive. Let me start from the beginning. When I was younger, my father used to have trees just growing in the wild, for acres and acres. But one day, some men in suits, from the government, drove up to our house and knocked on the door. They wanted to talk to my father about his trees, and if he was willing to sell them. When he refused, they continued to ask and pester, trying to bribe him with money and other high-priced offers. But he still refused. The suited men pulled guns out and shot him, right in front of my mother and I. I was never the same after that. The same men came back to our house, and cut down the trees with loud machines that polluted the area. My mother died recently, from either the cancer or the sadness that took over. I left that town, and met up with Montgomery and Hugh, the boys who kidnapped you. Now, here I am, talking to an attempted-monkey wrencher who has the ability to make a bomb.” She finished suddenly, stopping in front of a large, ornate door. “This is why I have started attacking the government, and this is why I keep fighting,” she spoke, swinging the door wide open. The scenery behind left me breathless. Large mountains swell up in the background, snow still on the tops despite the warm breeze and blue skies. A blue-green river babbles by, a flock of ducks land in an adjacent eddy, quacking as they land. Surrounding the river, tufts of grass wave back-and-forth with bumblebees lazily floating by. A butterfly flutters by my face, startling me out of the daze. “This, this is just amazing! Why do you just have it hidden behind a door?” I exclaim, turning quickly to see Regina stepping forward and grabbing the railing. “I just want to have one place, one single place that the government can’t touch and I finally got it. So you can’t tell anyone about this place, or I will kill you.” Her voice went from wistful to threatening. “Let’s go, we need to go and get you debriefed about what we will be having you do next.” We both turned and walked back out the door, but before she closed it, I got one more glance at the clear blue skies, high mountains and felt the summery heat. Smiling to myself, I twisted around and ran after Regina, excited about my next job. |
Energy and Place Reflection
This was one of the longer projects that we did this year, it was also the most content filled. We needed to learn about all the different types of energy production. The main productions were oil, nuclear and gas. After all the chemistry-based learning, we switched to the humanities portion of the projects. We were starting to write the Sense of Placement essay. To be prepared for the writing portion, Ashley had us learn about the different types of environmental writing techniques, by critiquing Edward Abbey and other environmental authors work. Then we had an intensive two weeks of writing, peer critiques and finalizing the paper for final exhibition. Even with the extensive background that we needed to learn for this project, I feel stronger with the knowledge that I have.
This project, I felt, was mainly Humanities based instead of a mix of Chemistry and Humanities. One problem that I had was trying to find my real sense of place. I didn’t completely understand this project, and how it mixed with Chemistry, so I just wrote a story. But I had so many ideas for the first draft, that I would write one story, get an idea for another and include that in. This happened a few times, until I just had a huge hodge-podge of stories. After receiving feedback from peers and Ashley, I started over and rewrote my story. I cut the four ideas down into two, and wrote them so that they intertwined with each other. After going through this process, I realized that I need to have better control over the stories that my mind is creating and to have better plans for my writing assignments.
Even with changing my essay, I am still very proud of it. I have excelled at fiction writing in the past, because I really love being able to create thing with my words. For example, in my Sense of Place essay, I describe some security guards as creepy as I can. “The security guard stumbles towards me, each of its limbs slowly becoming animated, one by one. As it approaches me, the gears start grinding against each other until the eyes starts glowing. I would call the guard a ‘he’ but it’s impossible to call them humans. These people are kidnapped from their homes, tortured within an inch of their lives, placed into a medicated coma and then mixed with machines. They died pretty quickly but the machines kept their bodies moving. This particular guard must have been dead for a while, by the acrid stink wafting off of him.” I am a secretly creepy person, and I love the power that writing gives to me. I love being able to have people change their emotions by the way I write something. In freshman year, Jessica had us to the fiction short story project, and I wrote it about a killer doll. I decided to take a different route for this prompt. I have matured as a writing from freshman year, and it is more obvious in this writing piece. All in all, this has been one of my favorite projects from this year.
This project, I felt, was mainly Humanities based instead of a mix of Chemistry and Humanities. One problem that I had was trying to find my real sense of place. I didn’t completely understand this project, and how it mixed with Chemistry, so I just wrote a story. But I had so many ideas for the first draft, that I would write one story, get an idea for another and include that in. This happened a few times, until I just had a huge hodge-podge of stories. After receiving feedback from peers and Ashley, I started over and rewrote my story. I cut the four ideas down into two, and wrote them so that they intertwined with each other. After going through this process, I realized that I need to have better control over the stories that my mind is creating and to have better plans for my writing assignments.
Even with changing my essay, I am still very proud of it. I have excelled at fiction writing in the past, because I really love being able to create thing with my words. For example, in my Sense of Place essay, I describe some security guards as creepy as I can. “The security guard stumbles towards me, each of its limbs slowly becoming animated, one by one. As it approaches me, the gears start grinding against each other until the eyes starts glowing. I would call the guard a ‘he’ but it’s impossible to call them humans. These people are kidnapped from their homes, tortured within an inch of their lives, placed into a medicated coma and then mixed with machines. They died pretty quickly but the machines kept their bodies moving. This particular guard must have been dead for a while, by the acrid stink wafting off of him.” I am a secretly creepy person, and I love the power that writing gives to me. I love being able to have people change their emotions by the way I write something. In freshman year, Jessica had us to the fiction short story project, and I wrote it about a killer doll. I decided to take a different route for this prompt. I have matured as a writing from freshman year, and it is more obvious in this writing piece. All in all, this has been one of my favorite projects from this year.