Learning goals

During A Warning to the Future, you are going to learn to read scientific articles, write academically and use sources in order to write an academic essay (~400-800 words). The main skills that you will improve are reading, adaptation, writing and discussing.

You will learn by reading, discussing predictions about the future, write reponses and specialise yourself within in a specific area. 

The prestigious international summit A Warning to the Future: A New Dark Age or a Bright Future? has invited senior high school students to participate in workshops where you will read and discuss scientific articles about the state of our world and about our future. Moreover, you will create a time capsule and decide the various items that should be included within it. Amongst those items are student essays about the future, so those who find the capsule can learn from our past mistakes.

You have been tasked with writing an essay with the aim to analyse, discuss and predict issues related to the future. The summit has distributed a background material - a selection of articles from international magazines and research abstracts – to be read before submitting the essay. The topics to select from are:

After reading the articles, decide on ideas, claims, statements, examples or arguments that you wish to discuss in your essay. You are allowed to summarise these into 200 words which you may bring with you when writing the essay. 

Structurally you are expected to present a thesis question, analyse and compare your sources and finally draw a conclusion. You must refer to at least two sources from the background material.

Word count: 400-800

Time: 160 minutes

Style: Formal - ensure that you have checked what you have written with regard to appropriateness of language, content and structure

As inspiration, you may want to consider the following questions: