Prompt: The Block Plan at CC has a tradition of innovation and flexibility. Please design your own three-week-and-a-half intellectual adventure and describe what you would do.
I am concerned about the indigenous population in the Arctic. Their survival and development need extra attention because global climate change has exacerbated their living condition more than those of other peoples in the world. Climate change, which caused disappearing sea ice and alteration in landscape, consequently impacts their traditional hunting and harvesting habits, social structure, and economy.
Therefore, I wish to spend three weeks and a half researching on the Arctic indigenous people's living condition in order to promote their welfare and make their voices heard and rights respected. In the first week, I will look into the history and the traditions of the indigenous population, to learn to appreciate their culture in order to fully respect them. In the second week, I will focus on the current situation, mainly how global climate change, rising competition for oil-gas resources and current assimilation policies have affected their living conditions. In the third week, I will travel to Alaska or Northern Canada to live with the locals to gain some hands-on experience of their life, traditions and their hardships. At last, I will conclude my adventure with a report on the issue of the indigenous population and propose some solutions to the problem. I wish that my report would make a difference to the wide readership, raising their awareness of the condition of the indigenous population in the Arctic in hopes to save the valuable culture from the brink of extinction.
----------
All comments are welcome! Thanks a lot!
This is a fascinating one! I see that I may have been wrong, while critiquing another of your essays, to say that you needed to focus more on specific interests, because you are expressing a great, specific idea here. Very cool idea...
This could be better if you write more about other threats -- over fishing, exhaustion of resources... here is an important resource:
amazon.com/Protecting-Arctic-Indigenous-Environmental-Anthropology/dp/ 9057023555
Your writing is excellent! An example, or some other very short additional sentence, would be good at the end of that first paragraph... just to add some more definition.
