Block 12: Briefs Submitted + Policy Panel Q&A
Define co-benefit and use it in a sentence about your recommendation.
Task: 60 seconds.
Answer in your Field Notebook, dated.
I can deliver my 4-minute Policy Panel pitch, answer at least three panelist questions across the cost/feasibility/equity/science categories, and reflect on what climate engagement looks like beyond this unit.
I can use models and data tools to show how human activity is changing the links between Earth's systems.
"Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity."
Where this runs:
- U4 B9: Adaptation vs. Mitigation: What Chennai Can Actually Do
- U4 B10: Climate Brief Work Day + Worked-Example Brief + Peer Feedback
- U4 B11: Climate Brief Final Drafting + Panel Rehearsal
- U4 B12: Briefs Submitted + Policy Panel Q&A ← you are here
Assessed:
Chennai Climate Brief: adaptation analysis (T/T) + Policy Panel (C)
On track looks like:
Your recommendation connects a human decision to a system response, with a tool or dataset behind it.
I can defend a claim under questioning, cite my evidence, and revise when someone shows me better reasoning.
"Engaging in Argument from Evidence"
Where this runs:
- U0 B6: Dossier Work Day 3 + Defense Rehearsal
- U0 B7: Defenses + Unit Close
- U3 B10: Defense Rehearsal + Optional Final Iteration
- U3 B11: Final Defenses Day 1
- U3 B12: Final Defenses Day 2 + Unit Reflection
- U4 B11: Climate Brief Final Drafting + Panel Rehearsal
- U4 B12: Briefs Submitted + Policy Panel Q&A ← you are here
Assessed:
Every defense (C strand): U0 Block 7 onward
On track looks like:
In Q&A you use the five moves, and 'I don't know, here's what would settle it' when true.
What today is about
Third defense of the year. Higher stakes than U1 or U2.
Unit 4's defense day. Briefs are submitted in the first 10 minutes; the next 60 is the Policy Panel itself: 4-min pitch + 3-min Q&A per student, with peers playing Greater Chennai Corporation officials asking cost, feasibility, equity, and science-credibility questions. Higher-stakes format than U1's NASA Committee Defense (3+2) or U2's planning-audience share-out (3+2): longer pitch, longer Q&A, and the question categories are sharper.
The block closes with a unit-close reflection on climate engagement beyond this unit, then a connect-forward to Unit 5: water is the climate system's central currency; U5 looks at it directly.
Not on the live roster until later in the block? The Defense Practice Partner is open for a last rehearsal: run your 4-minute pitch and the four question categories once more before you're up.
Before you start the work
Start with the Watch: projected at the start for everyone. The Read is there if you want to settle nerves before going up.
Today's work: the Policy Panel itself
No choice board today. The block runs on a roster: ~10-12 students deliver live; the rest sit on panels for at least one defense.
Open your Class Notebook and type today's entry header as Heading 2:
A: Feb 22 | U4 B12 | Briefs Submitted + Policy Panel Q&AB: Feb 23 | U4 B12 | Briefs Submitted + Policy Panel Q&A
What you're submitting today
Components 7–9 (C) of the Climate Brief lock today: final Brief, Panel pitch, and Q&A. K/U and T/T are already in. Component 10 is the unit-close reflection below.
Three C-strand components lock today: Component 7: the final assembled Brief (due at the start of class; Executive Summary stands alone). Component 8: the Policy Panel pitch (4 min, live, captured by Ms. Jayanthi/Mr. Ignash; or video alt-format). Component 9: your Q&A responses (3 min, across the four question categories). The final AI Doc reflection (one paragraph: "what would I do differently next time I use AI on a Brief-scale task?") gets appended to your Brief. The unit-close reflection (Component 10, formative) is the Reflect prompt below.
Submit via Google Classroom (link posted in August)One question before you leave
Three to five minutes. Your answer is saved to your reflection journal, where you can read back everything you have written this year.
Unit-close reflection. This one matters; it's about agency, not content.
Today's reflection is in Google Classroom, under Reflection Journal.
Link posted in AugustSign in with your school account. Your teacher can see what you write here.
Where we go next
Unit 5 asks: how do you decide who gets water? Water is the climate system's central currency: the variable everything else routes through. In Chennai, water is also the most contested resource, all the way down. Unit 5 anchors on the Cauvery water dispute and similar stakeholder cases. You'll take a stakeholder perspective, write a Position Paper from that perspective, and defend it in a multi-stakeholder Roundtable. Same audience-awareness muscle you just built, applied to a case where the audience has competing claims, not shared interests.
The frameworks you used this unit (OPVL on IPCC + government sources, AI Documentation, policy-brief voice, Policy Panel defense) carry forward. If something feels shaky from Unit 4, the Foundations pages stay live all year, and the Unit 4 landing isn't going anywhere either.