Brendan Hickey

This map was created in order to show viewers some of the parks and trails available to visitors and residence of the Denver area, which can be used for hiking and biking. The essays in this project were created in order to give a brief overview of each location and what it has to offer. Outdoor activities are a great way for those in the Denver area to stay active escape the urban jungle and I figured that hiking and biking were the two activities that just about everybody can enjoy. I thoroughly enjoy outdoor activities on a regular basis in order to relieve stress get some exercise while having fun.

In order to create the map my group chose eight of the most beautiful and convenient parks around Denver. I chose to write about Lair O’ the Bear, Garden of the Gods, and Lookout Mountain since I had never visited these locations. At each location I either walked or biked through the entire park and took pictures, which would be shown on the Google, map. I also took notes of any significant features of each park. When creating the essays I researched some history of each location and included any significant events and facts in each summary.

This assignment was not without its challenges, the Google maps program would not allow me to collaborate with my group partners and edit my map. Therefore my work was submitted electronically. Also, without a vehicle, getting to and from each location was a challenge.

The I wrote this essay in order to review the effects of mountain pine beetle on several aspects of Colorado. The north west has been experiencing a pine beetle epidemic which has been destroying large populations of lodge poll pines, the destruction of these trees can have negative impacts on are environment and economy however some industries have benefited from the outbreak,

The second paper I wrote for this class was a qualitative piece that I wrote in order to determine how immigration should be dealt with in the United States. I found this working on this piece particularly challenging as it was the one form of writing I had not yet attempted in previous classes. I chose determine how best to deal with the issue by combining the information gathered from credible written sources and a questionnaire that I created in order to gauge the general populations opinions on the matter. When writing the piece, I combined the results of my questionnaire with my research to provide an overall view of what citizens feel should be done to improve the immigration policy.
Having little experience combining research with an opinionated survey I struggled to create a well-synthesized analysis.