Possible topic for TOK oral

[Lena]

Well, I actually have 2 possible topics.

First is about pollution of our national park Stolby(probably you've heard about it). In fact, in this case I have an opportunity to do natural observation.

Another one sounds like 'religion versus mass culture'. It's almost about movies , for example, 'The passion of the Christ' and what religious organisations feel about such things. Tell me, please, whether it is possible to take topics with close connection with religion.

So what do you think about this? Can at least one of this topics be convinient for oral presentation?

[SharkSpider]

Well, I actually have 2 possible topics.

First is about pollution of our national park Stolby(probably you've heard about it). In fact, in this case I have an opportunity to do natural observation.

Another one sounds like 'religion versus mass culture'. It's almost about movies , for example, 'The passion of the Christ' and what religious organisations feel about such things. Tell me, please, whether it is possible to take topics with close connection with religion.

So what do you think about this? Can at least one of this topics be convinient for oral presentation?

I would personally have reservations about both topics. The first, pollution, is dangerous because it has a high potential to become simplistic, overly authoritative, and somewhat reminiscent of a middle school science presentation. Namely, if your assertion is that we should care about the environment and that polluting natural parks is bad and ruins the experience for everyone, and your research involves telling everyone that you went there and that it was gross and there was garbage everywhere, then it's probably best to leave that topic alone. If, however, you intend to look for something philosophical and different, in the field of pollution (and I don't mean talking about ways to reduce it, in fact, I don't actually have any examples on the top of my head), then by all means, present a unique and new take on it.

The second topic, by its nature, is more philosophical, but you do run in to the issue of religions. If you have an open minded TOK teacher, and you keep in mind to treat things as objectively as possible, you can still do very well with something like this. In fact, you might actually want to start with your concrete example, and use the one you mentioned, because that particular film did cause quite the stir back when it came out. That being said, 'religion vs mass media/culture' is a far cry from a definitive topic, simply because it doesn't imply anything about what questions you're going to be asking, and the idea of finding out how people feel about a movie is also short of what you should be looking for. That being said, if you go in to how religion presents itself to society, which ways religious people want and don't want themselves portrayed, etc, you might have something. Basically, you should find a question that you don't think you know the answer to, and then think about it. If you either already know the answer, or can't approach the question because it's too ambiguous, you should look to get a new question.

[Lena]

Thanx very much!

If in the first topic I would focus on importance of this park. For example, its cultural heritage, how it is influence on ecological situation. And somehow connect it with what is the importance of this park for people, who takes part of pollution of it. The problem is that I'm not sure whether it is appropriate or not and how to connect it with TOK correcttly.