[Sneaky Snake]

The day after tomorrow I have to do a 10 min presentation on anything I think would interest the audience, but it also highly recommended that I do it without aid (Keynote). So what kind of topics could a do a talk/speech on for 10 min and keep the audience from falling asleep.

I say again that the outline says "Whatever you think will interest the audience" - the audience being a group of about 50 older high school students.

I thought about going to the extreme about the conspiracy stuff and how the world is actually the same as the Matrix etc. but I dunno what the profs would think of that. So at the moment I considering the cliche save the environment talk.

Help me !

[Janichsan]

How about some recent topic, like Michael Jackson's influence on popular music?

[dojoboy]

Or, the impact of technology among teenagers and their need for independence and expectation of being taken seriously while having devices that allow them to interact without *much* adult supervision. I'm thinking along the lines of sexting, adult themed videos on the net, etc. Query them as to what they believe is their level of responsibility and if they believe it is an issue adults should be concerned about. Let them take over and your 10 minutes is gone.

[teflon]

The importance of regulating traffic flow through the use of traffic lights correctly and the effects on society should this system fail.
or
The Battle Cat and the Reality Behind the Battle at Midway.

[Sneaky Snake]

Thanks for all of the ideas, they are all quite good.

I don't really follow the music industry, although that would make for an interesting topic. Your's would be quite gripping though dojoboy - especially to see everyone's reactions and thoughts on the topic. Unfortunately, I have to present tomorrow instead I learned and we are having company over tonight so I think time would be fairly limited. As for teflon's suggestion, I think that I would have to have a truely gifted mind to pull that off

I decided to do a presentation on, well, here's my opening "Today, I am going to discuss the concept that a very small and seemingly insignificant action can affect and change history." Using an example from a "insignificant" navigation error made during a bombing run during WWII

Thanks for all of the suggestions though

[teflon]

its called the Butterfly Effect. So I suggest that you call it as such (since if you don't you'd probably lose marks) and diverge a bit more towards chaos theory.

Of course, you still need to use real world examples, so that navigation error is a good one, and another WW2 themed one would be the death of Glenn Miller as he flew across the channel to France in dense fog and (from piecing together various nuggets of information and guesswork together) appears to have been hit by bombs dropped by bombers on the return trip to the UK who needed to ditch the weight to make it back.

Oh, and don't forget the whole bombing of populated areas thing during the Battle of Britain which was partly because of bombers getting lost when sent to take out industrial targets during the night and hitting cities, which got a retaliation.

Last one, the 20th of July plot to kill Hitler (now made famous outside Germany by that Scientologist twit Tom Cruise in Valkyrie) which should have worked but failed out of sheer luck, basically.

Admittedly thats a lot of WW2 in there, so you'll want to find other examples. Just dont go too hypothetical and you should be fine.

good luck

[Janichsan]

teflon, on June 26th 2009, 11:49 PM, said:

...(now made famous outside Germany by that Scientologist twit Tom Cruise in Valkyrie) ...

Fixed.

[teflon]

Right, yeah, done.

[Sneaky Snake]

Thanks for the info,

I now using the original Butterfly Effect story as my opening bit to grab the audience. The actual presentation looks at the navigation error made by the Germans getting them lost and ultimately dropping their bombs on London by accident, causing Britain to bomb Berlin, which in turn causes the Germans to bomb civilian targets. This lets the RAF back into the right, and in the end saves Britain, which probably stopped the war in 45 instead of 55

[Rev-O]

Good stuff tangentally related to check out:
Connections, an absolutely fantastic television series. Here are eps on Youtube.

What If? and What If? 2. They can be a little dry at times, but very interesting reads.