Reefs and the hobby as a research topic

[aggie05]

Hey guys, I am taking a public speaking course this semester and we have to choose a topic to do a series of four speeches over throughout the semester. I am thinking about doing something on reefs and the hobby as it pertains to conservation. But I am sort of unsure whether there is enough to talk about. Our first speech must be about why the topic is important to me and my audience. The second must be an imformative overview of the topic. The third must be about policy concerning the topic, and the fourth should be defending objections to that policy.
Now I am pretty confident I can give good speeches for the first two but the policy is where I start to doubt myself. Can anyone here provide me with some sort of policy involving reefs or even the hobby that I may be overlooking? Any advice over any part of this would be awesome. Thanks in advance.

 

[shanev]

One example of policy dealing with reefs is the legal means of coral collection. There are plenty of laws and regualtions for collecting/transporting live coral, even dead coral skeletions.

 

[aggie05]

That is one I have thought about, and may end up doing.
It just seems there aren't too many public policy issues involving reefing. Collecting does seem to be the largest issue. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

 

[shanev]

You could also get into fish collectiong methods of cyanide vs nets, etc.

 

[justinx]

1st Speech: Discuss the negative impacts of marine wildlife collection and the detrimental effects that this will have. i.e. how soon before the reefs are 100% gone.
2nd Speech: Give explanations, examples, insight to how captive breeding of marine wildlife can and is possible, but only to a certain extent. And if there were more public interest in the in preservation of marine wildlife, there would be a significant increase in funding for researching breeding in captivity.
3rd Speech: Go into detail regarding current collecetion laws, how ther are enforced, regulated, and what penalties exist for breaking such laws. Perfect examples of this are the laws which govern any collection of marine wildlife from any U.S. costal waters, and another example is "cyanide bombing"
4th Speech: This will be self evident once you begin researching your third speech, but an example is the cost.
HTH
Justin

 

[terminus est]

I did presentations last semester on setting up saltwater tanks and the different aspects of it. POwerpoint and everything, it was sweet, I think it was what saved me in my business communication class heheh. 20 minutes of it and I could have continued heheh.
The above is a good outline, you might also mention aquaculturing and and the large efforts that are going into it including everyones favorite "Nemo" in order to get a bit more crowd association with the topic. They will be more interested if your speeches involve something they are at least partially familiar with.

 

[aggie05]

I plan on pushing "finding nemo" so that they can relate. Thanks all for the help.

 

[cyslyde]

hehe sounds familar, had to do a speech for group dynamics... i used the nemo movie, and how fish are collected as my focus I learned there is a lot out there concerning destruction of the reefs, and how they are trying to start reefs, pretty interesting stuff, to bad there have been so many mishaps. I think that shane hit it on the head if i were in your shoes that is prolly the way i would go. good luck!