Your Seminar Topics, Slide Decks, and Notebooks in One Place.
Each topic has a slide deck to view, a digital notebook to download, and a reading list. Open any topic for the week-by-week plan and direct links to the readings.
Science & Society
Where empirical evidence meets values, tradeoffs, and policy.
Can We Generate All Our Electricity from Renewables?
A data-rich investigation into wind, solar, and the path to a renewable grid. Examine costs, capacity, global comparisons, and the social tradeoffs of large-scale energy transition.
Should We Be Using More Nuclear Power?
One of the safest energy sources we have, and the cause of accidents people still fear decades later. Both are true. You'll take one of three positions and run a real climate model to see what nuclear actually does.
Will We Have Self-Driving Cars by 2030?
People have been confidently predicting these since 1956. This week you find out what the technology actually has to do — then hit the questions engineering can't answer, like who gets sued when nobody was driving.
Should We Colonize Mars?
A hundred times Earth's radiation, a third of the gravity, and almost no oxygen. So why does anyone want to go? The serious answer is one you may not have heard: a species living in one place can be wiped out in one event.
Does Life Exist Elsewhere in the Universe?
There's an equation that estimates how many civilizations are in our galaxy. The first numbers we now know pretty well. The last ones nobody can estimate at all — and the reason why is the most interesting thing you'll learn this week.
Are There Too Many People on the Planet?
For two hundred years serious people have predicted mass starvation from overpopulation. They've been wrong every time. That's the best argument we'll be fine — and exactly why the argument that we won't has to be made carefully.
Civics & Democracy
The institutions, rights, and tensions that hold a self-governing society together.
Should Social Media Be Censored?
Every platform you use takes things down. This week is about whether they should, and who gets to decide — including why the First Amendment doesn't work online the way most people assume. You'll pick a side early, then have to argue the other one.
Should the US Lower the Voting Age?
The one week where the topic is about you. A few American towns already let sixteen-year-olds vote locally — and in the first one, teenagers turned out at four times the adult rate. Careful: it's easy to win this argument by wanting to.
Should the US Change Its Gun Laws?
On Wednesday you'll be assigned a side and have to argue it whether you agree or not. Thursday is when you say what you actually think. In between, the polling shows both parties agreeing by huge margins on several specific policies.
How Should Countries Approach Immigration?
Two weeks, because it's two questions. First the world: who counts as a citizen, and how the fight over belonging plays out from South Africa to Europe. Then the US: eleven million people without papers, and a citizenship test most Americans would fail.
Ethics & Identity
Questions about what we owe each other, who we are, and how we live together.
Should Sensitive Content Come with Trigger Warnings?
Most people walk into this one already sure. Then the survey data shows up and stops cooperating with everybody's position. This topic is about what schools should do — you're never asked to share a personal experience.
Should We Eat Less Meat?
A two-week investigation into meat consumption, production, climate impact, and ethics — through the lens of storytelling with data. You'll examine global data, weigh competing priorities, then build a visual argument with a partner.
How Forgiving Should We Be of Others?
Should you always forgive the people who hurt you? Should the public forgive well-known people who make mistakes — and what does a country do about wrongs from long ago? On Thursday the discussion is yours to run.
Should the Sale of Kidneys Be Legalized?
About eleven Americans died yesterday waiting for a kidney. One proposed fix is to let people sell one — and almost everyone reacts to that immediately and strongly. This week tests whether your reaction survives the details.
Economy & Work
Markets, labor, inequality — the systems that shape opportunity and constraint.
How Should We Measure Economic Growth and Wellbeing?
When the news says the economy is doing well, it means one number went up. Find out what that number actually counts, what it misses — then build a better one yourself.
Should We Raise the Federal Minimum Wage?
The experts genuinely don't agree, and not because of values — the evidence is messy. Theory says a wage floor costs jobs; the most famous study found it didn't. You'll also find out who actually earns the minimum wage, and it isn't who you're picturing.
Will Robots Take Over Our Jobs?
Almost no job can be fully automated, and almost every job has parts that can be. Those two facts explain why the scary articles and the reassuring ones are both telling the truth — and you're making decisions about your future against these predictions.
Is the American Dream Still Alive?
Fewer American children out-earn their parents every decade. And yet more people want to move here than anywhere else on earth. Both are true. On Thursday you'll look up your own hometown in a database tracking twenty million Americans.
Education & Opportunity
Schools, college, and whether education still opens the doors it promises.
How Should We Deal with College Student Debt?
The topic most likely to affect you personally within a few years. Half of it is learning how the system actually works. The other half is one idea: when the government pays off someone's debt, the money comes from people who don't have that debt.
Should Colleges Use Test Scores as Admissions Criteria?
SAT scores line up with family income, which looks like a knockout argument against the test — until the next chart shows GPA doing exactly the same thing. Nobody will ask you to share your own scores.
Is Grade Inflation Bad?
C used to be the normal college grade. Now most students get As and Bs, and researchers found the same test scores earning higher grades. The reasons are bizarre, starting with the Vietnam draft. But notice the question — is it bad?
Should Charter Schools Be Publicly Funded?
ASU Prep is a charter school, so you'll be examining the evidence about your own school's model. You'll also meet a statistic that's higher overall and lower in every single group at the same time. Both are true.
Are College Sports Programs Too Big?
Something you've probably never questioned: almost no other country has college sports. It's a $19 billion business where the highest-paid public employee in most states is a coach — and the athletes get scholarships instead of salaries.
Global Affairs
The world beyond the local — power, exchange, conflict, and progress.
Is the World Getting Better?
Most people say the world is getting worse. On how long people live, how many children survive, and how many are in extreme poverty, it has gotten dramatically better. This week is about that gap — and about what really is getting worse.
Where Would You Rather Be Born, the USA or Denmark?
Two rich countries that made almost opposite deals between the person and the government. It's set up as a contest, but the real answer is that every system trades something away — and which trade you'd take depends on who you are.
What Is the Responsibility of Rich Countries to Poor Countries?
Two questions, and keeping them apart is the whole trick: should rich countries help, and does the help work? Your readings include a real argument between Bill Gates and a Zambian economist who says aid has damaged African economies.