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Instructions:

Part 1:

Suppose you are an investigative reporter for a major newspaper. Your editor is taking Contemporary Issues in Biology and she read about how climate change is affecting the nation of Tuvalu. Your editor was captivated by this story and thinks that the newspaper’s readership would also be interested in a story on the effects of climate change. She thinks that, like the material in your text, the story will have the most appeal if you focus on how climate change has affected (or is predicted to affect) a specific nation, community, or group. A "group" could be a cultural group (e.g. an immigrant community) or a group of people that belong to the same profession (e.g. farmers).

The following websites are good sources of information on this topic, although you are welcome to use other sources.

• http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/fcons.asp
• http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming
• http://climate.nasa.gov/
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/
• http://www.realclimate.org/

Write a newspaper article (450 words or longer) that answers the following questions:

1. What group, community or nation did you decide to focus on? Provide some relevant background information about this group. For example, if the group is expected to be harmed by rising ocean tides, you might explain that the group lives or works in coastal regions. Relevant information might include a description of the group’s political or economic system and cultural or religious practices.
2. How will climate change affect the group? Try to be as specific as possible. Your article might include answers to some of the following questions: Will the way that the group makes a living be impacted? Will a cultural practice be lost? Will the group be displaced? Will the group face new challenges from disease or pollution due to global warming?
3. One of the goals of your article is to help inform your readership about climate change. Give a brief overview of climate change and discuss one specific way that humans have contributed to the problem through greenhouse gas emissions. You can choose a source of greenhouse gasses that is relevant to the community you are profiling or a source that you feel is particularly important. Be sure to explain why you chose the source that you did.
4. Your editor thinks that balance is important. Some people are skeptical that humans contribute to climate change and that global warming, if it is occurring, will not be detrimental to life on the planet. Choose one argument made by climate change skeptics and then present a counter argument made by scientists that disagree. For this portion of the assignment you are limited to only those websites mentioned above.
5. Your editor likes happy endings. Conclude your article with information about one thing your readers can do to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how these reductions could have a positive impact on the group you described in your article.
6. Make sure you give credit to every source you use to write your article; make sure that every link to a website actually works.

Remember, cutting and pasting from another website, without quotes or citation, is PLAGIARISM -- so is using a cut-and-pasted passage and just changing a few words. Plagiarism is a serious form of academic misconduct. If you have any questions about whether your work constitutes plagiarism, please visit the resources at week 1's plagiarism assignment, or ask your instructor.

You can see a sample assignment here.

Part 2:

Use D2L's spell checker (or the one on your word processor software, which will give you a word count as well). Proofread it yourself too, because spell checkers don't catch everything. When you are satisfied, post your completed assignment in the Digging Deeper forum for this week at the D2L discussion board.

Part 3:

Respond to at least two other students’ articles. (If you are the first or second person to post, you will have to check back later to complete this part of the assignment).

• Just as you spell checked and proofread your original post, you should do the same for your responses.
• Please respond to posts with 0 responses first; once every post has at least one response, you are free to choose any post to respond to.
• When you respond, please use the name of the student you are responding to. That is, say "Hi Trudy" or "Hi Paul" so that you can get used to the names of the people in class. (You can find a list of "real" names and D2L names at D2L).
• In your response, be sure you mention something specific that the writer did well. Also, specifically address anything you find that seems incorrect to you (phrased in a constructive way -- use the same language you would want someone else to use in telling you something you did wrong). I don't mean spelling errors and typographical errors. I mean more substantive comments. You may wish to argue with (or critique) what the student wrote, request supporting evidence, evaluate the student's argument, add new information, make a factual correction, or explain why you agree. Check out this page for more on the topic of good and bad responses.

After you have posted your assignment AND responded to two other students, go to Desire2Learn and complete the Gradebook Declaration for this week's Digging Deeper assignment. (Your Gradebook Declaration is subject to the Honor Code.)

[Assignment developed by Matt Chumchal]

Contemporary Issues in Biology -- BIOL 1003 Mariëlle H. Hoefnagels, Ph.D. © 2004-2015. biology1003 at OU dot edu (at = @, dot =.) Last Updated August 5, 2014 11:02 PM