SCB202 General Biology II – Global Learning Competency;

SCB202 General Biology II – Global Learning Competency;

SCB202 General Biology II – Global Learning Competency; Oral Communication Ability Biodiversity in New York State and a Location Elsewhere Part I: i-Naturalist and Presentation Background The history of life on Earth is a history of new species evolving and the extinction of old species. In evolution, the game that is being played is all about survival and reproduction. Survival is necessary, but nothing really matters unless an organism reproduces and passes its genes to the next generation. Organisms that produce more offspring and contribute more of their genes to the next generation have a greater “fitness”. This has nothing to do with how big and strong you are; instead it’s all about having the qualities that help you reproduce more (and survive to reproduce). Any trait that helps do this is called an adaptation, so a big part of evolutionary theory is about how species are adapted to their environments. An adaptation only makes sense when you think about the specific ways a species survives and reproduces and the environment it lives in. When a species evolves a new adaptation, this allows it to increase its population and spread out across new areas. If there was nothing to stop it, then the species would take over the planet. This doesn’t happen because things like disease and predators start to take their toll, and the food supply eventually runs out. Also, there are physical barriers that have stopped species from spreading out, like mountains, rivers, and oceans. Biogeography is the study of where species are located, and it combines evolution with geography to understand why species are the same or different around the world. One thing that biogeographers look at is the history of plate tectonics because there were times when all of the land on Earth was connected so species could spread out everywhere. So the arrangement of the tectonic plates could help or hinder the spread of a species depending on when and where the species first evolved. In this assignment, you are going to create an oral presentation on the biogeography in two different areas. This means that your presentation will have to eventually be spoken on a video or PowerPoint. For the first part, you are going to create your species list based on two different locations on the planet. The first location is New York, and the second is a location of your choice. How to Make a Good Presentation A good basic presentation follows this format: 1. Why you were interested in this topic? 2. What were the most interesting/important things you learned? 3. What questions do you still have? Here are some links on how to do a good oral presentation. Even though you’re submitting a recording, you should think of it as being in front of an audience. I realize that you’re not giving a TED talk, but being able to communicate your ideas is incredibly important, and the basics can be applied to almost any format. Quick overview by Microbiology Society (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swIWHuIpubI) A good versus bad presentation by Project IDEA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8eLdbKXGzk) TED’s secret to great public speaking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FOCpMAww28) How to Add Audio to a Presentation If you are unfamiliar with adding audio to a presentation, then it can be challenging. It is highly recommended that you use PowerPoint because other software packages do not have streamlined audio insertion. All students can download Office 365 by following the instructions on the Technology Resources page. Here are tutorial links for inserting audio into PowerPoint and Google slides. • PowerPoint • Google slides (not recommended) Instructions Make a list of the top 5 species in New York and another part of the world 1. Go to the website (https://www.inaturalist.org/) or download the i-Naturalist app. This is an app where local people upload observations of the natural world around them. It’s part of a movement called “citizen science” where non-scientists can contribute information. 2. Decide on a type of organism you would like to explore. There are lots of birds, mammals, and butterflies on i-Naturalist because that’s what people like, but you can choose another group of plants or animals if you would like; it just might make it difficult to find enough species. 3. Once you have picked out your group, go to the i-Naturalist website or app: a. Click “Explore”. b. In the “Species” search box type the name of the group of organisms you selected. c. Type New York in the “Location” search box d. Click “Go”. e. When the results appear click “Species”, which will show you how many times people living in that area have observed each species. f. Write down the top 5 species in terms of how many times they have been observed. 4. Now do the same thing with the same group but for a different location in the world. It should be somewhere outside of the United States. It could be another country, or a state, or city, or even an island. a. Write down the top 5 species. 5. Finally, look up how long ago your group of organisms evolved and where they first evolved. It might not be possible to find this information exactly, but a rough estimate is fine. Compare the two areas with each other Now it’s time to look up geographical information on both locations (New York and the one that you picked) • For each location, answer the following questions: a. What is the latitude and longitude? b. What is the average, minimum, and maximum temperature? c. d. e. f. How much rain falls per year in the location? What types of biomes are in the location? (A good link to biomes is https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/biomes/index.php) What tectonic plate is the location on? (A nice map of the plates is here https://geology.com/plate-tectonics.shtml) Using the plate tectonic slide show (https://www.nationalgeographic.org/maps/earths-tectonic-plates), estimate (very roughly) the last time the two locations were touching and species could have walked from one location to the other. For example, 300 million years ago. Turn In a PowerPoint with Audio by End of Week 5. It should include: 1. 1-2 slides with the group you chose and the lists of species (steps #1–4) 2. 1 slide with the background information on the groups’ evolution (step #5) 3. 1 slide with the answers to the geography questions (step #6) NOTE: Do not turn in a link, for example to Google slides or YouTube. You must turn in a downloadable file with audio that can be opened. MP4 formats are the best option for cross-platform accessibility. Part II: Evolutionary Background Through Paper Skimming Background In the first part of this assignment you developed a framework by finding the top five species in two different locations using i-Naturalist. In Part II of this assignment, you are going to dig deeper into the evolutionary background of the organisms that you have selected. In this part of the assignment, you are also going to learn how to search for primary literature using Google Scholar. Primary literature are papers that scientists publish in scientific journals. These types of papers look a lot like fancy lab reports, and they are the original sources for writing textbooks, news articles, or popular science articles, which are called secondary literature. The benefit of searching primary literature is that you are up to date on the most recent research (some estimates show textbooks are 10 years behind!), but it can take some time to learn how to read these types of papers. Here are some resources to help you learn how to read them: • Nice video on how to read a paper quickly – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv5ku0eoY6k • A blog that gives a long overview of scientific papers – https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/05/09/how-to-read-andunderstand-a-scientific-paper-a-guide-for-non-scientists/ • Stanford’s guide to reading a paper in three passes – https://web.stanford.edu/class/ee384m/Handouts/HowtoReadPaper.pdf It is ok to use other resources, but you need to have at least 2 primary literature citations. Cite all of them using APA style (https://apastyle.apa.org/). For this assignment, you should not try to thoroughly read the primary literature articles! You should try to skim the articles for the main idea. How to Log Into Google Scholar In order to have access to the journals, you need to log into Google Scholar through your LaGuardia library login. 1. Go to the LaGuardia web page https://library.laguardia.edu/services/facultystaffinformation/ 2. Click on the Google Scholar link 3. Enter your information by following the instructions for Students 4. Now you are logged onto Google Scholar through LaGuardia, and when you will be able to download papers in to which journals LaGuardia subscribes. Instructions 1. Log onto Google Scholar through your LaGuardia account (see above). 2. Find the most common family represented at each location you chose. For example, if you chose birds and found that there are three species in the Passeridae in NY and three species in the Anatidae in Moscow, then you would pick those two families to do research on. a. If the most common family is the same for both locations, then pick that family and the second most common in New York. b. If there is no family that is the most common, then pick the two families from the most cited species in each location. 3. Search for each family + evolution. For the above example, you would search “passeridae evolution” and “anatidae evolution”. 4. Pick at least two research papers that you find interesting on the evolution of these families. 5. Skim read these papers for the main idea. Look up any vocabulary that you need to get a basic grasp of the papers. 6. Add two slides to your original PPT, one for each paper. 7. Add audio to the slides. The audio should explain the main results of each paper in no more than two minutes (four minutes total for both slides). A good way to do this is to use screen capture to take an image of a graph from the paper, then you can focus on describing the graph and how it explains that main point. 8. Make sure the reference is on the slide in APA format. Turn In by End of Week 8: 1. Your original PPT but with two new slides, one for each paper. 2. Make sure that each slide contains a graph and the correctly formatted reference. Part III: Ecological Background Through Paper Skimming Background This is the final part of your project. This step is the same as in Part II, where you skimmed primary literature to get some information on the evolutionary history of your top families. In this final part, you are going to do the same thing, but you are going to research the ecology of the same two families that you used in Part II. Remember that you are supposed to skim these papers, not read them thoroughly. Hopefully you have gotten better at this type of reading. You can find the guidelines for reading these types of articles and the instructions for how to log into Google Scholar in Part II. Finally, you are going to add a summary slide to finish off your presentation, and then deposit it. Instructions 1. Use the instructions in Part II to log onto Google Scholar through your LaGuardia account. 2. Use the same two families that you used in Part II, but this time search for each family + ecology. For example, you would search “passeridae ecology” or “anatidae ecology”. 3. Pick at two research papers that you find interesting on the ecology of these families. 4. Skim read these papers for the main idea. Look up any vocabulary that you need to get a basic grasp of the papers. 5. Add two slides to your original PPT, one for each paper. Again, you should focus on the graphs, and each slide should have one graph from the paper. 6. Add audio to the slides. The audio should explain the main results of each paper in no more than two minutes (four minutes total for both slides). 7. Add your references on each slide in APA format. 1. Finally, add 1-2 slides that summarize: a. what you learned b. what you found the most interestin c. how this assignment helped you think in a more global way about life on this planet Deposit by the End of Week 12: 1. Your complete PPT. Follow these instructions (https://spark.adobe.com/page/7NoMzpKEKkHMB/) to deposit your assignment. You can either deposit directly, or you can first post to your e-Portfolio page and then deposit.