the rest
Week 4 discussion
Discussion 1
As regular users of the World Wide Web, both for personal and instructional purposes, we all share a concern over the accuracy of information available on the Internet. Indeed, one of the Internet's most powerful and novel features (its ability to provide a world-wide forum for the ideas, opinions and beliefs of anyone with access to a server) can also be one of its biggest liabilities.
Many members of the scientific community have made statements to the effect that scientific information on the Web is often inaccurate, flawed or unreliable. However, as scientists we are trained to be skeptical of generalizations until we have data to support them.
Many people would argue that a teacher's most important role is to build/develop a student's skills in CRITICAL THINKING and CRITICAL READING. This creates a student who can teach themselves, enabling lifelong learning.
One of the Internet's potential liabilities (its ability to provide false or inaccurate information at the click of a button) also creates an opportunity to build and reinforce skills in CRITICAL THINKING and CRITICAL READING.
For this week, I want you to do a little web research. Choose a topic, perhaps something like "Smoking and Cancer". Limit your topics to the sciences. Use your favorite search engine and look at the first several items that come up. For "smoking and cancer" on Google the first item that comes up is a bunch of ads (unfortunately), then this -
Smoking and cancer | Cancer Research UK
www.cancerresearchuk.org/...cancer/...cancer/smoki...
Cancer Research UK
Smoking is the most preventable cause of cancer in the world. Smoking account for more than 1 in 4 UK cancer deaths. Quit smoking and reduce your risk.
How smoking causes cancer - Smoking facts and evidence - Passive smoking
On Bing, I get this, after the ads -
smoking causes cancer - National Cancer Institute
www.cancer.gov › … › Causes and Prevention › Risk Factors › Tobacco
A fact sheet that lists some of the cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco smoke and describes the health problems caused by cigarette smoking and the benefits of …
I want you to look at the article that comes up for your search and evaluate it for suitability of the reference. Use the following questions to guide your conference post.
Look at the scope of the article (does it cover the subject appropriately)
Who it the targeted to (is it a scholarly article, or is it written for a lay person)
The timeliness of the article (is the information current)
The authority of the article (who is writing it).
What about the documentation of the article (does it site other good references).
Finally, is the article objective.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/instruct/guides/evaluation.html This is the reference that inspired these questions and will provide an expanded explanation of the questions. This discussion was inspired by an article on evaluating the accuracy of scientific information on the internet by Dr. Jory Weintraub, as a matter of fact I pulled some of this discussion from Dr. Weintraub's article.
Discussion 2:
Sexual Reproduction
Why do you think that sexual reproduction is considered a pillar of evolutionary advancement? Practically all species (except the most simple) have the ability to reproduce sexually. What do you think are the evolutionary advantages of sexual as opposed to asexual reproduction?
Week 5 discussion
Discussion 1
Last week you looked at the web resources and the quality of the information that you can find on the web. This week, it is important to continue the lessons that you learned last week by comparing scientific and non-scientific sources of information and asking whether the information in those sources are scientifically sound. Meaning do they have a solid scientific foundation. You can use the article/site you found last week as one of your articles/sites, or you can find two new articles/sites. One should be from a scientific source such as: a scientific journal (e.g.; Science; Popular Science; Nature); a government web site (e.g.: National Cancer Institute; FDA; CDC); or a recognized national organization (e.g.; Cancer Research Foundation; Susan G. Komen Foundation; etc.). The non-scientific source and be from any non-scientific source... they should be easy to find, usually they are trying to sell you something at the end of their article.
Compare them. Think about the sources of their information. Are their sources of information credible? Did they employ the scientific method? Is their scientific foundation to be trusted?
For this week’s discussion you can either post the web links to your papers/sites or the PDFs of your papers/sites.
State the scientific question the two papers/sites are trying to answer.
State the methods the papers/sites showed to get to their conclusions.
State whether you believe the articles have a solid scientific foundation. Why? Why not?
Also, as an aside, just because information is from a non-scientific source doesn't mean that it doesn't have a scientific foundation... they sometimes do. Critically evaluate both resources.
Discussion 2
Explain how personal habits and individual choices can affect a person's risk of developing cancers. Do you have a personal habit and/or an individual choice that affects your risk of developing cancer?
Week 6 discussion
In the online text we are learning some interesting things about macroevolution and speciation.
These are some kick-off questions for the discussion. You can answer one or two of them, or propose your own questions based on the reading.
What is macroevolution?
What is speciation? How do new species arise?
What is a mass extinction? Why would/does it happen?
What is a taxonomy of an organism? What is phylogeny?
What did you think of these sections? Are the sections making you think about genetic diversity and the evolution of species over our planet's time?
Week 7 discussion
Discussion 1
During the summer of 1988, lightning ignited huge forest fires that burned a large portion of Yellowstone National Park. The National Park Service has a natural-burn policy: Fires that start naturally are allowed to burn unless they endanger human settlements. The fires were allowed to spread and burn while firefighters primarily protected people. The public accused the park service of letting a national treasure go up in flames. Park service scientists stuck with natural-burn policy. Do you think this was the best decision? Support your position.
Remembering the 1988 Yellowstone Fires
Discussion 2
As we read this week's readings and look at the news one can feel like everything is going wrong... oil spills, organic wastes, thermal pollution, landfills, and acid rain.
For this week's discussion pick an environmental problem you've found in the online readings, say chlorofluorocarbon damage to the ozone, describe the problem, then describe how we can be part of the solution. What can we do to save our planet and protect our fragile biosphere?