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SC/�ATS1945A 6.0 FW2014­15 Physics & Technology for World Leaders

�EWS BRIEFS: I�STRUCTIO�S

Please read all of the information below carefully before beginning your assignment.

PURPOSE OF THIS ASSIG�ME�T: To improve your scientific literacy and critical thinking in

topics pertaining to Physics and Technology.

I�TRODUCTIO�: Every 2­3 weeks, you are required to read a recent article on physics or

technology from one of the newspapers or magazines listed in the instructions below. You will then

act as a concerned citizen and write a report on the article for the purpose of briefing a public figure

on the contents of the article and raising issues that the public figure should be concerned with. The

due dates for each news brief are posted here.

I�STRUCTIO�S: For each news brief, follow the steps below.

1. Choose your article: Your article must pertain to a topic that is covered in our textbook and

must be chosen from one of the following sources:

• Discover Magazine: discovermagazine.com/

• Scientific American: www.scientificamerican.com/section.cfm?id=news

• The Economist (Science and Technology): www.economist.com/science­technology

• New York Times (Science): www.nytimes.com/pages/science/index.html

• BBC (Science and Environment): www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment

• Nature (News): http://www.nature.com/news/index.html (Be sure to choose from the ‘�ews’

column and not from the ‘Opinion’ column.)

You can use the same source for all articles, or you can use a different source for each article.

News briefs due in the Fall term must be based on articles that have been published on or after

August 1, 2014. News briefs due in the Winter term must be based on articles that have been

published on or after December 1, 2014.

TIP: Writing about a topic is much easier when you are discussing something that you are

passionate about. When choosing your articles, try to choose something that you feel a strong

reaction to (either positive or negative) when you read it.

2. Submit the Article Information Form: For each news brief, click on the Article Information

Form link in the News Brief section of our Moodle site and complete the form. This form

requires you to enter your article’s title, publication date, publication source (Nature, Scientific

American, etc), URL and topic. The allowable topics are the 13 chapters in our course textbook.

3. Write your news brief: For each of your news briefs, download the News Brief Submission

Form. (A link to this form can also be found in the News Brief section of our Moodle site). Save

the form as a new file and be sure to give the file a unique name so that you don’t overwrite any

of your other versions of this form. Next, complete the form by filling in the following sections:

ARTICLE I�FORMATIO�: Enter the title of your article, the publication date and the

URL.

�EWS BRIEF RECIPIE�T: Choose the public figure for whom your news brief is

intended. The recipient should have some influence over the issues in the article. For

NATS1945 FW2014­15 • News Brief Instructions •  Page 1 of 4

example, you could choose a politician in a city, province, state, or country which is effected

by the issues. Or, you could choose an activist, an industry leader or CEO of an organization

that may be effected by, or the cause of, the issues in the article. You are welcome to be

creative in your selection – for example, you could choose an actor, a musician or an athlete

who is known for speaking out on the issues in the article.

�EWS SUMMARY (250 words minimum): Summarize the events in your article. Your

summary must be comprehensible to someone with no scientific background, regardless of

the true background of your chosen recipient. Acronyms must be defined and technical lingo

must be explained in layperson’s terms, which means that you may need to look up

unfamiliar words using an encyclopaedic source such as Wikipedia (see the “Note” below for

referencing external information).

RECOMME�DATIO�S (250 words minimum): Explain why you think the recipient

should be concerned with the contents of the article, and describe the specific actions that you

think the recipient should take. Actions could include sanctions, a change in company policy,

the passing of a bill, a public protest, a letter­writing campaign, a performance to increase

public awareness, etc. You can be creative here, but be sure to provide a justification for your

recommendations. Your arguments do not need to be infallible, but they do need to be

reasonable and thoughtful. In addition, be sure to address the specific issues or events in your

article, as opposed to the broad topic in general.

TIP: A completed News Brief Submission Form from a previous term is provided in the News

Brief section of our Moodle site as an example

�OTE: Be sure to save your work periodically while completing the News Brief Submission

Form.

�OTE: If you include any facts or figures that are not given in your article, you will need to

provide your source. Information obtained from sources outside the article must be followed by

an in­text citation, and the full bibliographic reference for the citation must be listed in MLA

format under a WORKS CITED section at the end of your report. Examples of this are provided

in the sample at the end of this document. The MLA format for web pages can be found here.

Citations to Wikipedia pages can be generated by clicking on the “Cite this page” link on the

relevant page, then scrolling down to the citation listed under “MLA style”.

4. Submit your report: When you’ve completed the form and edited your writing, go to the News

Brief section of our Moodle site and click on the appropriate ‘�ews Brief Upload’ link, then

click on the ‘Submit Paper’ link to upload your completed form.

�OTE: Late reports will incur a 10% penalty per day. Technical difficulties are not an

acceptable excuse for missing deadlines. Be sure to attempt your submission at least 48 hours

before the deadline so you have time to resolve any technical problems that may arise. If you are

not able to upload your form, email your completed form to the professor before the deadline.

Please do not email your file unless you are sure that your submission has failed.

5. Check your similarity score: A few hours after uploading your News Brief Submission Form,

your report will be assigned a “Similarity” score. This is the percentage of your content that

matches existing sources, such as web sites or other students’ papers. A similarity score of 0%­

10% is normal for the News Brief Submission Form. If your Similarity score is greater than 10%,

you should click on the link to your report in the ‘Similarity’ column. This will display your

NATS1945 FW2014­15 • News Brief Instructions •  Page 2 of 4

report in the TurnItIn Document Viewer. Text that has been matched with existing sources will

be highlighted. If the highlighted sections are primarily lists of names or places, then no revisions

are necessary. However, if the highlighted sections contain complete sentences from an existing

source, you should rewrite the sentence in your own words to avoid losing marks. Revised files

can be resubmitted up to the deadline.

�OTE: If you submit your News Brief Submission Form within 48 hours of the due date, the

similarity report might not be completed by the deadline. This does not mean that your report is

late, but it does mean that you will not be able to revise your report if the similarity score is high.

So, try not to wait until the due date to submit your report.

IMPORTA�T REQUIREME�TS

� Your reports must be submitted using the News Brief Submission Form. If you submit a different document, a 1­mark penalty will be applied and your report will not be marked until

it is submitted correctly.

� The Article Information Form must be submitted before the due date of the corresponding News Brief. If the Article Information Form is missing, a 1­mark penalty will be applied and

your report will not be marked until it is submitted correctly.

� Your reports must be written using full sentences (ie, point­form answers are not acceptable) and each section must have the minimum word count specified in the instructions above.

There is no penalty for exceeding the minimum word count as long as your content is

relevant.

� Your article topic must pertain to one of the topics in our course textbook and the articles must come from one of the allowable sources listed above. Furthermore, your article must be

a genuine news article as opposed to a blog or opinion piece. If these requirements are not

met, a 1­mark penalty will be applied. If you are not sure whether your chosen article is

suitable, email the article link to the professor for confirmation.

� Your articles must be have been published on or after the dates specified in the instructions. If this requirement is not met, a 1­mark penalty will be applied.

� Your writing is expected to be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Be sure to edit your work carefully using a spelling and grammar checker. If this requirement is not met, a

1­mark penalty will be applied. If you do not have experience with editing your work, you

should consult your faculty’s Writing Centre. (E.g., information about the Writing Centre in

the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies can be found at

www.yorku.ca/laps/writ/centre/ ). If English is your second language, you can get writing

assistance from the ESL Open Learning Centre (www.yorku.ca/eslolc/keele/default.asp ).

These support services are free for York students.

� Your chosen articles cannot be about the exact same research or event, but they can be about the same topic. If you submit more than one report on the exact same research or event, only

one of your reports will be marked.

� Your writing must be comprehensible to readers with no science background. This means that all scientific terms or concepts used in the article must be defined or explained.

NATS1945 FW2014­15 • News Brief Instructions •  Page 3 of 4

� VERY VERY IMPORTANT: Your reports must be in YOUR OWN WORDS. Any quoting from the article or other sources will not count toward your total word count.

PLAGIARSM: All reports will be checked for plagiarism of external sources as well as of other

students’ reports from the entire term. Severe penalties will be applied to writing that has been copied

and pasted from another source. Student should be aware that plagiarism is a major academic offence

and carries serious penalties, ranging from a failing grade on the work in question to a failing grade

in the course. Students who have not conducted University­level research projects are encouraged to

refer to York ’s Academic Integrity Tutorial. This is a very useful tutorial for learning the important

distinction between presenting someone else’s work and plagiarizing their work.

EVALUTIO� & FEEDBACK: Each news brief is given a grade out of 8 marks, as follows: each of

the 2 sections are given a mark out of 4, where 4 = excellent, 3 = very good but room for

improvement, 2 = satisfactory, 1 = insufficient effort, and 0 = no submission. To receive a perfect

score, the report must meet all of the Important Requirements listed above, and the information in the

report must be correct, clear, sufficient in length and depth, comprehensible to someone with no

science background and in the student’s own words. In addition, concerns and recommendations

must be thoughtful, relevant and must pertain to the specific issues in the article.

The reports are marked by 5 teaching assistants (TAs). The 8 reports from each student are

distributed among the TAs so that each student is evaluated by each TA at least once. Students can

expect to see their marks and feedback approximately 3 weeks after each due date.

The mark breakdown and feedback can be viewed as follows:

1. From the ‘�ews Brief Upload’ link, click on the link to your submitted file in the ‘Grade’

column. This will open your report in the TurnItIn Document Viewer. You should now see

various comment boxes throughout your paper. If you place the mouse over a comment box,

you'll see what it says.

2. At the bottom­right corner of the Viewer, you'll see 4 icon buttons. Click on the right­most

button. This will open up the rubric, where you can see your marks for each component of the

report.

PLEASE �OTE: While we appreciate that students are anxious to see their marks and feedback,

please be aware that high­quality and thorough marking of written assignments is a time­consuming

process and requires patience. Students are therefore asked to refrain from requesting their marks. A

course announcement will be posted when the marking has been completed for each set of reports.

E�JOY, A�D HAPPY READI�G!

NATS1945 FW2014­15 • News Brief Instructions •  Page 4 of 4

sample.doc

NATS1795 Term Project: News Brief Form

ARTICLE INFORMATION (include title, publication date and URL)

A New Fleet Of Robot Asteroid Prospectors Will Launch By 2015, 1/22/2013, http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/new-fleet-cubesat-asteroid-prospectors-will-fly-near-earth-space-rocks-2015

NEWS BRIEF RECIPIENT (include name, title and organization)

Charles F. Bolden Jr., Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

NEWS SUMMARY (250 words minimum)

It was recently reported that a new company called Deep Space Industries (DSI) is planning a series of missions to mine asteroids as early as 2015. DSI is the 2nd company to unveil such plans, the first being competitor Planetary Resources (PRI), which formed in the spring of 2012 and receives funding from such high-profile personalities as filmmaker James Cameron, the founders and CEO of Google, and the son of former presidential candidate Ross Perot. DSI’s ultimate goal is to mine asteroids for materials which can fuel their “MicroGravity Foundry”, which is essentially a 3D printer in space. 3D printers are capable of producing three dimensional metal objects by laying down successive layers of material and are already in use in a number of industries.1 DSI claims that by placing this technology in the proximity of asteroids, it could serve as a factory for manufacturing parts for communication satellites, space stations and future space missions. The company also states that asteroid mining could provide a source of fuel for satellites. DSI intends to achieve its objective by beginning with a series of surveillance missions planned for 2015-2020. These will begin with two sets of small satellites, which will study the chemical compositions of Near-Earth Asteroids (ie, asteroids with orbits that pass within ~195 million km of the Sun and may therefore be capable of intersecting Earth’s path2 ). The next set of missions includes a fleet of 70-pound unmanned space crafts (called “Dragonflies”), which will fly to selected asteroids and extract 60 to 150 pounds of space rock, then return the samples to Earth for detailed analysis. (NASA’s former space shuttle had a carrying capacity of 32,000 lbs, so the retrieval of 150 pounds of cargo is small by comparison)3.

RECOMMENDATIONS: (250 words minimum)

I am bringing this news to your attention because I feel that the public should be deeply concerned about asteroid missions being in the hands of private organizations. The extinction of the dinosaurs shows us that asteroids have the potential to cause massive damage to our planet and to threaten the survival of the human race. Attempts to land on and mine asteroids should therefore be treated with the utmost caution. Of particular concern is the possibility that a mining expedition could lead to the altering of an asteroid’s orbit, sending it on a possible collision course with other spacecraft or Earth itself. Even a collision with another asteroid is potentially hazardous as the debris could be sent on a deadly path toward Earth. With such grave consequences at stake, the most prudent course of action is to entrust the supervision of asteroid missions to publicly-funded, government-regulated organizations such as NASA or the European Space Agency (ESA). Not only do these agencies have the proven expertise to handle such pioneering efforts, but they are also subject to rigorous safety requirements. Certainly, private companies could be allowed to provide funding and resources, to propose future endeavours and to receive a share of the proceeds, but the direction of the missions should be left in the hands of agencies which are more accountable to the general public. Given that commercial activity in space is clearly becoming a reality, organizations such as NASA need to appeal to their countries’ governments to be granted a supervisory role in all futures missions to mine asteroids.

WORKS CITED (Optional)

1 Wikipedia contributors. "3D printing." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 5 Sep. 2013. Web. 6 Sep. 2013. 2 Wikipedia contributors. "Near Earth object." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 17 Aug. 2014. Web. 8 Sep. 2014. 3 Wikipedia contributors. "Space Shuttle." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 6 Sep. 2013. Web. 6 Sep. 2013.