Science Seeker Project Guide L102 Deadlines Topic due: 3/27/13 Rough draft due: 4/17/13 Final draft

due: 4/24/13

Spring 2013

Part 1: Written project (135 points) You will be an investigator of the scientific literature. Your goal is to choose a concept related to our course, use websites and on-line encyclopedias to further investigate a topic related to this concept and identify and analyze a paper from the primary literature that furthers our understanding of this topic. The goal of this project is to communicate in a well-written paper what you have learned from investigating this topic and how the paper you have found, written by scientists, has contributed to our understanding of the biological concept that you have chosen. Your written project should build upon the discussion of this topic that we have had (or will have) in lecture. In addition, the project reinforces the writing, statistics and graph-reading skills that you are developing in this course. Choose something that excites and interests you. Your paper should be organized into the following sections. Guidelines for each section follow: Introduction Methods Results Future Directions References/Bibliography Data Blast The length of the paper should be 2 single spaced pages plus 1 page for your bibliography and another page describing the figure from the data blast portion. Use a typical font and font size (e.g. Arial 11pt or Times 12pt) and 1 margins. You will need to submit these papers electronically via Oncourse by the deadlines at the top of the paper. On the following page is the template that your project should follow. In your document, please use the headings to identify each section.

TEMPLATE FOR WRITTEN SCIENCE SEEKER PROJECT Your name: Concept chosen: Primary paper citation: Introduction The introduction of your paper introduces your concept and places the concept in the broader context of the fields of evolution, ecology and the diversity of life. The best source of information for this section would be online encyclopedia resources, as well as good websites (e.g. SciTables) and your textbook. -- define the concept that you have chosen -- describe the more specific topic that you have investigated within this larger concept -- describe the aspects of the topic that you find scientifically interesting and how they relate to concepts or examples in class -- why is it important that scientists study this topic? Methods This section summarizes the primary research article that you have chosen and read. It should discuss the motivation, hypotheses tested and methodology used by the scientists. What journal is the paper published in? How many scientists have contributed to this paper? Where do they do their research? How does this paper relate to the topic that you are investigating? -- what is the big question that the authors are trying to address? -- describe their hypothesis -- can you identify what inductive and deductive logic was used to generate hypotheses and predictions? -- describe at least one experiment that they do to test their hypothesis -- what is the logic of this experiment? Results This section summarizes the primary research results from the experiment described above. -- describe the type of data they collect (is this collected in a lab or in the field?) -- summarize the main result -- summarize the conclusions that the authors make Future Directions What are the implications of this work for the concept that you have been investigating? Are there implications for either human biology, human communities or human ecology? Are there implications for conservation biology or environmental issues? You must describe one experiment that could be done as a follow-up to the experiments described in the paper.

References / Bibliography (separate page) On a separate page, include a properly formatted bibliography that cites all of the references that you have used in writing this paper. Minimally this should include: -- two good web sources (these can be from researchers lab web pages at universities, too) -- two encyclopedia or book sources -- your primary research article -- feel free to include citations from other primary research articles that you find Data Blast Figure (separate page) Include the figure and figure legend from the paper. You should be able to access an electronic copy of the figure either on the journal website or by cropping the figure from the pdf file. Using a well-written paragraph, answer the following questions about the figure: 1) What type of figure is this? What are the data plotted in the figure? Describe any different symbols or colors/shading that are used. 2) What do the two axes of the graph represent? 3) What is the major relationship or pattern in the plotted data? 4) What conclusions do the authors make from this figure? 5) Why is the figure significant to the paper and/or to the concept you have been investigating?