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Science SeekerProject Guide Spring 2013L102

DeadlinesTopic due: 3/27/13Rough draft due: 4/17/13

Final draft due: 4/24/13

Part 1: Written project (135 points)You will be an investigator of the scientific literature. Your goal is to choose a concept related toour course, use websites and on-line encyclopedias to further investigate a topic related to thisconcept and identify and analyze a paper from the primary literature that furthers ourunderstanding of this topic. The goal of this project is to communicate in a well-written paperwhat you have learned from investigating this topic and how the paper you have found, writtenby scientists, has contributed to our understanding of the biological concept that you havechosen. Your written project should build upon the discussion of this topic that we have had (orwill have) in lecture. In addition, the project reinforces the writing, statistics and graph-readingskills 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:IntroductionMethodsResultsFuture DirectionsReferences/BibliographyData Blast

The length of the paper should be 2 single spaced pagesplus 1 page for your bibliographyand another page describing the figure from the data blast portion . Use a typical font andfont 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, pleaseuse the headings to identify each section.

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TEMPLATE FOR WRITTEN SCIENCE SEEKER PROJECTYour name:Concept chosen:Primary paper citation:

Introduction

The introduction of your paper introduces your concept and places the concept in the broadercontext of the fields of evolution, ecology and the diversity of life. The best source ofinformation 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. Itshould 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.

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References / Bibliography (separate page)

On a separate page, include a properly formatted bibliography that cites all of the referencesthat 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 anelectronic copy of the figure either on the journal website or by cropping the figure from the pdffile.

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 differentsymbols 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 beeninvestigating?