Look-up and research a topic related to the hydrologic cycle or research related to the biosphere. Your post should cover:
- Background info on your topic and how it relates to the Earth system
- What was newsworthy about your topic and what the findings mean (e.g., does it change how we thought something worked, did we discover something completely new, etc.)
- What interested you about the research
- MLA or APA citation(s)
Note: your post should go above and beyond what has been presented in lecture. You are NOT just presenting what was covered in lecture, you are building on it by highlighting specific research pertaining to topic you chose. Feel free to come to office hours to discuss this further.
You will be responsible for writing an original initial post on the topic posted and then commenting on the posts of at least two other students. You should cite sources (and you absolutely must have at least one source for your original initial post that is NOT the book or my lecture) using MLA or APA format. Acceptable sources include: peer-reviewed articles; the Science daily website, Nature, Climate Change, and Science magazines; news postings from prominent professional Earth sciences societies (e.g., AGULinks to an external site., EGULinks to an external site.); or news media that cite scientific studies.
Your initial post (worth 15 points) is due Saturday at 11:59 pm of the relevant week, and responses/comments on the posts of other students (worth 5 points each) are due Sunday at 11:59 pm. For responses, you will need to add something new to the posts of others (e.g., ask questions that they didn’t fully answer, add important points, etc.). Saying, “good post, I really enjoyed it, this really clarified the topic for me,” or something to that effect, will receive zero points. Initial posts should be at least 300 words and responses should be at least 150 words each (so 300 words if you add your two responses together). Discussion posts that are submitted late will have 15% deducted/day.
