Assignments

Assignment Values

Assignment Descriptions

Weekly Discussion Prompts

Students are responsible for bringing at least one question, topic, quote, or other idea to use in initiating the conversation each week.

Science Reporting Project

Translate a recent scientific paper into a popular format (newspaper, blog, video, etc) that careful explains the work, situates it within the context of the scientific conversation, and even-handedly speculates on the possible implications of the research and discoveries.

Data Narrative

Find a data set (possibly from Data.gov). Use that data set to tell a story about a place, group of people, or other phenomenon.

Possible examples:

• Use demographics data to tell the story of a neighborhood’s gentrification
• Use historic rainfall data to track changing climate patterns in the American Southwest

Additionally, produce a short response paper detailing the limits of the data and how you navigated around them or worked with them to further tell your story.

Data Visualization Project

Using one of the tools we have discussed, build a data visualization to accompany your narrative from the previous assignment.

Other Ideas

From this syllabus:

• Scientific Poster
• Message Box
• Press Release
• Elevator Speech
• 3-Minute Thesis Competition Script
• Audio/Visual Media project (Final Presentation)
• One Additional Communication Project – Possible options: “letter to the editor,” op-ed for an organization’s newsletter (conservation group, botanical garden, aquarium, zoo, etc.), teaching & learning activity, blog post, public lecture