Ecology

I'll be adding more links later, so check back.

Here is the Crash Course Ecology at Kahn Academy. 

Zoology Research Project

You'll want to print out this post and keep it in a notebook as a guide to your research project.

First, the numbers:

• The final paper should be 5-8 pages long.  (Of course, if you wanted to write more than 8 pages, that would probably be okay.  I'm just giving you a target to aim for.)
• Spend 6 weeks on this project.  The first draft of the paper will be due Friday, March 21.  The final paper (after we spend some time revising it; I'll look at your first draft and help you with this) will be due Friday, March 28.  
• Books on monotremes may be hard to find, but all of your reading should not come from electronic sources (i.e., websites).  Magazine and journal articles you find online count as text sources, not electronic sources.  It's also okay to add in some documentaries if you run across them.  But the bulk of your research should be done by reading.  
• Weeks 1-4 should be spent reading and doing research.  We'll set a goal to go to the University of Memphis library once during that time so you can do some research there. 
• Week 5 should be spent pre-writing -- organizing your research and outlining your paper.
• Week 6 should be spent writing the first draft of the paper.  (2 pages on each of M/W/F would give you a 6 page paper by the end of the week.)
• Week 7 will be dedicated to revisions.    I'll edit your draft, hand it back to you, you'll revise for a second draft, then we'll proof and edit that one, and the third draft should be your final paper.  

Next, some tips for tackling research projects:

The thing about reading for research papers is that you'll often start out with sort of a vague topic which you'll usually refine as you learn more in your reading.  This is what is supposed to happen, so don't worry right now if you don't have much of an idea about how you're going to produce 5-8 pages about monotremes.  As you read, you can make notes in a notebook, on the computer, or using index cards in a system I'll show you.  (The benefit to the index card system is that you can take your index cards out and arrange and rearrange them into an order that will help you actually write the paper.) You can also mark any books using post-it notes.  You should print out anything from a website that strikes you as especially interesting and put it in your notebook,  so it's there to reference.  We can also experiment with Pinterest and/or Evernote as a way to keep track of electronic information.  You have to keep track of your sources.  When you write a paper, it's important to give credit to anyone from whom you've gotten any of your ideas.  You should also be backing up any statements you make in the paper with evidence.  If you haven't referenced your sources in a formal paper, you've committed plagiarism.  (This is why we're using projects like this to learn to document sources and write formal papers.)

If any questions occur to you when you're doing your reading, write them down in a notebook or in a Word file so you can follow up on them later.

Here are some questions to help guide you in your reading:

• How are monotremes classified? Where do they fit in the general framework of life on earth?
• What is the biology of monotremes? What do they have in common and how are they different?
• What do monotremes teach us about evolution? Where do they fit in the evolutionary scheme of things?
• How are scientists studying monotremes right now?  Is this different than the way they studied them in the past?
• What is the conservation status of monotremes in the modern world?
• Have monotremes influenced any kind of governmental policies in their native Australia? Are these policies controversial? 
• Does the study of monotremes have any implications for humans? (For instance, do they indicate the health of environments, do they produce any substances that might lead to advances in medicine, etc?)