Tuesday, May 26, 2015

POWER POINT: BIOTECHNOLOGY



The Power Point with the Notes on Biotechnology is available here. All students will need to download the entire Power Point in order to finish the Lecture Guide, so make sure you do it!

Students who have lost their original Lecture Guide and need to get another copy can download the Guide as a PDF file here.

The first and second drafts of student's Evolution Essays are past due.   

THE FINAL DRAFT IS DUE FRIDAY, May 29th.  

Previously-unattempted or additional drafts will be accepted as a matter of course until June 9th, but students who are LATE will not be able to improve their Essay scores without meeting with their instructor outside of class.  And, since there are now only eight instructional days in the semester, time is limited.

NO DRAFTS WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER MONDAY, JUNE 8th, FOR ANY REASON.

Friday, May 15, 2015

FINAL SYLLABUS, PART 2

With just three weeks of instruction to go, as I've already reminded students, the 'Clock Is Ticking.'

As promised, here is the second part of your final syllabus in this course.   The first part can be found here.



In all cases, if there is a discrepancy between dates given earlier and dates shown here, the due dates above take precedence.



Friday, May 8, 2015

COMMON ESSAY PROBLEMS TO AVOID

In considering our Essay Project, which was outlined in an earlier post, there are certain problems that crop up over and over again.  Before you submit your second draft, please review this post to avoid common errors.

 One group of problems is MECHANICAL:  that is, they are simply problems that have to do with proper formatting and organization of the paper.   The other problems are TOPICAL:  they are specific to one of the four topics.

First, let's consider common MECHANICAL problems.

Students are expected to use a STANDARD font (Courier, Times, Arial or Helvetiva).   Don't use oversized or non-standard fonts, like this....

Students are expected to have the font in 10-12 point, and to have them single-spaced.   Texts should be RIGHT-justified, just like a textbook.   A student's essay should never be CENTER-justified, like this....


Students are expected to have citations INSIDE the body of the text.   These will typically contain either an author's last name, followed by a year, or perhaps the name of an Internet text page, followed by the year, and look like this....


These citations refer to a list of sources that appear in a Bibliography at the END of the paper, which should be APA style, and look something like this....


To help students generate their APA-style citations, students should use www.citationmachine.net.   Go to the site, select APA-style, and follow the prompts to creation your own citations for books, magazine/journal articles and web pages.

Now, let's review some common TOPICAL problems with Essay Topics 1 and 2....

Students must present lines of evidence of common descent.  Identify them, but also EXPLAIN them.  In Topic 1, students must present four such lines of evidence.   In Topic 2, students need only present one line of evidence, but it must be very well-explained, because they are required to present an alternative hypothesis for this line of evidence as well as the one of common descent.

In Topic 1, students must be able to distinguish between evolution, natural selection and speciation.   Here's the general outline...

EVOLUTION:  genetic change in a population  FACT

NATURAL SELECTION:  a process in which the environment affects gene frequencies in a population, causing evolution.   FACT

THEORY OF EVOLUTION by NATURAL SELECTION (TENS):  What is theoretical is not evolution, or natural selection (those are both  FACTS  ).  Rather, the theory is the relationship between these two facts, and the claim that life's diversity over time has largely been produced by this interaction between the genome and the environment...

Speciation:  also a  FACT   :   the production of a new species, which is just one possible outcome of TENS.   

Both Topic 1 and Topic 2 are expected to present a claim which argues against their topic, either 'Evolution of Species' (Topic 1) or 'Creation of Species' (Topic 2).   They should have a citation for this claim matching a source in their bibliography.  They should then present evidence, preferably the result of experiments or observation, that argues against the previous claim.   In other words, they should be prepared to show they understand 'Pro' and 'Con' arguments regarding their topic...an excellent habit of mind that prepares us for higher-level coursework, such as college.

Other common TOPICAL problems, that often occur with Essay Topic 3....

Students are asked to explain why the modern theory of evolution (TENS) is a synthetic theory.   To do that, use the meaning of the word 'synthesis.'

Students may be asked to present or explain 'probability arguments' against TENS, which argue (in effect) that the spontaneous production of complex life forms from simpler forms or mere molecules is unlikely.   Students may be tempted to use arguments from thermodynamics ('the 2nd Law') or against abiogenesis (the origin of life).   This is permitted, but a few words of caution:

TENS is NOT a theory about the origin of life.

TENS is NOT a theory about the origin of the universe.

What is the title of Darwin's famous 1859 book that introduced his original theory?   That is the subject that TENS attempts to address.






Wednesday, May 6, 2015

NEW SYLLABUS: BEYOND DARWIN, Part 1

Students: here is a schedule of upcoming events in the course over the next two weeks.  

There is no Unit Test shown because we will continue within this unit until the end of the year.   Your scheduled final will be between June 9th and June 11th.


Again, students must make their Semester Projects a priority, continually working towards improving their performance.   The second and third parts of the Project are both due on Monday, May 11th.





Tuesday, May 5, 2015

THE CLOCK IS TICKING

It is now May, and there are less than 30 instructional days remaining in the 2014-2015 school year.

Students have received an extraordinary opportunity in this course:  a Semester Final Project, in the form of a guided essay in a series of drafts worth 600 points.   The full details of this assignment were provided earlier in this blog post.

The vast majority of students (more than 100) have submitted their first drafts, which were due on Tuesday, April 28th.
   
Unfortunately, some students have yet to hand in this draft, which is now a week past due.

It should go without saying that failing to attempt a 600-point assignment could be fatal to that student's grade.   Mr. Hatfield has sent the following broadcast via School Messenger to these unfortunate students: