EARTH 101 TERM PROJECT, 2007

 

This page is meant to give guidelines for the term project as discussed in class on 10/11/07. Please address more specific questions to the class email address.

The project:

• Should be a topic of interest to you
• Should be a topic that might share interest with your major
• Can be a small (max 3 people) group project
    - Group projects should be larger in scope – an individual project worth an A will not receive an A for the group
    - Be careful whom you agree to do a project with; make sure they are reliable and will share the workload
    - Each person in a group will receive the same grade
• Be imaginative in coming up with your topic
• DO NOT produce:
    - Board games; a good looking game is not necessarily a good game
    - Power Point presentations; we don’t want a list of facts
    - General papers – if you write a paper, make it more specific (focused)

• We encourage:
    - Case studies – a detailed analysis of a particular topic. We can negotiate the media with which you present this topic
    - Use your talents in other fields; if you’re a writer think about short stories, screen plays, etc
    - Education majors: Lesson plans & implementation (e.g. an in-class exercise that discusses what causes flooding)
        Make sure your plan reflects a scientific reality. A good example is the Hurricane Smith exercise (though perhaps not as elaborate)
    - Business majors: the vulnerability of specific industries to natural disasters (though we don’t want a rehash of your Katrina assignment)
    - Videos – information content, and fun
        Again, try and be focused. We can try and help you get access to the facilities.

 
Length will strongly depend on the type of project you produce. For example, a paper would be expected to be ~10+ pages, plus figures and references. A short-story length would be different - essentially long enough to produce an interesting story whilst also including a suitable amount of scientific material. Lesson plans should be aimed at one or tow class periods similar in length to those we have in Earth101. Videos should be on the order of 10+ minutes per person involved in the project.

We have been purposely vague in some of these guidelines to encourage you to use your imagination in the design and implementation of the project. Feel free to run questions by us at any time.

The term project will be due during the last week of class.  Tentative Due Date: Thursday 12/13/07.