Physical Geography Class Project

Transcription

1 Physical Geography Class Project Overview & Objectives: This assignment is a way for you to explore the physical geography of a particular place through independent research. While it generates a LOT of grading for me to do, I have found it to be a worthwhile exercise. 25% of your course grade is based on this assignment (more than any individual exam), so give it some serious consideration and effort. This document is a DETAILED guide to the semester project and should be FOLLOWED EXACTLY. Be sure to read ALL directions or you run the risk of losing points. Do not plead ignorance on these requirements. Please, consult this document before asking me questions. If you are unsure about part of the assignment AFTER reading these instructions, by all means, ASK! This assignment can be completed in teams of TWO students. Teams must be established by the first due date (2/28) and cannot be changed later on (except under extreme circumstances). Both team members will receive the same grade on all parts of the assignment, so be sure you work with someone you trust. Part One: Pick your picture (20 pts) due by 2/28 Find a postcard or other photograph of a landscape. Instead of choosing a topic directly, you will select one based on a photo- keep in mind that this will be your topic for the entire project- you cannot change it at the end of the semester. Since this is Physical Geography, find one that does not have too much evidence of human beings in the photo. It is OK to have people in the picture, just not buildings or other human-built structures. Bring the picture to office hours (or make an appointment) to get it approved. If you pick a photo from the web, you need to print a legible COLOR copy to turn in with the various assignments over the semester. If you do not have a color printer (or yours is out of ink) you need to spend the 25 cents to print one in a lab on campus. If you tend to lose things, you might want to print a back-up copy. Evaluation: This part of the assignment is full credit or no credit. Part Two: Map of your location (20 pts) due 3/9 Find a map that shows generally where your picture was taken. The map should be made to scale (not a drawing that says not to scale ) with a scale bar or some other indication of its scale. Some potentially acceptable maps are: a print-out from a map website such as TopoZone, a photocopy from an atlas or other paper map (check the library catalog for our map holdings), a web-based map from a reliable source such as USGS or other government agency (some examples will be posted on Blackboard). 1

2 If you are unsure about a map you have found, you can check with me first. The scale of the map should be somewhere between 1:24,000 and 1:1,000,000- depending on your location. The idea is to get a map that shows some detail (not a world map, where your location is represented by a dot), but is still small enough to fit on an 8.5x11 page. As with the photo, you need to spend a quarter on a color print-out of your map. If you have questions, please ask! Turn in the map in class on 3/9 Evaluation: If your map is acceptable, I will put a check at the top and you will receive 20 points. If it is not acceptable or lacking in a significant way, I will put check- minus and you will receive 14 points. Part Three: Annotated Bibliography (30 pts) due 3/30 Your final paper must include a bibliography of at least five references (in addition to your textbook). You will lose points for having insufficient references. Locate a minimum of five references that you can use for your final paper. NO MORE THAN THREE REFERENCES CAN BE WEB PAGES- THE OTHER TWO MUST BE BOOKS, JOURNALS, ETC. Web pages must be from official sources. Examples of approved websites are: United States Geological Survey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US Forest Service, National Weather Service, NASA, government agencies from other countries. If you are unsure about whether a website is OK, use this site as a guide: and/or check with me. DO NOT USE TRAVEL GUIDES or ENCYCLOPEDIAS. These sources contain very superficial information and travel guides are meant for planning trips- not understanding the physical geography of a place. Your bibliography should include: title, author, pages, publisher, year of publication (do not use references before 1965, unless you have a truly compelling reason to go back that far- see me for questions), and if it is from a journal be sure to list the journal title and article title. Cite web pages with title, date accessed, and complete URL. If you have to change some references between this assignment and your final paper, that is fine, but the same requirements still hold. If you have trouble finding information on your place because it is a very specific location, it is OK to use references about the region it is found in. For example, there may not be many references on Picacho Peak near Tucson, Arizona, but there are plenty on the Sonoran Desert. For each source, write a short paragraph explaining what information you can obtain from this source- be specific, so that I can tell you have actually read the article or skimmed the book you are listing. Evaluation: Be sure to have the required number of references - meeting the criteria above (worth 15 points) and write sufficient detail about each one (worth 15 points). 2

3 Bibliography Format Below is a SAMPLE of an acceptable format. I know you all use MLA in your English courses. If your bibliography contains the information shown below it is fine. Everything shown here is an acceptable standard scientific format (journals each have their own slight variations). Book: McKnight, T. L. and D. Hess (2003) Physical Geography: A Landscape Appreciation, 7 th Edition, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 629 pp. Journal Article: Henry, M. C. and S. R. Yool (2002) Characterizing Fire-Related Spatial Patterns in the Arizona Sky Islands using Landsat TM Data, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 68(10): Web Page: Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Hueston Woods State Park Site accessed March 16, Part Four: Online Presentation (30 pts) due 4/16* Create & upload a presentation summarizing your paper. (due 4/16) Your presentation should contain between 8 and 12 slides and cover the important points of your paper. Be sure to include photos and graphics to make the slides more interesting. Since there is not enough time to do in-class presentations, you will post yours on Blackboard for your classmates to view. Presentations will be uploaded onto Blackboard and I will post them in an accessible place (probably on a Blackboard Blog). View a presentation and post comments. (*due 4/27) Each student (or pair) will comment on TWO other student presentations. These comments will be posted on Blackboard in the comment section for the corresponding presentation. What interesting things did you learn from the slides? What other information would you have liked to see? Evaluation: You will be evaluated on content (15 pts), slide quality (5 pts), & your comments on other presentations (10 pts). Part Five: Final Paper (150 pts) due 4/23 Write a 4-5 page paper (SINGLE-spaced) using the information you obtained from your library sources. The objective the paper is to explain what the physical geographic characteristics of your place are and WHY this is the case. Tie in principles we have covered in class to explain your findings. This final paper should be organized into several parts: Intro: Explain why you picked this particular photo; why do you like it? What were your impressions of the place BEFORE you researched your paper? (up to one page) 3

4 Body: Describe what the characteristics of the place are- based on your library research. Use the attached (see Blackboard) rubric to guide the content. Each of the three content sections (vegetation & wildlife, climate, landforms) should be about 1 page (single-spaced) in length. After grading over 500 of these papers, I have not read any papers that have covered the topics well in fewer pages than that. Conclusions: Summarize what you learned and how your initial impressions were correct or incorrect. When you are finished, go through the rubric and circle the points you feel you have earned for each section. This will ensure that you have covered all required topics. Attach TWO COPIES (the one you filled out, plus the blank one) of the rubric as the last two pages of the document (after the picture and map). Write your name on BOTH copies (at the bottom). If you do not fill out a rubric and attach both copies to the paper, you will have 5-10 points deducted from your total. Please print the rubrics as shown (landscape)- not rotated to fit portrait format (or just the copy I gave you the first day of class. Turn in your paper with the picture and map (or copies) attached. You will get your picture back. DO NOT USE REPORT COVERS. Just staple or clip your pages together. ***In addition to the hardcopy version of your paper, you must submit a digital version through Blackboard. Your paper will NOT be graded without the digital copy submitted.*** ***DIGITAL VERSION IS MANDATORY*** Maximum 5 pages single-spaced, 12-point font. A papers tend to be in the 4 or 5-page range. You cannot adequately cover the topics in a significantly shorter paper. Bibliography (for final paper): In the text, cite each reference by author and date. For example, (Smith, 2003). For multiple authors, cite this way: (Smith and Jones, 2003) or (Smith, et al., 2003). Use the first author, followed by et al. (meaning and others ) for three or more. Do not cite page numbers in the paper itself, unless you have a direct quote. If you do cite a direct quote, include the author, year, and page: (Smith and Jones, 2003, p. 10) Keep in mind that direct quotes are rarely used in scientific writing. You should never cite a book title in the text- only authors and dates. For web pages, cite the agency (or web page author) and year: (USGS, 2004 or Natural Resources Canada, 2004) Failure to follow this format will result in a loss of points on the final paper- this goes for having insufficient resources and incorrect citations. If you are confused about this formatting, come to see me for help. Bibliography Format The same requirements for Part Four, apply to the bibliography in your final paper. Below is a SAMPLE of an acceptable format. I know you all use MLA in your English courses. If your bibliography contains the information shown below it is fine, but be sure to cite references as I have described above. Everything shown here is an acceptable standard scientific format (journals each have their own slight variations). 4

5 Book: McKnight, T. L. and D. Hess (2003) Physical Geography: A Landscape Appreciation, 7 th Edition, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 629 pp. Journal Article: Henry, M. C. and S. R. Yool (2002) Characterizing Fire-Related Spatial Patterns in the Arizona Sky Islands using Landsat TM Data, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 68(10): Web Page: Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Hueston Woods State Park Site accessed March 16, Evaluation for Part Five: Final papers will be evaluated based on the attached rubricattach two copies (as described above) to your final paper. Be sure to cover the topics shown in the rubric or you will not receive full credit. Good luck and have fun with thispick a place you are really interested in and it will make the paper much more enjoyable. 5

6 Rubric for grading yourself- attach to back of final paper very good good fair barely passing some credit unacceptable clarity & bibliography clear, concise writing, wellorganized, guides reader through in a logical sequence, no spelling or grammatical errors, no typos well-written, but some typos, grammatical errors, or minor al problems, all sections present writing fair, but errors detract from paper, more mistakes than 17, all sections present readable, but disorganized, sections missing, more errors than 15 poorly written, sections missing barely readable, grammatical and spelling errors throughout, no required number of insufficient references (3 references, cited correctly sufficient references, but insufficient references (4 list of references included, or less), and cited in text, complete cited incorrectly or less), but cited correctly but not cited in text incorrectly references climate no cited references climate, with precip amount & timing, majority of information temperature range, presented with minor Koppen climate type, omissions of detail influencing climate global circulation feature, factors driving weather vegetation & wildlife vegetation & wildlife, majority of information including topographic presented with minor variations, factors omissions of detail influencing veg & wildlife influencing both landforms landforms and their geologic origins, any relevant weathering, erosion processes majority of information presented with minor omissions of detail does not demonstrate clear partial description, but understanding of factors major details left out influencing local geomorphology elaboration of details OR portion of information picture included not included map included not included SELF score: (out of 150) student name(s):

7 Rubric for grading final paper- leave blank (attach after self-graded rubric) very good good fair barely passing some credit unacceptable clarity & bibliography clear, concise writing, wellorganized, guides reader through in a logical sequence, no spelling or grammatical errors, no typos well-written, but some typos, grammatical errors, or minor al problems, all sections present writing fair, but errors detract from paper, more mistakes than 17, all sections present readable, but disorganized, sections missing, more errors than 15 poorly written, sections missing barely readable, grammatical and spelling errors throughout, no required number of insufficient references (3 references, cited correctly sufficient references, but insufficient references (4 list of references included, or less), and cited in text, complete cited incorrectly or less), but cited correctly but not cited in text incorrectly references climate no cited references climate, with precip amount & timing, majority of information temperature range, presented with minor Koppen climate type, omissions of detail influencing climate global circulation feature, factors driving weather vegetation & wildlife vegetation & wildlife, majority of information including topographic presented with minor variations, factors omissions of detail influencing veg & wildlife influencing both landforms landforms and their geologic origins, any relevant weathering, erosion processes majority of information presented with minor omissions of detail does not demonstrate clear partial description, but understanding of factors major details left out influencing local geomorphology elaboration of details OR portion of information picture included not included map included not included Dr. Henry s score: (out of 150) student name(s):