Blog Assignment: Summarizing scientific research

Course Code, Name, Level and Enrollment: EEB255, Essentials of Biodiversity Science & Conservation Biology, second-year undergraduate, 45 to 99 students.Learning Outcomes: read peer-reviewed journal articles critically; put data and results in context; evaluate scientific findings; translate academic science writing to a different genre/for a popular audience.Other notes: entry includes full course syllabus and rubric.Being able to read peer-reviewed journal articles critically and putting data and results in context allows us to assess the findings for ourselves. In this assignment, undergraduate writers practice reading a journal article and writing a blog post about it as a science journalist or a scientist might do to communicate interesting results to the public. This exercise is designed, in part, to help students evaluate how scientific findings are presented to the public by the press every day. Student writers choose an article that focuses on the current drivers of biodiversity loss and their effects on organisms, introduce the question the paper is addressing, and explore why this question matters in the context of conservation biology. Writers are encouraged not to directly summarize the chosen article. Rather, the goal is for students to distill the theses of the paper and their importance in their own words. Students can also assess whether they think the conclusions drawn by the authors are legitimate based on the data they present