Research Plan for Seneca Lake (Due: 10/29/15)

We will be visiting Seneca Lake on Thursday, 11/5.  Aboard the William Shandling research vessel, we will collect samples from 3 locations (1 deep, 1 shallow, and 1 medium depth location).  Create a blog post that accomplishes the following:

• Identify a focused problem/research question that you would like to answer regarding Seneca Lake.
• Identify the controlled variables (as far as they can be controlled), the independent variable (hint: I wrote it above), and the relevant variable(s) you will need to measure in order to answer your research question.
• Write a paragraph that summarizes the relevant background information to set a "context" for your research problem/question.  Include in-text citations and a bibliography for at least 3 sources that you used to develop your background information.
• State a hypothesis for what you expect to find in regards to your problem/research question.  Justify your hypothesis with references to your background information.
• List and describe the methods you plan to use to control variables (i.e. think about the things you will want to keep constant for each sample location, and state how you intend to limit variability between location).
• Outline the procedures (with numbered steps) for how you plan to collect the data needed to address your research question/problem.  Focus on repeatability (could someone exactly repeat your steps based only on your outlined procedure).  Definitely use the Science on Seneca Manual to guide this section of the assignment.
• Close your post with one question you have about this upcoming field excursion to Seneca Lake.

Owls in the Temperate Deciduous Forest

Homework (Due Thursday, 10/15/15):  Create a post on your blog that accomplishes the following:

• Identifies the biome that is most closely associated with your endangered species (pick one).
• Provides a detailed description of the typical climate and geography range of this biome (in what areas of the world is this biome located, and what would it be like if I went there, including seasonal changes?).
• Lists at least 3 specific examples of the flaura (plants) and fauna (animals) that are commonly found in this biome, and explain the specific adaptation that allows each of these to survive in this biome.
• Identifies at least one major environmental problem that is prominent in this biome AND proposes a solution for this problem.
• Describes your endangered species' niche (i.e. how does your organism function in this ecosystem?  What does it "do", and how does the ecosystem support it?)
• Outlines a typical food chain that includes your endangered species, and correctly identifies the trophic level of each species in the food chain (i.e. secondary consumer, etc.).
• Lists at least one other species (besides humans) with which your endangered species competes, and explains the specific niche overlap that leads to this competition.
• Includes a works cited section at the end with MLA citations for at least two outside sources.

How to Assess IB Lab Reports

Homework (Due Tuesday):  Choose one of your peers and assess their draft lab report.  You will be assessing the nine aspects listed below.  It is not enough just to mark it as complete, partial or not at all.  Be descriptive with your feedback, and specifically outline what is missing from partial aspects, and where you marked any aspects as complete justify those marks with an explanation of what the student did to complete them satisfactorily.  Also, give general feedback on the formatting of the lab report and overall strengths and areas for improvement in each of the three criteria.  This is an intense assessment format, so please take your peer reviewing very seriously.

For a detailed description of the the nine aspects below you must click here.

Also, FYI, here are directions for inserting graphs into Blogger:  Right click on the excel graph and copy.  When you right click to paste the graph into your word document, you will have some paste options. Choose the last option on the right that allows you to paste the graph as a picture. Once you have the graph pasted into word using that option, you can right click on it and "save as picture" onto your computer. Then you can use the Blogger toolbar at the top to insert the picture into your post.

         

Criteria	Aspects	Complete /2	Partial /1	Not at all /0	Mark
	Defines the problem and selects variables
Planning	Controls variables
	Develops a method for collection of data
Data Collection	Recording raw data
and	Processing raw data
Processing	Presenting processed data
Discussion,	Discussing and reviewing
Evaluation and	Evaluating procedure/suggested improvements
Conclusion	Concluding

Teacher’s notes and comments on this item of work:

Criteria	Strengths	Weaknesses/ For improvement	Notes
Planning
Data collection and processing
Discussion, evaluation and conclusion