Biodiversity Organism Report

Goal: Teach your audience about your organism with a focus on at least one scientific discovery that comes from at least one scientific primary literature article. Communicate clearly in writing about a scientific topic.
One suggestion is to use Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com
(note that they have a whole page with instructions and helpful searching tips: https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/help.html).

Note that when you use Google Scholar, it will give you a list of papers on the left and then links on the right. Clicking on the title of the article on the left will take you to a summary and list of references that are further clickable. Clicking on the [PDF] link on the right will give you access to the full article itself, which you will also need. Whatever scientific paper you choose, you will need to turn in a hard copy with your report.Keep track of where you get your information!!!!!! We will talk about in-text citations at the next class, so you will need keep track of where each fact comes from. If you are using a hard copy resource such as a book, keep track of the page numbers as well.

Begin researching your organism to answer the following questions:
1. What does your organism eat (acquire carbon-based nutrition) or how does it produce carbohydrates? (Food)
2. How does it acquire water?
3. How does it respond to changes in its environment to maintain homeostasis? (Shelter)
4. How does it defend itself from being eaten by other organisms?
5. How does it reproduce? (create more physiologically independent organisms).
6. Find at least two scientific papers (primary literature or a scientific review article) regarding your organism and incorporate one finding (data, table or graph) from one article into your report. We will discuss how to find and read these more in a future class.
Format: Approximately 4 pages, typed, double-spaced. At least one graph/table/data, etc. from one scientific article that you explain in the text of the paper. Properly cited references.