Integrative Biology 103
Review/Critical
Analysis of a Book
Requirements:
1. Adhere
to the Policy
of Academic Integrity in
Integrative
Biology 103.
2. Contact
Beth Morgan via e-mail to
indicate your interest in the project and she will create a Moodle
forum for your posts.
3. This
project involves
reviewing at least one chapter of a book and two reaction reply entries
to
classmates' extra credit posts in Moodle. You may earn up to 1%
extra credit for each review and posts.
- select
a book that deals with a topic in plant biology or environmental
science. I have listed a few that are in the bookstore now. There are
lots of other books that are appropriate. Let me know if you find
another and I'll add it to the list at the bottom of this page.
- write
a review of the chapter you have read (at least 500 words). Post your
review as a project entry in the Book Reviewer Forum in Moodle.
- A complete
bibliographical
reference to the book you are reviewing.
- You may
include a working link to a publisher's or book seller's
web page that lists your book as a substitute for your bibliographical
reference.
- You should concentrate on explaining the biological concepts
and issues as well as recounting the story.
- If the
author presents an opinion concerning an issue do you agree or disagree
- why?
- Describe the
chapters' relevance to concepts or issues presented in class. If we have not addressed a topic
in class, read ahead in
the text book.
- Post your review
to Moodle in the
discussion set up for your book in the Book Reviewer Forum in Moodle.
- reaction reply
entries:
- Entries are written
as "REPLY" messages that you
write to others
concerning their extra credit project entries in Moodle, or "REPLIES"
that others
write to you concerning your project entries.
- For each 1% extra
credit, include 2 substantial
entries.
Suggested Books
- Blessed Unrest: how the
largest movement in the world came into being and why no one saw it
coming by Paul Hawkin.
- Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering
and the Future of Seeds by Claire Hope Cummings
- The
Omnivore's Dilemma : a natural
history of four meals
by Michael
Pollan
- Hot,
Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a
Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L.
Friedman
- The
Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View
of the World by Michael Pollan
- In
Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan
- An
Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global
Warming by Al Gore
- Into the
Jungle: Great Adventures in
the Search for Evolution by Sean B. Carroll
- Liberation
Ecologies by Richard Pee
- Worldviews
and Ecology: Religion,
Philosophy, and the Environment (Ecology and Justice Series) by
Mary Evelyn Tucker
- Guns,
Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human
Societies by Jared Diamond
- Collapse:
How Societies Choose to Fail or
Succeed by Jared Diamond
- Eating
the Sun by Oliver Morton
- Nature's
Services: Societal Dependence On
Natural Ecosystems by John Peterson Myers (Foreword), Joshua
Reichert (Foreword), Sandra Postel (Contributor), Kamaljit Bawa
(Contributor), Les Kaufman (Contributor), Charles H. Peterson
(Contributor), Stephen Carpenter (Contributor), David Tillman
(Contributor), Paul Dayton (Contributor), Susan Alexander
(Contributor), Kalen Lagerquist (Contributor), Larry Goulder
(Contributor), Pamela Matson (Contributor), Harold Mooney
(Contributor), Rosamond Naylor (Contributor), Peter Vitousek
(Contributor), John Harte (Contributor), Gretchen Daily (Editor)
- A Sand
County Almanac by Aldo
Leopold
- Lessons
of the Rainforest by
Suzanne Head and Robert Heinzman
- Tomorrow's
Table: Organic Farming,
Genetics, and the Future of Food by Pamela C. Ronald and R. W.
Adamchak
- Animal,
Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food
Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp, and Camille
Kingsolver
- Win-Win
Ecology: How the Earth's Species Can Survive in the Midst of
Human Enterprise by Michael L. Rosenzweig
Or
if you have an idea, just ask Beth.
Credit: Extra
credit is added at the end of the semester as percentage points on top
of the course grade you have earned. Maximum extra credit is 6%.