ESS205 Confronting Global Change - Assignment Information 1

ESS205H1S:

Confronting Global Change

Term project:

Folio

Important Dates

Component of the project Due Date

Topic selection Tuesday, 28 January 2025

Draft of folio for review Tuesday, 04 March 2025

Individual peer review due Tuesday, 11 March 2025

Final submission, including 300 character summary Tuesday, 01 April 2024

Assignment Objective

Science advances through discovery and communication. Reading about science, and presenting

it to a non-science audience, is a challenge even for established scientists. Your task is to learn

about an interesting scientific topic linked to our course, discuss it with your collaborator(s), and

prepare a folio. Your audience is the other students in this course, and interested family members

or friends who do not necessarily have a background in earth or environmental sciences. This

assignment is intended to improve:

•

Skills:

Communication, which includes reading and writing and presenting, is a key

skill any university student should practice. Communication and being able to work in a

team are among the most sought-after "soft" skills any employer will be looking for. You

will step through the writing process: gathering ideas using original literature, producing

an outline, ordering your thoughts into logical units while working on a draft, reviewing

someone else's paper, and addressing the comments you received to edit your work. You

will also discuss a graph relevant to your topic. You will be working in pairs or triplets so

that you have a chance to discuss the topic.

• Knowledge: You and your partner(s) will gain knowledge about an interesting topic

linked to the interaction of the various components of the earth system and the effect of

humans on the system. You will also learn about yourselves, especially how to

effectively collaborate with a peer (or two), and experience the peer-review process

scientists engage in to disseminate their results and thoughts.

Tasks

We encourage you to work in pairs or triplets on this assignment. Apart from the reasoning

mentioned under "Skills" above, this will also ensure that you receive feedback from more than

one peer. The teaching team has come up with the following list of suitable topics, and you need

to choose a topic from these proposed options:

A. Hydrogen storage solutions in Canada

B. Eutrophication problems in Canadian lakes

C. Ocean acidification effects on Atlantic Canadian fisheries

D. Impacts of overfishing

E. Megaquakes and episodic-tremor-and-slip along the West Coast

F. Tornadoes and climate change in Canada

G. Cause and outlook for coral bleaching

The assignment breaks down into the following four stages:

ESS205 Confronting Global Change - Assignment Information 2

A. Select a topic

You will have to add the names of your team members and the topic to an online spreadsheet.

We will use this spreadsheet to produce the group submissions on Quercus.

Once we know which topic you selected, your team will have a chance to meet with one

member of the teaching team who will help you focus your paper and answer your questions.

B. Submit a draft of the folio and an academic integrity statement

Your draft should be based on at least 3 papers. These papers should be original research

literature, though you are welcome to peruse additional publications -- for example textbooks,

reputable newspapers, or university/government websites -- for background information. In

addition, you should provide one quantitative diagram/graph/map from a reputable source (it can

come from one of your papers) that helps make a point. The citation style is APA 7th edition1.

Your draft folio should combine the information from the readings and the visual into a

compelling narrative. We urge you to not think of this step as just producing a very rough draft

because the more effort you put into this stage of the assignment the more useful the feedback

you will receive from peers and the teaching team will be, and the better your final product can

become. Your team will also have to submit an Academic Integrity Statement where you confirm

adherence to the UofT Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters2 and agree to explain how they

may have used Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) on the final product.

Note that because of the short turnaround time, if you do not submit a draft on time, you

will be unable to engage in the peer review stage.

C. Peer review (this will be a hard deadline)

You will be using peer scholar to provide feedback on another draft. Your answers should be

detailed enough that it can help the author(s) improve their work. If you did not submit a draft

and/or cannot complete the peer review in time you will not receive peer feedback, and you will

receive zero points for this portion.

Following the review, you will have another chance to meet with a member of the

teaching team. We may even require certain teams to meet with one of us.

D.

Submit the revised folio

You will have two weeks to address the concerns and suggestions by peers and TAs and make

your final submission stronger. You will typically submit via the University's plagiarism

detection tool, which finds similarities in your text to written work in a large database. You will

be able to see the report and get a chance to revise your submission.

Note that we will not accept submissions that do not include mention of GenAI in the

acknowledgement.

Criteria for success

The assignment will be graded using the following marking guide (50 pts total):

A.

Topic selection (2 pts)

o 2 pts for completing online form on time

1 https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition

2 https://governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/secretariat/policies/code-behaviour-academic-matters-july-1-2019

ESS205 Confronting Global Change - Assignment Information 3

B.

Draft of folio and signed Academic Integrity statement (10 pts)

criteria exceeds expectations meets expectations approaches expectations

AI

statement

(2 pts)

n/a included AI statement signed by all

team members

Pts: 2

AI statement not included, or

team member’s signature

missing; Pts: 0

content

(3 pts)

Shows excellent effort with correct

and complete information.

Pts: 3

Good, correct, relevant, and complete

information.

Pts: 2

Incorrect or incomplete

information.

Pts: 0-1

use of

references

(2 pts)

Ideas clearly linked to references.

Pts: 2

References obvious, but minor

inconsistencies or unclear attributions.

Pts: 1-1.5

Sloppy use of references, or

missing references.

Pts: 0-0.5

use of

graph

(2 pts)

Meaningful graph enhances

argument.

Pts: 2

Good graph, but not well explained or

tangential to topic.

Pts: 1.5

Missing or useless graph.

Pts: 0-1

writing

(1 pts)

Written in complete and clear

sentences.

1 pts

Decent writing, some issues (eg,

grammar, threading).

Pts: 0.5

Writing shows major

problems.

Pts: 0

C.

Peer review (done individually, 2 pts)

given for completion, zero points if not done on time

D.

Final submission (36 pts)

Criteria Exceeds

expectations

Meets

expectations

Approaches

expectations

Fails

expectations

Content

(20 pts)

Outstanding. Correct and

complete information

including evidence of original

thought (note 2). Excellent

figure

Pts: 16-20

Good. Correct,

relevant, and com- plete information and

useful figure

Pts: 11-15

Some incorrect

information or some

incomplete information

Pts: 6-10

Seriously lacking. A

lot of incorrect and/or

incomplete

information.

Pts: 0-5

Coherence

(4 pts)

Exceptionally well written,

with well-paraphrased

information. No mistakes in

spelling or grammar.

The

language is appropriate for

the intended audience (class

peers)

Pts: 4

Well-written, clear

sentences. Good

organization and

minor issues (eg,

repetitions).

Pts: 3

Poor organization and

hard to follow. Several

errors in spelling and/ or

grammar. Mostly

understandable, some

issues with paraphrasing.

Pts: 2

Little to no

organization. Many

errors in spelling and

/or grammar. Unclear

logic. Poor

paraphrasing of

sources.

Pts: 0-1

References

(4 pts)

Outstanding evidence of

using appropriate scientific

sources.

Accurate acknowledgement

of how GenAI was used.

Pts: 3-4

Good evidence of

using and citing

appropriate scientific

sources (note 3).

Followed APA

system (note 1).

Pts: 2

Some evidence of using

appropriate scientific

sources. Relied heavily on

non-peer-reviewed or

secondary sources. Did

not follow APA system.

Pts: 1

No evidence of the

usage of appropriate

scientific sources.

Pts: 0

Appearance

(4 pts)

Excellent placement of figure,

text fits to space

Pts: 5

Good figure with

caption, good length

Pts: 3-4

Good layout (title,

authors, text)

Pts: 1-2

No clear layout, too

long or too short

Pts: 0

Summary/

Abstract

(2 pts)

Excellent summary in 300

characters

Pts: 2

Summary captures

key point

Pts: 1-1.5

Summary not

understandable

Pts: 0.5

Summary missing

Pts: 0

Administrative

(2 pts)

Thoroughly revised

assignment submitted on

time, summary sheet

addresses reviewers'

comments point-by-point

Pts: 2

Submission on time,

summary sheet

addresses most

comments, clearly

improved version

Pts: 1.5

Some improvement,

and/or late submission of

the revised version, and/or

disorganized

summary sheet.

Pts:0.5-1

No evidence for

improvement from

draft,

summary sheet

missing.

Pts: 0

notes: (1) For APA 7th edition citation style see https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition

(2) original thought would go beyond a summary of the literature, for example by including your own, carefully thought

out and argued perspective, or a new question for research

(3) appropriate sources should clearly provide the information used in the paper. We expect you to use 3 sources; if you

want to exceed expectations you should aim for 4 to 6 excellent sources, and those should not just be secondary.

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