Endangered Marine Species Paper Project
The endangered species act is an important piece of legislation designed to protect biodiversity. It represents the importance placed on preserving enough habitat and protecting the remaining individuals of organisms whose populations have fallen below critical levels. It is rarely a simple matter of counting how many are left and saying they're endangered or not. Sometimes, it is not even clear if the organisms constitute a species in the first place! Many of these organisms are marine and thus, we should gain an understanding of this law and how it pertains to marine biology.
For this assignment you will be writing a short paper dealing with a particular endangered marine species. In order to receive full credit, your finished product should meet the following criteria:
Be typed and long enough to adequately cover the topic. No more than 4 or 5 pages though.
Be well-organized including introductory and conclusion paragraphs.
Introduce the basics of the Endangered Species act: When was it passed, how are species listed, has it been shown to actually work? etc.
Discuss the biology of a particular endangered marine species. Where does the species live, love, learn etc.?
Include the history of it's listing, important researchers, etc.
Any other interesting facts?
Pictures are nice but should not take over the paper.
Include a bibliography in MLA format. You should be using at least 4 sources and they cannot all be internet resources. Get info on writing scientific papers here.
Your species does not need to be a reptile, a vertebrate or even an animal for that matter! Pick an organism that interests you. You will probably need to find a list of endangered species. Here's a place to start.
I'm giving you two weeks to complete this but there will be intermediate assignments along the way.
The first assignment is to pick a species and do some background research. I expect a short written paragraph describing your species and why you picked it.
At the end of next week, you will have to show me an outline and introductory paragraph.
The final paper will be due December 22, 2006.
If you really want to dazzle us, you can do an oral presentation following the same criterion above. No, you cannot work in groups.