Goal #1 (25%)
Global Learning (4): Engage in readings and in class discussions to learn about worldviews, cultures, and experiences.
Week 3 Reflection:
After reading the article and watching the TED talk, I noticed that there was a lot of informational content within. The most interesting thing I learned was how skin color evolved over the years. Learning how based on where you were born, you were classified into a race based on your characteristics. I also learned that where you were born and what climate you were born in determines your skin color. I knew that race was bad in the past, but not to this extent. Another interesting thing that I learned was that race transitioned from being an “indicator of geographic origin and environment to a criterion of cultural and behavioral difference” This basically means that race went from an identifier to the reason for some cultural identification today. This resource tells me about how some people just want to figure out the background of race and its roots, while people today either use it as a cultural identifier or for another reason. One question that I have is how race became what it is today just from it being an identifier in the past. Another question that I have is how long did it take for race to transform into what it is today. How heavily was race used as an identifier in the past, and if it was more than today, by how much? Which climates determine which race? How long has Dr. Jablonski been researching this subject? Did she start somewhere else or begin with race research?
Week 5 Reflection:
The most interesting thing I learned while watching the videos was how hip-hop music and science can be intertwined. It is weird to think that a music video made years ago has relevance to this day. Also, the way that she introduced more terms to describe these scenarios like EPC and so on. It makes you think about how much music can be related to science. What I learned about anmal behavior is that based on their habitat, they act differently. Just living in a rural area compared to an urban area has such a big difference just in mice alone. It is also interesting how she goes about observing the behavior. The tagging of the mice captured and studied I get, but taking measurements of the mice is beyond me. I believe that they are being used for idetification but I am not sure. These resources tell me that people that do science can be there to help others out. Dr. Lee is there just to help prevent rodents from being dangerous, and helping to prevent them getting into your home. Dr. Lee is there to help with science, helping to understand rodents and why they do these things. Some questions that I have are as follows; What other animals has she researched, or have been researched in the past? What is the whole process in studying these animals, and why is it important? How long has animal behavioral studies been a thing, and why have they been around so long?
Summary
The findings that were found in this report were very supportive of the idea of a historic exhibit inside of the garden. Because of this exhibit, it is assumed that the attendance would increase, validating our hypothesis. With the supporting factors of the other research, science, and review articles, I feel that there would be little to no issue with putting in a new exhibit to the garden, and I believe that attendance would increase as well.
Some major conclusions that I can make about the data is that there is definitely supportive materials found in this paper that can help implementation. There were many things that were supportive of it, even if it was only little parts that added together. The next step to address our question is to see how much African American knowledge there is inside the garden. Another step is to figure out the current attendance rate of the garden and get the exhibit relating to African American knowledge ready. After implementation, the attendance should be recorded again, taking note if the attendance either increased or decreased. Figure 1 is what we predict will happen when it is implemented.
Reflections
The most interesting thing that I learned over this paper is the restorative properties that gardens have. Another interesting thing is the reaction to an ethnic garden display will appeal to “underrepresented individuals” (Steinhauer et al. 543). And over time, reading these papers helped me to realize the different types of people that do science. It also helped me to realize how much of an impact science has everywhere, and that there are very specific problems that need to be addressed. In just the botanical garden scene, there were already many reports done on botanical garden research with different hypotheses etc.
Some of these reports were beneficial to us in the project itself, but there are still others that can be used to work on another hypothesis made by someone else. All of these papers could be used one day by someone working on a project.
The public knowledge about science papers and science topics should be introduced more openly. I feel that the public needs to know more about these terms to understand the experiments more. If there was someone who asked me to conduct a survey for their research, then I would be happy to. There were some skills developed over the time of the project as well. Some of them minor, while some of them more notable. One of these skills that could come in later on in our academic careers is the process of evaluating and reading a paper. Although this is a basic skill that some would say is trivial, there is actually a deeper meaning to evaluating a paper. There is much more to it than just reading it, and this paper really showed us how to do it well. This will help us create more accurate and relevant research questions, but also give us valuable information that we can create newer research questions out of.
Some things that we wonder is if this will ever be implemented. The idea and groundwork is laid out, there just needs to be someone who is willing to get this whole thing implemented and take the idea away. This could be us or someone else, but we just hope that this project is implemented. Another thing that we wonder is where all of this research and information will go after a while? Are we just going to hold onto this research or give it to somebody to use for a future implementation of our project?
Goal #2 (25%)
Information Literacy (5): Collaborate with my research group to develop research questions and a hypothesis. Analyze sources of evidence for the research report.
Goal #3 (30%)
Problem-Solving Skills (9): Lectures on course content to learn how to solve problems.
Summed up, this is an 81/90, which is 90% on the exam. I was required to get an average of 85% or higher.
Goal #4 (20%)
Quantitative Literacy (10): writing projects throughout the semester/reflections.
These are two readings that we had to do over the jigsaw papers we were given.