2013-2014 AP Environmental ScienceInformation and Summer Assignment

Welcome to AP Environmental Science for the 2014-2015 school year. Here is the basic course information, textbook information and summer assignment.

Before we leave for summer, you need to:

1)Let Mrs. Butterworth know how you are receiving your textbook (info below)

TextBook – Withgott & Brennan. 4th ed. Environment: The science behind the stories. AP Edition. 2014.

***You must notify me by 5/21 as to which version you want for next year or I will assume the e-version is fine.

  • e-text/online access only: $67.00
  • Hardcopy book + online access: $121.00

2) Sign up for the AP Environmental Science Edmodo page where assignments , announcements, calendars and resources will be located.

Edmodo. Use your edmodo logon (create one if you don’t have one) and Join group utjn8f. You will need this to submit your summer assignments

Summer Assignment

The summer AP Biology assignment consists of two parts due when you get to school August 19, 2014. Failure to complete these assignments by August 19 will result in your removal from the class.

Part 1: Virtual Nature Journal

Over the course of the summer, you need to put together a virtual field journal. At least once a week you need to make observations about plants, animals and clouds outside. You need to take notes and pictures on this and then use Power Point or Googleslides to assemble a presentation of what you see. Each dayshould include the following in this order:

  • Date
  • Time
  • location (approximate such as in my backyard is ok, or you can use GPS)
  • habitat
  • current weather (sunny, partly sunny, cloudy, raining etc)
  • temperature (you can use a website or app such as Weatherbug, weather.com etc)
  • pictures or sketches and/or names of plants or animals that you see – you need a minimum of the following over the course of the summer:

a. 8 insects (2 could be an arachnids instead).

b. 5 wildflowers (avoid the very common ones like dandelion/daisy etc.)

c. 5 “non-flowering plants” (like moss, fern, lichen and fungi)

d. 5 animal artifacts (be creative- capture a spider web, a footprint, find an egg casing, a shell, a nest.etc. Be sure to ID the specimen from the artifact)

e. 6 songbirds

f. 6 birds of prey or waterfowl

g. 4 herptiles (frogs, salamanders, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards)

  • cloud types present
  • Any notes on items that you didn’t see last time, or saw last time but are not there currently (for example a plant that was blooming last week but is finished now)

This part of the assignment will have a 200 point value and is due August 19.

To learn cloud types, you need to watch the following tutorial:

DO’S and DON’TS:

1) Take a camera and a small notebook with you as you collect. Remember to record the original colors and markings immediately as they may not photograph as well as you had hoped. When photographing trees, take one shot of the entire tree, one of its bark and another of the leaves or needles. 2) Do be sure to have organisms that are different in type in the general collection-ex: only one kind of grasshopper, one shelf fungus. Each artifact type should be different in nature (only one footprint and one shell; not 2 shell types to do 2 animals).

3) Do observe the rules of the State Parks and private property. There is no need to damage or harm anything in this activity. Take nothing but the picture; leave nothing but your footprint.

4) DON’T WAIT too long this won’t take much time if you do it once a week

5) Take your own pictures. No swapping of shots or taking them from a book or the internet; include a time and date stamp on the picture if possible. Internet/swapped images will result in a “0” on the assignment for both individuals

Part 2: Current events

Each week (10 total for the summer), read two articles for each of the following Environmental Science topics: Earth resources (oil, water, soil)

  • Ecosystem change (species movement, restoration of areas)
  • Impacts of human populations on resources, land etc
  • Land or water use (resource or building development lie oil/gas, mining, agriculture, forest management etc)
  • Pollution (air, water, noise, land)
  • Global change (climate change, ozone change, changes in biodiversity etc)

You may use internet sources for this. Good sites include:

Write a 1-2 paragraph summary of the article focusing on the following items:

  1. Summarize what the scientists were studying. (1 paragraph max)
  2. What is the significance of the finding?
  3. What evidence does the scientist have to support the finding?
  4. Do you agree with their interpretation of the data (does it make sense)? Why or why not?

Cite each article in the following manner:

Author name (if you can find it, if not, put the organization that wrote it such as Associated Press), date, Article title, publisher (if not done previously). Also give the web URL.

**NOTE: The articles MUST be science-based. To tell if your article is ok, look for data analysis. If there is no data, don’t use the article.

Ten article assignments will be posted to Edmodo. Upload your summaries there. They are all due by August 19, 2014.