BIO100 - Introduction to Biology General: Ms. Kim's Class

Human Diversity Project

TOPIC DEFINITION: For the second assignment in the Human Diversity Project, you should further research your assigned phenotype (you will get a comment  on the previous assignment that directs you to one phenotype, based on non-overlap with other students and how realistic/easy it will be to do for this project).  In this assignment, you'll start to connect alleles with the observed diversity in the human population.  

For your assigned phenotype/gene, you should research which alleles exist in the human population that correspond to the variability we see in humans for the phenotype.   To find information on this, you might google "alleles for X", "gene mutation for X", or "genetic variability causing X" where X is your human phenotype of interest.

You will also evaluate your sources for reliability using guidance from this website: https://www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/evaluating-internet-content (Links to an external site.)

The output for this assignment should be a description of the gene product and how it affects human phenotype; what allele(s) exist and how they lead to differences in the gene product; a list of each source in APA format (see this description https://www.mendeley.com/guides/apa-citation-guide (Links to an external site.)) along with an analysis of the source reliability.  I suggest writing this in a document  on your computer and then copy/pasting into the textbox so you don't lose any information if the internet reboots.  You can use the template below:

• What the gene codes for (a protein, RNA, etc) and what that gene product does in a human to affect the phenotype
• What alleles exist for the gene and how they alter the gene product, leading to variability in the phenotype
• List of sources, in APA format, along with analysis of source reliability

INFO SHEET FINAL:Based on feedback from the draft sheet, you should revise your info-brochure and finalize your submission for display in Gelb.  Please make sure the .pdf has the formatting correct before you submit for printing!
 

CLASS PRESENTATION: For this portion of the Human Diversity Project, you should prepare an oral presentation for class where you can demonstrate your ability to describe your topic  in your own words.  You should also prepare visuals which will help with your presentation - use a powerpoint and submit it here so I can have them all uploaded on my computer for smooth technology during the presentations.  These will be brief summaries, so make sure you practice to ensure you can cover everything in these!  You will have 5 minutes: 4 minutes to formally present and 1 for additional questions.  

In this presentation, you should include the following aspects:

• Identify/describe human trait (2)

• Genetic explanation (4)
• Race/Class/Gender/Sexuality/+ discussion (3)
• Visual + figure legend (1)
• Citations: APA format 

Citations and academic integrity: As always, adhering to the Academy’s policy on academic integrity is of upmost importance. As this project involves independent research, you must be particularly careful to take the time to properly reference the resources you consult. Please remember:

1. You must include a bibliography that includes every reference source that you used over the duration of your research. This may include interviews with doctors, help you received from a peer editor, websites you used, etc. You will use the MLA format for this project.
2. In the text you prepare, you must cite any piece of information that you garnered from another source.  NO DIRECT QUOTATIONS ARE ALLOWED.  You must use citations when you use concepts and ideas to write your own presentation of the material. You will use in-text citations that follow the phrase containing the information with the author’s name, the year of the publication, and if referring to a very specific piece of information from a written source, the page number on which it occurred. Example: Biology is the best subject there is (Kemp, 2014)
3. You must cite at least 3 non-website/print sources. These could include interviews, academic journal articles, encyclopedia articles, reference texts, etc. You may certainly also use websites in your paper, just so long as you cite them!  Just because you found it electronically (on the internet) doesn’t automatically make it a “website source”; e-books, peer-reviewed journal articles, online versions of scientific magazines, newspapers – these all count as non-website sources.  WebMD is an example of a website source.
4. Failure to adequately reference the sources you use will result in an academic integrity violation. If you have any questions about how to cite, please contact me, the librarians at OWHL or this online writing center: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

Resources

1. Me! Come to conference period, email me, send me drafts, whatever.
2. OWHL: http://owhlguides.andover.edu/bio100

• The library has a resource page set up for this project specifically. Use to find citation guides, lists of available books, links to key journal databases, and more.
• The librarians are geniuses at research.  Please let them help you!

3. Your textbook- although you will have to start research on your topic prior to covering those topics in class, your textbook is a great resource for identifying diseases and understanding how they fit in to human physiology.