- 25 Mar, 2021
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Biodiversity Forum( mammals and bacteria
Earth has an amazing amount of biodiversity that includes all sorts of weird, wonderful, surprising, interesting creatures. Unfortunately, studying biodiversity can sometimes get a bit boring.
To make our exploration of biodiversity more interesting, you are going to work together in a way that also lets you incorporate creativity.
Use the rubric to guide ALL of your posts to the Biodiversity Forum!
Part 1: Create Profiles
Your instructor will randomly assign you TWO ( mammals and bacteria )
Once you have your taxa, research both taxa to learn the following information about them:
Basics: scientific name, some common names, major sub-groups (e.g., if it’s a phylum, what are some of the important families?), a few common species found in this group
What characteristics do members of this taxon share?
How diverse is this taxon? (make sure to go beyond just numbers of species to talk about something such as body plans, environments they live in, etc.)
How do members of this taxon reproduce? Do all species in this taxon reproduce in a similar manner, or is there some variability?
For animal taxa, do members of this taxon have anything special that they eat? For example, some animals only eat the fruits of specific species of plants.
Is there anything special that these organisms do to defend themselves? For example, many organisms produce toxic compounds that cause problems for other organisms — some plants literally poison the ground around them to make it difficult for other plants to grow!
Anything that you found particularly weird or interesting about this taxon?
If someone were to only know ONE thing about this taxon, what should it be?
Use the results of your research to create a fake social media profile for each of your taxa & post each profile by clicking “Reply” below.
Make sure to start your post with a heading that includes the name of the taxon, so that’s it easy to identify the taxon
You will ONLY post these profiles to Canvas, so you will NOT be creating anything on any social media sites!
You may use any social media site you’d like as your model. In the past, students have used Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, reddit, MySpace, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok…
Think about what you’d like to read, so use the tools in the Canvas editor to include pictures, videos, etc. (make sure to include URLs for anything you include that you didn’t create yourself).
Please do NOT use attached files, since that makes it more difficult for everyone to see your post. Convert files to images that can be uploaded using the Canvas tools to display within your post.
There are LOTS of ways to complete this assignment, but your goal should be to distill your research into something interesting. You’re essentially curating information about these taxa for your peers. Your post should NOT be dry & boring like an encyclopedia entry, and you shouldn’t try to include everything you discover during your research.
Some examples from past semesters are available to help: Biodiversity Forum Examples
Unlike a real profile, you MUST include a list of whatever sources you used to collect your information (just URLs is fine)