Assignment:
For these assignments you need to go to a popular science source and find an article about physical sciences or technology (physics, chemistry, geosciences, meteorology, astronomy; not biology or health). It should be a serious article. You need to read the article and possibly any related source material so that you understand what is being said and what the point of the article is. Then you need to give me approximately a one to two page (around 3-4 paragraphs, double-spaced) summary of the article in Microsoft Word format.
Your summary should include a reference citation for the article and any supplementary articles you may have used to help you understand the content of the article.
This is a set of small projects that will hopefully help you become familiar with numerous popular sources of science, become comfortable with reading and comprehending these sources, and practice at communicating the information gained to your peers. Hopefully by doing this assignment (and encouraging others to do the same) you will help elevate the general scientific literacy of society. And we need it!
Examples of good sources are
-The New York Times (which has a science section every Tuesday) available online at www.nytimes.com
-Science News (a brief but excellent newsletter available in many libraries and on newstands)
-Popular Science, Scientific American, Discover, New Scientist, National Geographic, or some similar magazine