Learning Goal Reflection from Second to Last Class Week.

(Learning Goals Pasted From Professor Price's Lab Notebook)

• read and write scientific papers.

During this last week we read scientific papers of our choice which we then used to create posters conveying the experimental design - use of IMRD in the papers we each chose to read.  While I was absent for this exercise I chose a paper focusing on the relationship between sexual attrativeness and earning potential for working class females, which showed a significant difference at the p=.04 level that working class females considered to be more sexually attractive by socially constructed standards earn more than working class females considered to less sexually attractive by socially constructed standards of beaty including weight, bust size, hair length, and minutes spent on beauty prepping before work.  This was a social science paper so the significance level was .10 as well.  

• examine and participate in the steps of observation-driven investigations, including crafting scientific questions and hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting and presenting results.

On Thursday we created posters that outlined proposals presenting our data in IMRD for the question of hours worked vs GPA which we looked into for the other BES 301 class.  This included interpreting and presenting results to present in a poster conveying the IMRD paper form.  I do understand why we undertook this excercise, as focusing on a topic of our choice was a question raised earlier in our class, yet to be completely honest I found this exercise to be somewhat of a distracting segway in the subject matter of this course especially as we near the end of the final paper being do.  I think some students may have felt like we were being made to esentially produce assistant rather than student work in determining to raise this issue, but to be honest I think they were just misunderstanding that the key point of this class was to learn and form a strong base in the techincal apspects of the scientific process and writing scientific papers.  Thus this information is much more straightforward and easier to learn buy taking pre-determined data and applying the scientific formats rather than having to start from scratch and building on everything from there, yet as mentioned above I think some students misinterpreted this understanding in analyzing why we worked off of the Nucella Lamellosa Data set as opposed to individually picking topics of our choice.   

• document your scientific experiences in a lab notebook.
  Doing this now, so yes.
• conduct research collaboratively, participating in peer review.

On Thurday we listened to three different presentations from our fellow students on the posters they produced for the papers they read on Tuesday, and in turn presented our posters to other students. 

• locate and review scientific literature related to a specific question.

 

Class Reflection on Learning Goals

(Learning Goals Pasted From Professor Price's Lab Notebook)

• read and write scientific papers.

Yes this last week we spent a lot of time finalizing our discussion pieces for our draft submission and peer review.

• examine and participate in the steps of observation-driven investigations, including crafting scientific questions and hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting and presenting results. 

document your scientific experiences in a lab notebook.

Doing this now, so yes.

• conduct research collaboratively, participating in peer review.

We spent time determining who would be reviewing one anothers papers. We also spent time looking into papers to use for our final papers as both referances and format guides.  We also participated in  

• locate and review scientific literature related to a specific question.

 reviewed exmaples of disussion section in preparing for our work in peer reviewing our group members papers.

Computer Lab Sources Worksheet and Last Week Class

Article 1

Citation: Pike G. 2008. First-year students' employment, engagement, and academic achievement: untangling the relationship between work and grades. 45(4) 560-582

Why is it useful?  In this piece direct data in analyzed and presented to determine trends between first year student employment and academic achievement.  It is very good fact information, scientific paper.

What hypothesis do they test?  Wether or not student employment hours have a significant effect on academic acheivement.  

Why do they test this hypothesis? To determine if students working longer hours show trends of more engagment and success or less engagment and less academic success.

Why is this hypothesis relevant to your research?  Its right on topic, do hours work have a negative effect on academic performance.

Article 2

Citation:

Dondes L. Balancing Work and Academics in College: Why Do Students Working 10 to 19 Hours Per Week Excel?. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice 2006, 8 (1): 107-120.

Why is it useful?  This article focuses on why students who do work within this recomended time range do well, which in turn is kinda of an explanatory counter to why those who go over may not do as well.  Not the direct question, but still provides good insight.

What hypothesis do they test?  Whether students engaged in reccomended amount of hours perform better than students who dont work. 

Why do they test this hypothesis?  My understanding is that they bascially think these people who work these specified amount of hours may actually have a stronger sense of work ethic responsability which poors over into their academci performance as well.

Why is this hypothesis relevant to your research?  It provides me with insight into issues to consider when setting up variables, like hours worked verses part or full time ect.

Article 3

Citation: Samuel, T. 2008.  Understanding Academic Trends in Non-Traditional Working Adults. [cited November 14 2010]. 54-58 (Eric)

Why is it useful? This article looks specifically at variations in academic performance for working adults, such kids at home, and income. 

What hypothesis do they test? To determine if working in general or work and other social factors have more of an impact on academic performance.

Why is this hypothesis relevant to your research?  It relates to the end the spectrum related longer working hours and school performance.

Use CSE style citation to record the reference for an article that is NOT useful.

Citation:

Why isn’t it useful? Fasner, K. 2006 Academic Retention in Italian Universities: Following the changeing Tides. Traditional Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, v5 n1 p39-41. (Eric)

What hypothesis do they test?  Are current economic conditions having an effect on college retention rates in Italy   

Why do they test this hypothesis?To determine if academic retention rates have been influenced by economic changes.

Why isn’t this hypothesis relevant to your research?  Its more based on governmental economic trends, which isnt really related to work vs. individual student performance.

Learning Objectives (Posted From Instructors Lab Notebook

• read and write scientific papers.
• examine and participate in the steps of observation-driven investigations, including crafting scientific questions and hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting and presenting results.

Working on our in class experimental designs to conduct on the other class we crafted scienfic question in group that to a research hypothesis to test the effect of hours worked outside of school on academic performance.  Thursday we then actually set up experimental designs on posters to pick which one as a class we really wanted to pursue. I was so excited when I thought we won, but I then realized the lowest score was best, lol. - So there I was interpreting the results of this vote, but had them wrong, so through re-analyzing the data I presented that I was in fact a loser, when I thought I was winner, LOL. 

• document your scientific experiences in a lab notebook.

I'm pretty sure we did this, but I just can't put my thumb on an exact time I was actually doing this.  Just kidding, sorry, I think therefore I am- I am bloggin on my lab notebook therefore and documenting my scientific experiences in a lab notebook.  This one cracks me up every time for some reason.

• conduct research collaboratively, participating in peer review.

We researched collaboratively this week to find our articles, but no peer review, atleast I sure hope not becuase that would mean I not present while being present, not a good state to be in during science class.

• locate and review scientific literature related to a specific question.

We spent all of Thursday finding three useful article and one non useful article.  It is very clear that some subjects seem to really be a pain to find articels ready to go in full text, I dislike this we can order it stuff, but I do understand, they should hire someone to spend every day just sitting there requesting articles so then they are in. Yep they should.  Or maybe I could do it myself but that is a lot of work.

Tue. Thur. Learning Goal Reflection

(Learning Goals Pasted From Professor Price's Lab Notebook)

• read and write scientific papers.

-This last week we read our fellow group members results sections and provided peer review on these sections.  I then used the peer review I recieved from my group member to improve my results section by making it shorter and more to point and removing information i had in my results section that did belong in this section of a scientific paper.

• examine and participate in the steps of observation-driven investigations, including crafting scientific questions and hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting and presenting results.

-During the course of my peer review of one of my group members results section, I had to analyze and interpret his data so that I was able to provide him feedback on his results.  I actually ended up being wrong on what I thought should have been in his results, which made me feel really bad since I basically bashed his paper when I was the one that didn't know what I was talking about, but it was a good learning experience. i.e. it's a good idea to defineitly know what your talking about before you go and try to tell someone else they are actually wrong, lol.  But I was atleast able to save face by apologzing and he was very graceful in accepting it.

• document your scientific experiences in a lab notebook.

-Well here I am right now doing this, lol, but we covered some very good information last week on how to improve upon our lab notebook entries, the biggest one being, as seen here the outlining of the learning goals as filled in headers, rather than reaching to remember how we met these goals.

• conduct research collaboratively, participating in peer review.

-well as I noted above we reviewed the results section from one of our group members, then used this feed back to improve upon our own results section, and this was all done collaboratively. 

• locate and review scientific literature related to a specific question.

-We reviewed the articles we had found a while back in building a rubric outline for our discussion section, this all went very well and has helped to understand exactly what I should or shouldnt be including in my discussion section.  Thanks, Nick Dotson signing Out.  MC' Flater.

Cover Letter Worksheet

In your lab notebook, briefly explain what you learned by reading this letter to the editor. (From Becca Price's Worksheet). 

Well the very first thing I learned from this letter to the editor was that the more care you take to polish your work and take into consideration what certain journals may be looking for, the more work you will save yourself on the other end in having to re-edit and or adjust your article to get it published.  I also noticed that a letter to the editor doesn’t always serve as merely a notice of making the changes a journal editor asked for, but may also serve as a second opportunity to re-sell keeping some of your work the same and explain why some of the issues they had with your work should actually remain as is in your opinion as the author of the article.  Obviously the letter to the editor is also a very important sales pitch upon an initial semi-rejection of your piece, so you want to be very polite and convincing in how your writing is conveyed.  For example, you obviously don’t want to come as, “well actually I’m the one that did the work and know what this article should include”.  Instead, as shown above you want note that you definitely see where the editor is coming from, but based on a certain experience or issue previously made unaware, you think a certain part should remain the same.  Based on the above letter to the editor, it also seems very important to directly address the changes you made and explain exactly how you may have used their advice to make these changes, rather just changing everything they pointed out and listing it as changed.  In closing, the one of the most important things is to come off as thankful for their advice and input.

RESLTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nick Dotson-BES 301-Results

Results

No Significance in Shell Growth Mean Differences

v  In looking at this information on Nucella lamellosa’s shell weight growth within a control group and knocked off barnacle 1 time daily group, the following results convey the findings from a data analysis comparing these groups’ end date shell growth means.  As represented in figure 1.1 a numerical difference between these two groups’ means and standard errors did exist.  With a control group end date shell growth mean=0.264 and a standard error of plus or minus=0.029066972.  And a knocked off 1 time daily end date shell growth mean=0.203 with a standard error of plus or minus=0.036485918.  A t-test assuming unequal variances ran with a significance level of 0.05 however, showed no statistical significance to this difference in means at the (p=0.208403) level.  Due to my significance level conveying I was willing to make a mistake 5% of the time and the p value coming in at (p=0.208403), this meant there was a greater than twenty percent chance that the differences in means shown was due to random chance alone.  Based on these results I was then able to reject my null hypothesis of “a significant difference will exist between the end date shell weight growth of the control group and the end date shell weight growth of the knocked off barnacle 1 time daily group.  In turn, based on these same findings I accepted my research hypotheses that” a significant difference will not exist between the end date shell weight growth of the control group and the end date shell weight growth of the knocked off barnacle 1 time daily group.  Data-(Price et al 2002-2010)

Figure 1.1: Error bars represent standard error across population in each distinct group shown. p=0.208403

   

 

 

Library WS sources Day

Price, RM 2010-INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY Emersion limits short term growth rates in intertidal Nucella lamellosa (E140)

Why is it useful? This article covers specifically the relationship between emersion and growth, and notes that feeding access does seem to show a signifigant difference in growth like emersion does, which will help support my results of no significance.

What hypothesis do they test?  Emersion rates and prey access effect the growth rates of Nucella Lamallosa. 

Why do they test this hypothesis?  To determine if the interdial exposure of nucella lamellosa explains the difference in size between snails who live of beahces with tides and snails that live constantly in the water.

Why is this hypothesis relevant to your research?
It provides information regarding the no significance between being knocked off barnacles one each day and the the control group that has access to prey 24/7.


Nienhuis S, Palmer AR, Harley CDG 2010- Elevated CO₂ affects shell dissolution rate but not calcification rate in a marine snail. Proc. R. Soc. .(0206)

Why is it useful?

What hypothesis do they test?

Why do they test this hypothesis?

Why is this hypothesis relevant to your research?

Why is it useful?

What hypothesis do they test?

Why do they test this hypothesis?

Why is this hypothesis relevant to your research?

Data Analysis WS and Class Day

1.       What is your research question?*Did students who turned in their papers to be reviewed by Becca receive significantly better grades?

2.       What is your research hypothesis? *Students who had their papers reviewed by Becca on average reviecved significantly better scores    

5.       What is your statistical null hypothesis? No significant difference exists between the average paper grades recieved with or without review by Becca.

Results: P-Value: = 0.005752 


*I accept my statisical hypothesis based on the analysis of this data. 

Answer: In this class students who had their papers reviewed by Becca revieved an average mean score of 86.53333333, while students who did have their results reviewed by Becca recieved an average mean score of 68.8, therefore students who had their papers reviwed by Becca did on average recieve significantly higher scores.

Nucella Lamellosa Part.

*Research hypothesis: Over the course of the experiment the snails that are knocked off the barnacles one time each day will not exhibit any significant difference in their end date tissue growth weights than the control group.

*Statistical null hypothesis: Over the course of the experiment the snails that are knocked off the barnacles one time each day will exhibit significantly different end date tissue growth weights than the control group.

P value = 0.290431

*Research Hypothesis Rejected: Based on my statistical findings for the Nucella Lamellosa data represented in the images below, I must reject my research hypothesis due to the high p values and the clear significance this represents for the control groups greater mean tissue weight growth of 0.324, as compared to the mean tissue weight growth of 0.234 for the experimental group.

Statistical Null Hypothesis Accepted:  Over the course of this experiment the snails that were knocked off the barnacles one time each day did exhibit a significant lesser difference in end date tissue growth weights than the control group, therefore the statistical null hypothesis is accepted.

T-Test Worksheet

Hinton 1995

Science Methods and Practice

BES 301 Price

Preparing for the Data Analysis Lab

If you have questions about how to complete this worksheet, please ask for help at the Quantitative Skills Center (QSC, UW2-131), especially if you haven’t completed a statistics course. Summarize the key ideas in your lab notebook.

You’ll also want to make sure you know how to do basic things in MS Excel (which you can purchase really cheaply from the cashier’s office). I recommend taking a quick online refresher available from the QSC website: http://www.uwb.edu/qsc/workshops. Make sure you can complete the one called Introduction to Microsoft Excel. Again, go to the QSC or talk to me during office hours if you need help!

Learning Goals: Statistical concepts

By the time you take your Data Analysis Test, you’ll need to be able to

• distinguish between research hypotheses and statistical null hypotheses,
• explain when and why to use the t-test,
• classify a test as one-tailed or two-tailed,
• explain what level of significance (a) and p-values mean in plain English,
• determine when to accept or reject a statistical null hypothesis, and
• determine when to accept or reject a research hypothesis.

The reading by Hinton guides you towards these goals, but you’ll probably have to find supplementary material online, too. And you’ll most certainly need to ask lots of questions!

Thinking about the t-test

With what assumption does Hinton open the last paragraph on p. 78?

*Hinton opens with the assumptions that the students come from two sample populations of equal distribution, that the null hypothesis has not been rejected, i.e. there is no significant difference in reading performance found between the two sample populations of students taught with either the traditional teaching method or the new teaching method.   

What is the null hypothesis presented on p. 78?

*That there is no significant difference in reading performance between the group of students taught using the traditional method and the group of students taught using the new method from Europe (Hinton 78).

What statistical tool do we use to determine “what differences would we expect between two samples simply by chance alone” (78-9)?

*Calculating the mean of the data pertinent to our experiment from every possible sample at the sample size we plan to test, then comparing this to the mean of the pertinent data from every sample size we can access that is of the same sample size we plan to use for our experiment.

What is a t-test? (cite other sources if you need to)

*A t-test is the equation test run to determine a score, based on your data, which is then compared to your data table score to determine if the results of your experiment show significant statistical findings that support your hypothesis, or show that your results have no significant statistical findings and thus fail to reject the null hypothesis of your experiment.  

What are the assumptions of the t-test?

*That our test groups or samples come from adequately distributed populations, and that our experiment sample groupings have adequately similar standard deviations (Hinton 81).   

The example beginning on p. 83 is a related t-test, because the two sets of data come from the same people (the same group of students takes a test before lunch and after lunch). Summarize this example beginning 83 by answering the following questions:

1.       What question is this teacher asking? (the answer that she predicts for this question is her research hypothesis)* Does taking a lunch break affect a decline in students’ focus for when they return to class, thus making them perform worse at math after lunch than in the morning at the start of class?

2.       What data does she collect to test her research hypothesis? *She collects the scores of two different math tests with adequately similar questions, with one test taken early in morning and the other test taken after lunch, all  by the same test subject group of 8 students in her class.  

3.       Is this a one-tailed test or a two-tailed test? *One-tailed

4.       What is the statistical null hypothesis?  *That students perform relatively the same on math tests regardless of if they take them at the beginning of the day or after lunch. ???? Or would it be more like?-Students don’t perform significantly better on math tests in the morning than after lunch.   

5.       What level of significance did the teacher choose? *The teacher chose a p= 0.05 level of significance.

6.       Does she accept or reject her statistical null hypothesis? *She rejects her statistical null hypothesis.

7.       Does she accept or reject her research hypothesis? *She accepts her research hypothesis.

In biology, however, it’s more common that we have an independent t-test. You can, as Hinton discusses, compare how men and women respond to a sleeping pill. Answer the following questions about the example beginning on p. 88.

1. What is the research hypothesis?  *That this sleeping pill will have different effects on men and women.
2. What data were collected to test the research hypothesis? * The comparative difference of extra hours slept per night in one group of six men and one group of eight women, over a period of fourteen nights in which each of the participants received the sleeping pills for seven nights and a placebo pill for seven nights, without being made aware of which pills they were receiving on which nights.
3. Is this a one-tailed test or a two-tailed test? *Two tailed
4. What is the statistical null hypothesis?  That there will be no significant difference between the male and female extra hour sleeping responses from taking the sleeping pills.
5. What level of significance was chosen? *No significance found at the p=0.05 level. Does this mean though that p=0.05 was the chosen significance level, and they just didn’t find it, or is my first answer the correct response you are looking for?
6. Is the p-value greater than or less than the level of significance? * The p value is greater than the level of significance in this case.  As to why, I have to admit I am still a little unclear on as far as the actual mathematic manipulation goes here.
7. Should you accept or reject the statistical null hypothesis? *Accept.
8. Should you accept or reject the research hypothesis? *Reject.

What question does the t-test answer, in general?  * The t-test in general answers whether or not the data from your experiment supports or rejects your research hypothesis or your statistical null hypothesis through determining the significance level and p value of your results, based on whether or not your findings occurred beyond or within the statistically determined parameters of your experiment groups’ standard deviation, standard error, and degrees of freedom.     

What question do you think you’ll use the t-test to explore in your research project?

*Whether or not being knocked off the barnacles once per day had any significant effect on Nucella Lamellosa’s growth in total tissue weight over the course of this experiment, as compared to the standard deviation of tissue growth in the control group and the group removed from water with no food for 2 hours?

****All data, keyword references, and paraphrased concepts in the completion of this worksheet were taken from Perry R. Hinton’s (1995) “Statistics Explained: A guide for social science students.”    

Post From 10/12 Class Day

*In the very beginning of class we got into groups of three and crafted posters outlining what categories and point values we felt were essential to include in the grading rubric for the results section of our final Scientific Research Papers.  This activity was definitely focused on collaboratively examining and participating in observation driven investigations, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting and presenting results, and participating peer review.
* By making these posters, coming up with categories as a group, assigning these categories point values, presenting them to the class, and then reviewing our findings with the class as a whole, we directly participated in all the learning goals outlined above.
*Next we took on a fun little exercise where we looked at questions we had all answered as a class for the getting to know you surveys we took, then came up with hypothesis we felt we could test with the data provided by the answers to these questions.
*i.e. Is this your first quarter at UWB?
My Hypothesis: Students view BES 301 as a good first science class to take at UWB.
*This exercise most definitely had us examining and participating in the steps of observation driven investigations: including interpreting data and crafting hypothesis.
*After these exercises we got back to final picks for our variables and treatments we will each be covering individually on Nucella Lamellosa in our Final R. Papers.
*This definitely included analyzing data so that we both knew which precise variables we would be covering and had a chance to pick the variables we each thought would be most interesting to analyze and report on.
*Nick Dotson is officially (Removed from barnacles once each day and tissue growth over length of experiment).  YAAAaaaa-BUUDDDDDYYY.
*Also, don't know if everyone heard me at the end of class, but what I brought up about the control groups having NA data in the data set was wrong, it was only NA in the barnacle control which we all know now didn't exist, so i hope I didn't leave anyone still worried about that.
Science Blogger Over and Out-Nick Dotson
  

Hypothesis Worksheet

1.) Identify hypotheses tested in Yamane and Gilman 2009.

-The Hypothesis tested by Yamane and Gilman is that air temperature during emersion and water temperature during submersion affects the growth and feeding rates of Nucella Lamellosa.

2.) What are some hypotheses that you have about your own life? List three in your lab notebook.

- 1- If I get a graduate degree it will be easier for me to find a job I find rewarding.

-2- If I do some of my homework every day, rather than cramming at the last minute, I will get better grades.

-3- If I replace eating candy with eating fruits and vegetables my stomach will feel better when I wake up in the morning.  

3.)Which of these variables measure growth rate?

- marginal growth (start and end), shell height (start and end),shell weight (start and end), tissue weight (start and end).

4.)Which of these variables do you think affects growth rate?

- (only snails removed from water, 2 hours),( only snails removed from water, 5 hours), (snails and barnacles removed from water, 2 hours), (snails and barnacles removed from water, 5 hours), (barnacles removed from water, 2 hours), (barnacles removed from water, 5 hours), (snails knocked off the barnacles once each day), (number of barnacles consumed over the course of the experiment), (control).

5.)Which of these variables do you think affects how much snails eat?

- (only snails removed from water, 2 hours),( only snails removed from water, 5 hours), (snails and barnacles removed from water, 2 hours), (snails and barnacles removed from water, 5 hours), (barnacles removed from water, 2 hours), (barnacles removed from water, 5 hours), (snails knocked off the barnacles once each day), (control).

6.)What variables are independent?

- (only snails removed from water, 2 hours),( only snails removed from water, 5 hours), (snails and barnacles removed from water, 2 hours), (snails and barnacles removed from water, 5 hours), (barnacles removed from water, 2 hours), (barnacles removed from water, 5 hours), (snails knocked off the barnacles once each day), (control).

7.)What variables are dependent?

- marginal growth (start and end), shell height (start and end),shell weight (start and end), tissue weight (start and end),  number of barnacles consumed over the course of the experiment.

8.)What variables are categorical?

-I have admit I am still a little unsure on the fine line between these categorizations of variables, but if you are referring to purely categorical, not categorical numerical, then I would say only (the control group is purely categorical), because the dependant variables are numerical and the rest of the independent variables are categorical numerical because they are quantified either by the amount of hours they are occurring or amount of times they occur in a day, in this case the latter only being the one independent variable quantified as once per day.  Is this correct?   

9.) Which variable are you studying?

- Number of barnacles consumed over the course of the experiment

10.) Which experimental treatment are you studying?

- Snails knocked off the barnacles once each day

11.) Make a prediction about how these variables will interact. This is your hypothesis:

- The snails being knocked off the barnacles once each day will not affect the number of barnacles consumed over the course of the experiment.

Data Introduction Class Day-Post-From 10/7 Class Day.

-In class on 10/7/2010 we were introduced to the data we will be analyzing and using to write our scientific papers for this class. 
-The first activity we did in class was aimed at working collaboratively to examine and participate in the steps of observation driven investigations.
-Also, the first thing we did in this process was continue to work on our in class work sheet where we crafted scientific questions, formed hypothesis, determined variables, and determined control and experimental groups within the experiment process worksheet on "Testing Ideas About Childbed Fever" we were working on.
 -We also designed a scientific experiment for how to test Ignaz Semmelweis's hypothesis on the causes of Childbed Fever in post-birth mothers during the 1800's.
-Next we moved into making scientific observations, and asking questions regarding how Yaman and Gilman's work on Nucella Lamellosa relates to the data we will be analyzing and writing a scientific paper on for this course.
-So after reading Yaman and Gilman's scientific paper, as a group we determined that the hypothesis for their experiment was that Growth and feeding rates of Nucella Lamellosa is effected by air temperature during emersion and water temperature during submersion.
-My group also collaborative analyzed Yaman and Gilman's data to determine that the independent variables in their experiment was air and water temperature and that their dependant variables were the growth and feeding rates of the snails they tested.  We also collaboratively determined through analyzing Yaman and Gilman's data that their control group was the fixed temp snail groups, and their experimental group was the fluctuating temp group. ***Note, we were somewhat unsure on these control-experimental designations, we obviously need to do some clarifying here as these groups seem to not fit the simplified even amount control-to even amount experimental group classifications as typically experienced in simpler science learning activities.
-Next, we collaboratively analyzed data pertaining to experiments on Nucella Lamellosa to ask scientific questions regarding which direction we each wanted to take in picking treatment variables for our scientific research papers for this course.
-For the following activity we worked collaboratively in two person teams to ask scientific questions regarding the formation of a hypothesis that we felt interested us, interested others, and would look into subject matter that we felt we were good at working with.
-My two man team's hypothesis was "Increased crowding at UWB has reduced students' opinions that confirm the personalized educational experience UWB is known for".

****Added note-I wanted to add to this entry that every time I wrote Yaman is this post, the correct spelling and citation for this is actually Yamane, i apologize for this mistake.

Yamane and Gilman Worksheet

*I chose to read the “effects of body temperature on growth rates” result section of the Yamane and Gilman (2009) paper “Opposite responses by an intertidal predator to increasing aquatic and aerial temperatures”.

*Background. What information do the authors tell you to set the stage for their question(s)?

-Yamane and Gilman provide information regarding the effects of air and water temperature on the growth and feeding rates of Nucella ostrina.  Specifically they note that increased air temperatures reduce growth rates in these snails, and that increased water temperatures actually increase the feeding rates or “predation” rates in these snails (Yamane and Gilman 30).  They also note that these differences do not occur “linearly,” but instead occur at certain check point temperatures related to the physiological tolerances of these snails (Yamane and Gilman 31).  In the introduction, Yamane and Gilman also discuss how climate change is a very significant and well established variable in affecting the declination or general change of animal populations, and often even more so for predatory animals (Yamane and Gilman 1).  

* Question. What question do the authors ask?

-What environmental air and water temperature conditions create favorable or unfavorable conditions for Nucella ostrina?

*Method. What experimental design did they use to answer that question?

-This experiment was designed by Yamane and Gilman as a test of control group snails in their natural habitat versus experimental group snails.  The experimental snail groups were subjected to differing water and air temperatures to mimic the submersion and emersion conditions experienced by Nucella ostrina in their natural beach and saltwater habitats with rising and lowering tides.  Then Yamane and Gilman observed and recorded the growth and feeding rates of these snails in different air and water temperature conditions to determine if these artificially produced environmental variables had any noticeable and or significant effects on the growth and feeding rates of these snails.     

*Observation. What did they observe? (What is the result of their study?)

- Yamane and Gilman observed that higher air emersion temperatures, specifically beyond a certain cut off point above Nucella ocarina’s natural cellular temperature tolerance, causes the growth rates of these snails to significantly decrease to an unhealthy and worrisome level for these snails (Yamane and Gilman 30, 31, 32, 33).  

*Conclusion. What do they conclude from their observations?

-Yamane and Gilman concluded that a climate change which increased the natural coastal air temperature in the areas inhabited by Nucella ocarina could cause a significant decline in the health and population of these snails, but that a more likely simultaneous natural increase or change of both air and water temperatures would cause an essentially unpredictable result for intertidal species based just on this data alone (Yamane and Gilman 33, 34).  So Yamane and Gilman feel that this data serves as only a primary information base supporting their hypothesis that climate change can have effects on intertidal species, but that a precise projectable rate of temperature increase having such effects on precise species change is essentially undeterminable from the data produced in this study alone (Yamane and Gilman 34).  Therefore, they believe further more localized and precise studies must be done in order to make any specific conclusions or predictions regarding future onslaughts of climate temperature changes having any specific effects on specific intertidal species (Yamane and Gilman 34).   

*Was it easy to find the answers to these questions?

-I felt that it was fairly easy to find the answers to these questions in the results section, yet I was a little confused by what I perceived as the overlapping of the background information and observations when both of these were suppose to be found within the results section.  It seems to me that the background information should have really come from the abstract and introduction, not the results section.  But maybe this is just a misunderstanding of these terms on my part.   

Zonker-"Chicken-Chicken"- Paper

*In Doug Zonker's "Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken paper, it is very straightforward that this piece is designed to outline the value of understanding how to interpret and analyze statistical data and its' many presentable formats, along with the importance of understanding the official format and citation style aspects of reading and writing scientific papers.  I personally was able to use this piece to get a good starting point idea of where my general statistic and scientific paper interpreting skills stand, and what I will need to be brushing up on in the near future.
*The first thing I recognized in this paper was the use of flow charts and diagrams in conveying scientific information.  I personally am pretty comfortable with interpreting this kind of information. I was curious though as to whether or not the diagram symbols on these flow charts had any specific scientific significance, or if these symbols are just a generalized free form way of designing a flow chart?
*I also recognized the bell chart for plotting and interpreting data.  This also brought to mind the importance of determining mean and using standard deviation to interpret and make use of statistical data.  I feel pretty comfortable in my ability to make use of this particular form, also a lot of this bell chart information can be interpreted and put to use fairly easily using a graphing calculator.
*There was one graph form that I didn't recognize and definitely need to look into getting back up to speed on.
*I also noticed that the citation style in this paper is something I am completely unfamiliar with, so if this is the style we will be using for BES 301 i can definitely use this piece a reference along with getting started on becoming proficient in this style.
*Bottom line is this paper provides us with a nice general outline for understanding what type of information we need to become well versed in, in order to be successful scientific readers and writers.       

First Day Summary & Photo

*During our first meeting of BES 301 we undertook a basic overview of the course syllabus, along with participating in three different group activities designed to give us some introductory experience with the tenants of the scientific method and other scientific practices.  For our first group activity we were given some items, then asked to make basic observations about these objects, followed by making some conclusions about the owner of these objects, based on our observations.  For example my group received a bottle of glass cleaner for our first object.  We observed this bottle was partially used and had "not for use on contacts" written on it.  Therefore we concluded that this bottle was designed to clean some type of eye ware, and due to it appearing to be used quite frequently, we concluded that this form of eye wear must be pretty important to the owner and worn quite frequently.  Therefore we concluded the owner probably wore vision enhancing eyeglasses, not just sunglasses which are often maintained far less seriously.  Based on this first activity we then established as a class, with the professors' guidance, that we were making scientific observations and conclusions in this activity, which are often based on such premises as previous experiences and probability observations.
*** NOTE: It is important when doing science to know probability observations could be wrong, therefore this is just a starting off point for doing science, i.e. observations don't equal a theory. ***
 *For our second group activity each group was asked to represent a certain portion of our syllabus in a clear and concise image.  The group I was in decided to draw a calender that had a snow theme on it and a copyright notice on the bottom to represent the following three aspects included in our assigned portion of the syllabus. The calender itself represented the aspect of good time management for success, the snow theme of the calender represented the aspect of the rules on inclement weather, and the copyright notice at the bottom of our calender represented the importance of not plagiarising in our work for BES 301.
*In our third group activity we were asked to guess what was hidden under a piece of tape on a six sided cube with numbers on each uncovered side.  We then made observations based on our previous experiences, recognizing a pattern, and using deductive reasoning to conclude that a numerical 2 was hidden under that tape.  We made this conclusion because we observed that there were six sides, and that a 1,3,4,5,6 could be seen separated evenly amongst the 5 remaining uncovered sides. So we then concluded that the missing 2 in this sequenced pattern was the most probable thing to be under the tape on the covered side.  After this third exercise, we then discussed as a class, with the instructors guidance, how each of the patterns on this cube pertained to specific terms used in interpreting and analyzing statistical data.  ****