Week 2, Chapter 1 -- Digging Deeper Course home | Weekly schedule | Announcements | Instructor Info | Desire2Learn | MasteringBiology® | Honor Code | FAQs | HELP!

Instructions:

Part 1:

Choose an advertising claim that can be tested experimentally. Your ad can come from radio, TV, the internet, a billboard, a print ad, etc. Answer the questions below:

1. Describe the ad and where you saw it; add a functional hyperlink if you found the ad on the internet. What is the product, and what are the claim(s) that the ad makes about the product?
2. Do you have experience with this product? Do you believe the claim(s)?
3. Choose any one claim from the advertisement and restate it as a testable, falsifiable hypothesis.
4. Go to Desire2Learn and view the PowerPoint lecture on experimental design (available under "Links" on the top navigation menu). Then describe a design for a controlled experiment that would test the hypothesis from the advertisement. In your answer, be sure to describe:

• your experimental subjects
• the number of treatment groups, the sample size, and what treatment each will receive
• your method for assigning each subject to a treatment group
• the treatment your control group will receive and why you chose that treatment
• three outside variables that might affect your results and therefore should be the same for ALL subjects
• the specific measurements you propose to make (and when in the experimental timeline you would make them)
• your predictions (e.g. IF the hypothesis is true, THEN we expect to see …)

Your assignment should be 450 words or longer; you can view a sample assignment here.

Part 2:

Use D2L's spell checker (or the one on your word processor software, which will give you a word count as well). Proofread it yourself too, because spell checkers don't catch everything. When you are satisfied, post your assignment in the Digging Deeper forum for this week at the D2L discussion board.

Part 3:

Respond to the Digging Deeper posts of at least two other students. (If you are the first or second person to post, you will have to check back later to complete this part of the assignment).

• Just as you spell checked and proofread your original post, you should do the same for your responses.
• Please respond to posts with 0 responses first; once every post has at least one response, you are free to choose any post to respond to.
• When you respond, please use the name of the student you are responding to. That is, say "Hi Trudy" or "Hi Paul" so that you can get used to the names of the people in class. (You can find a list of "real" names and preferred names at D2L).
• In your response, be sure you mention something specific that the writer did well. Also, specifically address anything you find that seems incorrect to you (phrased in a constructive way -- use the same language you would want someone else to use in telling you something you did wrong). You may wish to argue with (or critique) what the student wrote, request supporting evidence, evaluate the student's argument, add new information, make a factual correction, or explain why you agree. At a minimum this response should be at least 50 words and 50-100 is preferable. Check out this page for more on the topic of good and bad responses.

After you have posted your assignment AND responded to two other students, go to Desire2Learn and complete the Gradebook Declaration for this week's Digging Deeper assignment. (Your Gradebook Declaration is subject to the Honor Code.)

Contemporary Issues in Biology -- BIOL 1003 Mariëlle H. Hoefnagels, Ph.D. © 2004-2015. biology1003 at OU dot edu (at = @, dot =.) Last Updated August 5, 2014 11:02 PM