Week 12, Chapter 9 -- Adopt-a-Species Course home | Weekly schedule | Announcements | Instructor Info | Desire2Learn | MasteringBiology® | Honor Code | FAQs | HELP!

Introduction

In this assignment, you will develop fictional DNA fingerprinting and genetic engineering applications for the endangered species that you chose for your first Adopt-a-Species assignment. You MUST use the same species that you originally adopted!

Part 1 -- Fictional scenario:

Imagine that you are a consultant with two specialties: the conservation of endangered species, and genetic engineering. You have a particular interest in [your endangered species]. As it happens, you have been approached by two societies who saw your previous documentary on [your endangered species].

• One group, the Society for the Conservation of [Your Endangered Species] would like to fund DNA-based research that might help save [your endangered species]. They would like you to explain how scientists might use DNA fingerprinting to learn about some aspect of the biology of [your endangered species], with a goal of gaining information that will be helpful in the species’ conservation.
• The other group, the Society for the Genetic Modification of [Your Endangered Species], is interested in genetically modifying your species to enhance its chances of survival. They would like you to suggest a feature that might help your species better face whatever challenges are propelling it to extinction, and they would like you to describe how you might genetically engineer the feature into individuals of the species.

Here are some sites that might help you learn more about examples of DNA-based conservation research:

• Evolution at the Scene of the Crime: This site has a nice explanation of DNA fingerprinting as it relates to solving crimes, but the exact same technology can help distinguish individuals in a population of an endangered species.
• Bear DNA: The US Geological Survey sponsored a study in which scientists used DNA to estimate the population size, genetic diversity, and genetic relatedness of grizzly bears in northwest Montana.
• Around the World with DNA: This site, from the American Museum of Natural History, contains six very short “journals” that describe how scientists use DNA fingerprinting to study the biology of endangered species.

And here are some sites that might help you learn more about genetically modified organisms:

• The Wikipedia article on Genetically Modified Organisms might give you useful background information, especially about the uses of GMOs.
• A site called Rediscovering Biology has a page on Genetically Modified Organisms, complete with animations on "Creating a Transgenic Animal" and "Creation of Golden Rice."
• There's a nice little animation on genetically modifying plants at Introducing a Gene to a Cell.

In addition, before you begin writing this assignment, consult the documentary you wrote for your first Adopt-a-Species assignment. You will also want to visit websites that give more information about your species. To complete this assignment, you may need to know these kinds of things about your species:

• Why is your species endangered (e.g., habitat loss, poaching, hunting, etc.)?
• Is your species widespread or localized?
• About how many individuals remain?
• Does the species have special attributes that make it a high priority for conservation efforts?

Part 2 -- Write your reports

Write a report to each of the groups, using the following guidelines:

• For the Society for the Conservation of [Your Endangered Species]:
  • Keeping in mind what you have already learned about your species, how could DNA help you discover additional knowledge that might be helpful in saving your species?
  • Propose a rough design for a study that would help you get the information you want. How would you select individuals to collect DNA from? How would you collect the DNA? How would you generate the DNA fingerprinting data, and how would you use the results to answer your question?
• For Society for the Genetic Modification of [Your Endangered Species]:
  • What genetic modification do you suggest, and how might it help the species? (Note that the modification should address a specific trait, something more specific than "making it more adaptable to new habitats").
  • What type of gene would you need to make the improvement?
  • From which other species might you get this gene? (You may have to use your imagination here).
  • Briefly describe the steps you would need to achieve the modification. (You can either diagram the steps and post the image, or describe them in words).
  • Explain one possible environmental impact that may occur as a result of releasing individuals with this modification. (Use your imagination here.)
  • Describe an environmental impact that may occur if this gene was accidentally transferred to other organisms in the vicinity of your species. (You may need your imagination here too.)

You can see sample reports here.

For full credit, your reports must meet the following criteria:

• Your reports (together) should be a minimum of 500 words long, although it will probably take many more words to adequately explain your ideas. In past semesters, the best posts have been closer to 800 or 1000 words long (not counting references).
• All of the questions listed in the assignment must be satisfactorily answered.
• You must spell-check and proofread your work. (Both are essential to a professional product! Your spell-checker doesn't know if you mean "their" or "there," "affect" or "effect" etc., nor can it detect sentence fragments. Reading your reports out loud to yourself will help you catch errors.)
• List of ALL references you used, correctly cited.

Part 3 -- Post your reports to your discussion board forum:

Post your documentary to your personal D2L Discussions forum, and click the "Save" button.

Because you're posting all your Adopt-a-Species assignments to the same forum, please include the words "Week 12" in the title of your post for this assignment. No matter what, always save a back-up copy of your assignment somewhere on your computer! Although you will save/post directly in D2L, you don't want to run the risk that it won't be there when you come back to access it.

Part 4 -- Respond to at least two others:

Read the previous Adopt-a-Species assignments AND this week's assignments for two other students, as assigned in the D2L discussion board forum entitled "Adopt-a-Species: Response Grid" for this week. Add your comments to the posts of each student. Click on their name, then "add comment" to their specific post. If one or both of the students you are supposed to respond to have not posted an assignment by the deadline, you can respond to another student (or students) of your choice from our section of the class.

Make sure your response is substantive and constructive. This means that you have read and thought about the report and that, after some reflection, you are offering an additional perspective as you might in a good conversation. It is not enough to say simply "nice job", or "I liked that." The goal is to thoughtfully add something else interesting and new related to the content of the original post. At a minimum this 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 responded to two other students, complete the Gradebook Declaration for this week's Adopt-a-Species assignment in D2L Declarations. (Your Gradebook Declaration is subject to the Honor Code.) You will self-report your responses to other students' posts, but I will grade your entry myself, according to the rubric posted below.

Here is the text of the Desire2Learn Gradebook Declaration: (2 points) I have responded constructively to the posts of at least two other students (1 point per response; 50-100 words for each).

Grading rubric for Week 12, Chapter 9 Adopt-a-Species assignment:

I will use the following rubric to grade your Adopt-a-Species assignments. Notice that the rubric does not heavily reward creativity; I am much more interested in looking for evidence that you fulfill the assignment criteria.

Please note that points will be deducted as follows if you fail to meet the "mechanical" requirements of the assignment:

• 0.5 point will be subtracted for every 2 spelling/grammatical errors (for helpful hints, click here);
• 1 point will be subtracted if your post is too short.

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