Sustainable Living Guide Contributions, Part 1 of 4: Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystems

[WLO: 2] [CLOs: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, read Chapters 1 and 4 in the Turk and Bensel’s Contemporary Environmental Issues textbook (2014).

The purpose of this assignment is twofold: first, to enable you to explore a term (concept, technique, place, etc.) related to this week’s theme of sustaining Earth’s biodiversity and ecosystems; second, to provide your first contribution to a collective project, the Class Sustainable Living Guide. Your work this week, and in the weeks that follow, will be gathered (along with that of your peers) into a master document you will receive a few days after the end of the course. The document will provide everyone with a variety of ideas for how we can all live more sustainably in our homes and communities.

To complete this assignment, you will

  • Select a term from the list of choices in the Week 1 – Term Selection. Reply to the forum with the term that you would like to research. Do not select a term that a classmate has already chosen. No two students will be researching the same topic.
  • Download the Week 1 Assignment Template and replace the guiding text with your own words based upon your online research. Please do not include a cover page. All references, however, should be cited in your work and listed at the end, following APA format expectations.

In the template, you will

  • Define the term thoroughly.
  • Clearly relate the term to the week’s theme.
  • Explain how the term affects living things and the physical world.
  • Relate the term to the challenge of achieving environmental sustainability.
  • Justify if the term represents an obstacle to that goal, or perhaps a technique or technology that might promote it.
  • Suggest two specific actions we can take to promote sustainability in relationship to this term.
  • Provide detailed examples to support your ideas.

Please do not include a cover page, or even place your name directly on the work. In addition to submitting this assignment to Waypoint, you will also be submitting it for anonymous peer review by classmates in Week 2.

The Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystems assignment

  • Must be a minimum of three paragraphs in length (not including title, any quoted text, or references) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. resource.
  • Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. resource for additional guidance.
  • Must use at least two credible and/or scholarly sources in addition to the course text. To receive optimal credit, use at least one scholarly source from a peer-reviewed academic journal. To aid you in your research, and particularly in locating scholarly sources via the Ashford Library or using Google Scholar, please review the following Ashford videos and tutorials:
    • Scholarly and Popular Resources (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
    • Database Search Tips (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
    • Research, Keywords, and Databases: An Overview (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
    • Accessing Full Text and Citation in Google Scholar (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
    • The Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
  • Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper guide. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
  • Must include a separate references list that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.

Week 1 Assignment Template

Sustainable Living Guide Contributions, Part One of Four:

Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystems

Instructions: Using the term that you have selected from the list provided in the classroom, please complete the following template. Create a minimum of 5 to 7 well-crafted sentences per paragraph. In your response, you are expected to cite and reference, in APA format, at least two outside sources in addition to the class text. The sources must be credible (from experts in the field of study); scholarly sources (published in peer-reviewed academic journals) are strongly encouraged. Delete these instructions before submitting your work to Waypoint.

Your Term:

Instructions: In the first paragraph,

Thoroughly define your term.

Describe how the term relates to this week’s theme. Provide specific examples.

Delete these instructions before submitting your work to Waypoint.

[Enter your information here]

Instructions: In the second paragraph,

Discuss how the term affects living things and the physical world.

Explain how the term relates to the challenge of achieving environmental sustainability. Does it make global sustainability harder to achieve, or easier?

Justify if the term represents an obstacle to that goal, or perhaps a technique or technology that might promote it?

Again, be as specific as possible and include examples to support your explanations.

[Enter your information here]

Instructions: In the third paragraph,

Determine at least two specific actions that you and I might take in order to promote environmental sustainability in relation to this term. Be creative and concrete with your suggestions. For example, you might recommend supporting a particular organization that is active in the field of your term.

Consider actions that might be taken

1) on the individual level, in our daily lives;

2) at the community level, working in our towns and cities;

3) via national and global organizations working on behalf of the environmental issues associated with your term; and/or 4) at the ballot box (though voting).

[Enter your information here]

After proofreading your assignment carefully, please submit your work to Waypoint for evaluation. Immediately after doing so, please submit a copy of your work to the Peer Review Site, located under Week 2 – Peer Review Assignment Submissions, so that your peers will be able to evaluate it during the second week of class.

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