ESS205 Confronting Global Change - Assignment Information 1
ESS205H1S: Confronting Global Change

Term project: Folio

Important Dates

Component of the project Due Date
Topic selection Tuesday, 28 January 2025
Draft of folio for review Tuesday, 04 March 2025
Individual peer review due Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Final submission, including 300 character summary Tuesday, 01 April 2024


Assignment Objective

Science advances through discovery and communication. Reading about science, and presenting
it to a non-science audience, is a challenge even for established scientists. Your task is to learn
about an interesting scientific topic linked to our course, discuss it with your collaborator(s), and
prepare a folio. Your audience is the other students in this course, and interested family members
or friends who do not necessarily have a background in earth or environmental sciences. This
assignment is intended to improve:
• Skills: Communication, which includes reading and writing and presenting, is a key
skill any university student should practice. Communication and being able to work in a
team are among the most sought-after "soft" skills any employer will be looking for. You
will step through the writing process: gathering ideas using original literature, producing
an outline, ordering your thoughts into logical units while working on a draft, reviewing
someone else's paper, and addressing the comments you received to edit your work. You
will also discuss a graph relevant to your topic. You will be working in pairs or triplets so
that you have a chance to discuss the topic.
• Knowledge: You and your partner(s) will gain knowledge about an interesting topic
linked to the interaction of the various components of the earth system and the effect of
humans on the system. You will also learn about yourselves, especially how to
effectively collaborate with a peer (or two), and experience the peer-review process
scientists engage in to disseminate their results and thoughts.


Tasks

We encourage you to work in pairs or triplets on this assignment. Apart from the reasoning
mentioned under "Skills" above, this will also ensure that you receive feedback from more than
one peer. The teaching team has come up with the following list of suitable topics, and you need
to choose a topic from these proposed options:
A. Hydrogen storage solutions in Canada
B. Eutrophication problems in Canadian lakes
C. Ocean acidification effects on Atlantic Canadian fisheries
D. Impacts of overfishing
E. Megaquakes and episodic-tremor-and-slip along the West Coast
F. Tornadoes and climate change in Canada
G. Cause and outlook for coral bleaching
The assignment breaks down into the following four stages:
ESS205 Confronting Global Change - Assignment Information 2

A. Select a topic
You will have to add the names of your team members and the topic to an online spreadsheet.
We will use this spreadsheet to produce the group submissions on Quercus.
Once we know which topic you selected, your team will have a chance to meet with one
member of the teaching team who will help you focus your paper and answer your questions.

B. Submit a draft of the folio and an academic integrity statement
Your draft should be based on at least 3 papers. These papers should be original research
literature, though you are welcome to peruse additional publications -- for example textbooks,
reputable newspapers, or university/government websites -- for background information. In
addition, you should provide one quantitative diagram/graph/map from a reputable source (it can
come from one of your papers) that helps make a point. The citation style is APA 7th edition1.
Your draft folio should combine the information from the readings and the visual into a
compelling narrative. We urge you to not think of this step as just producing a very rough draft
because the more effort you put into this stage of the assignment the more useful the feedback
you will receive from peers and the teaching team will be, and the better your final product can
become. Your team will also have to submit an Academic Integrity Statement where you confirm
adherence to the UofT Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters2 and agree to explain how they
may have used Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) on the final product.
Note that because of the short turnaround time, if you do not submit a draft on time, you
will be unable to engage in the peer review stage.

C. Peer review (this will be a hard deadline)
You will be using peer scholar to provide feedback on another draft. Your answers should be
detailed enough that it can help the author(s) improve their work. If you did not submit a draft
and/or cannot complete the peer review in time you will not receive peer feedback, and you will
receive zero points for this portion.
Following the review, you will have another chance to meet with a member of the
teaching team. We may even require certain teams to meet with one of us.

D. Submit the revised folio
You will have two weeks to address the concerns and suggestions by peers and TAs and make
your final submission stronger. You will typically submit via the University's plagiarism
detection tool, which finds similarities in your text to written work in a large database. You will
be able to see the report and get a chance to revise your submission.
Note that we will not accept submissions that do not include mention of GenAI in the
acknowledgement.



Criteria for success

The assignment will be graded using the following marking guide (50 pts total):


A. Topic selection (2 pts)
o 2 pts for completing online form on time


1 https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition
2 https://governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/secretariat/policies/code-behaviour-academic-matters-july-1-2019
ESS205 Confronting Global Change - Assignment Information 3
B. Draft of folio and signed Academic Integrity statement (10 pts)
criteria exceeds expectations meets expectations approaches expectations
AI
statement
(2 pts)
n/a included AI statement signed by all
team members
Pts: 2
AI statement not included, or
team member’s signature
missing; Pts: 0
content
(3 pts)
Shows excellent effort with correct
and complete information.
Pts: 3
Good, correct, relevant, and complete
information.
Pts: 2
Incorrect or incomplete
information.
Pts: 0-1
use of
references
(2 pts)
Ideas clearly linked to references.

Pts: 2
References obvious, but minor
inconsistencies or unclear attributions.
Pts: 1-1.5
Sloppy use of references, or
missing references.
Pts: 0-0.5
use of
graph
(2 pts)
Meaningful graph enhances
argument.
Pts: 2
Good graph, but not well explained or
tangential to topic.
Pts: 1.5
Missing or useless graph.

Pts: 0-1
writing
(1 pts)
Written in complete and clear
sentences.
1 pts
Decent writing, some issues (eg,
grammar, threading).
Pts: 0.5
Writing shows major
problems.
Pts: 0

C. Peer review (done individually, 2 pts)
given for completion, zero points if not done on time

D. Final submission (36 pts)
Criteria Exceeds
expectations
Meets
expectations
Approaches
expectations
Fails
expectations
Content
(20 pts)
Outstanding. Correct and
complete information
including evidence of original
thought (note 2). Excellent
figure
Pts: 16-20
Good. Correct,
relevant, and com-
plete information and
useful figure
Pts: 11-15
Some incorrect
information or some
incomplete information


Pts: 6-10
Seriously lacking. A
lot of incorrect and/or
incomplete
information.

Pts: 0-5
Coherence
(4 pts)

Exceptionally well written,
with well-paraphrased
information. No mistakes in
spelling or grammar. The
language is appropriate for
the intended audience (class
peers)
Pts: 4
Well-written, clear
sentences. Good
organization and
minor issues (eg,
repetitions).


Pts: 3
Poor organization and
hard to follow. Several
errors in spelling and/ or
grammar. Mostly
understandable, some
issues with paraphrasing.

Pts: 2
Little to no
organization. Many
errors in spelling and
/or grammar. Unclear
logic. Poor
paraphrasing of
sources.
Pts: 0-1
References
(4 pts)
Outstanding evidence of
using appropriate scientific
sources.
Accurate acknowledgement
of how GenAI was used.

Pts: 3-4
Good evidence of
using and citing
appropriate scientific
sources (note 3).
Followed APA
system (note 1).
Pts: 2
Some evidence of using
appropriate scientific
sources. Relied heavily on
non-peer-reviewed or
secondary sources. Did
not follow APA system.
Pts: 1
No evidence of the
usage of appropriate
scientific sources.



Pts: 0
Appearance
(4 pts)
Excellent placement of figure,
text fits to space
Pts: 5
Good figure with
caption, good length
Pts: 3-4
Good layout (title,
authors, text)
Pts: 1-2
No clear layout, too
long or too short
Pts: 0
Summary/
Abstract
(2 pts)
Excellent summary in 300
characters
Pts: 2
Summary captures
key point
Pts: 1-1.5
Summary not
understandable
Pts: 0.5
Summary missing

Pts: 0
Administrative
(2 pts)
Thoroughly revised
assignment submitted on
time, summary sheet
addresses reviewers'
comments point-by-point
Pts: 2
Submission on time,
summary sheet
addresses most
comments, clearly
improved version
Pts: 1.5
Some improvement,
and/or late submission of
the revised version, and/or
disorganized
summary sheet.
Pts:0.5-1
No evidence for
improvement from
draft,
summary sheet
missing.
Pts: 0
notes: (1) For APA 7th edition citation style see https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition
(2) original thought would go beyond a summary of the literature, for example by including your own, carefully thought
out and argued perspective, or a new question for research
(3) appropriate sources should clearly provide the information used in the paper. We expect you to use 3 sources; if you
want to exceed expectations you should aim for 4 to 6 excellent sources, and those should not just be secondary.

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