Background Section Worksheet for Week 7 Presentations

Your group should complete this activity together during the Week 6 lab. Once it is completed, show it to your TA as a group and discuss with them during class. Your TA will check that your references are appropriate and that you are prepared for the presentation. This worksheet is worth 3 of the 17 points associated with your Week 7 Presentation (see complete rubric on canvas).

This worksheet accompanies the Week 7 student presentations and will give you some practice:

• finding and understanding primary scientific literature
• making connections between concepts explored in lab activities and real-world applications

In your presentations, you are asked to address the “Overall topic”:

“provide some background on the topic and why it is important (big picture: why do people study this topic? What is its importance in everyday life?) You should do some background research and include at least two primary scientific references (see Week 1 info and Citations Inter-chapter in your lab manual on p. 17)”

This worksheet will help you plan what you will say for the background part of the presentation. Find at least two scientific articles that describe a study or experiment related to your topic. Be prepared to talk about these articles in the context of your own experiment and the broader scientific topic you tested.

Requirements for this worksheet and your presentation:

• Answer the following questions as a group.
• Properly cite your sources in question #5 and also on a reference slide at the end of your presentation (see pp. 17–19 of your lab manual).
• Use your own words. When you cite sources, you should paraphrase, not direct quote.

1. What week (Enzymes, Fermentation, or Photosynthesis) were you assigned to? What variable did you test?
2. Briefly summarize your topic. [E.g., depending on your assigned topic, address: what are enzymes and how do they work, what is fermentation and when is it used versus cellular respiration, what is photosynthesis and how does it work?, etc. You may use your textbook and lecture notes.]
3. Importance of topic. [What is the importance of this topic to humans and our planet?]
4. What is a primary article? [How does it differ from secondary or review articles?]
5. List your two articles in proper citation format. *Use “et al.” after the third author to shorten the citation. [Make sure they are primary articles. Check with your TA if you are not sure.]
6. Briefly summarize the findings of each article and their importance. [Think about: Why were these studies done? How do the findings increase understanding of these topics? What fields or industries (e.g., health, food science, ecology, etc.) could have applications for these findings?]
7. How do the studies in the primary articles connect to what you did in your experiment?