Exercise 2-1B: Natural Science Fields

Visit ScienceDaily.com, a website that compiles brief news reports about recent scientific studies. Choose a topic that interests you, and search for four recent studies about that topic in the search bar. 

• • 1. Examine each news report and determine who conducted the study and what discipline they represent.

    2. Search for each researcher online to locate their home webpage–usually at their institution, university, or lab. Read the profile information they provide about themselves and their research.

    3. Next, write a paragraph about your findings. What disciplines contribute to research on your topic? How do researchers from different disciplines examine your topic–what aspects of the topic interests a biologist, say, versus a chemist? How do you think these interests affect how these researchers write about their topics?

    4. Post your findings paragraph to Forums on Sakai.

        

For an editable Google doc of this exercise that you can download, click here.