Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Leeward Community College, University of Hawaii/Introduction to Zoology (Summer 2024)

This course is an introduction to the study of animal life. We will discuss animal physiology, reproduction, and life histories, as well as evolution of animal life, the interaction of organisms in their environment, food chains and trophic levels, and ecological distributions. Representative animal phyla including both invertebrates and vertebrates are studied from the viewpoint of systematics and structural characters with special emphasis on Hawaiian species. I taught this course the first time last semester and noticed that 1) students often use google (and often wikipedia) for their homework, but use the first things that come up in their searches, and 2) Hawaiiʻs species, environments and locations are underrepresented on Wikipedia. This often leads to students discussing species occurring in North America instead of local species. I would like to add a Wikipedia assignment to 1) help my students with digital literacy, improved understanding of plagiarism, use of references as well as improved communication skills, and 2) increase information on Wikipedia of native Hawaiian animal species.