Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/UW Bothell/Biodiversity Conservation (Winter 2016)

One of the greatest societal challenges is the loss of biological diversity and the degradation of nature’s benefits due to human activities at local to global scales. Biodiversity loss and degradation is a moral issue in its own right, made more intense by the fact that the impacts on human communities are unequally distributed. Thus, a major theme within this course is one of environmental justice, and how biodiversity conservation and social justice efforts can and need to combine.

This course will introduce some of the issues, literature, controversies, and promising methodologies used in Biodiversity Conservation, an interdisciplinary field that strives to counter the trends of biodiversity loss. This course explores concepts and approaches to understanding and solving conservation problems. As in all fields of science, objective standards and sound research design are essential for progress, thus a major emphasis will be on developing &quot;standards of evidence&quot; in evaluating each issue. Further, as an applied interdisciplinary science, the ability to work with both social and ecological approaches to problem solving is essential to success. We thus also emphasize developing an appreciation for and capacity to apply a diversity of techniques to problem-solving.

By the end of this course students should be able to:

• Describe the complex concept of biodiversity, and understand the processes that have created and maintain biological diversity

• Identify specific examples of threats to biodiversity, and be able to Analyze and Evaluate the mechanisms by which threats affect specific species, ecosystems, or ecosystem processes

• Appreciate the value of and threats to human cultural diversity, and the importance of Inclusion to conservation

• Identify major approaches to solving conservation problems and Apply understanding of problem-solving approaches to new situations

• Locate and evaluate insights from the literature in conservation (both scholarly and organization/individually posted online resources)

• Communicate research &amp; practice results or conceptual advances in short, evocative pieces (i.e., graphics, digital video, blog posts, wikipedia contributions)

Throughout the course, we will particularly work on enhancing critical and creative thinking capacities, as well as increasing your capacities in interdisciplinary research, communication and collaboration.

Week 1

 * Overview of the course
 * Introduction to how Wikipedia will be used in the course
 * Understanding Wikipedia as a community, we'll discuss its expectations and etiquette.

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Handout: Editing Wikipedia

Week 2

 * Complete the online training for students. During this training, you will make edits in a sandbox and learn the basic rules of Wikipedia.

Week 3

 * GOAL: Evaluate an existing Wikipedia article related to the class, and leave suggestions for improving it on the article's talk page.  We will go through some possible articles, and guidelines for selecting a good article for this purpose in class.


 * BEFORE YOU START: Review pages 4-7 of the Evaluating Wikipedia brochure. This will give you a good, brief overview of what to look for in other articles, and what other people will look for in your own.


 * A few questions to consider (don't feel limited to these):


 * Is each statement of fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference?


 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?


 * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position without a preponderance of evidence to support this (the development of consensus for an explanation)?


 * Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?


 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?


 * Check a few citations. Do the links work? Is there any close paraphrasing or plagiarism in the article?


 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

Resources: Evaluating Wikipedia, [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Using_talk_pages.pdf Using Talk Pages

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Add information relevant to biodiversity conservation to an article on a species, place or approach to conservation.

•  Add 5-6 sentences to an article of your choice related to biodiversity conservation, using appropriate citations that support the additions you are making. Follow what you have learned from critiquing an article to make this a strong contribution.

Week 4

 * Identify an article that would benefit from illustration, create or find an appropriate photo, illustration, or audio/video, and add it to the article.


 * All media uploaded to Wikipedia must fall under a &quot;free license,&quot; which means they can be used or shared by anyone. Examples of media you can use are photos that you take yourself, images and text in the public domain, and works created by someone else who has given permission for their work to be used by others. For more information about which types of media can be uploaded to Wikipedia, see Commons:Help desk.


 * To add a media file to an article, you must first upload it to Wikimedia Commons. For instructions on how to upload files to Commons, refer to Illustrating Wikipedia. This brochure will also provide you with detailed information about which files are acceptable to upload to Wikipedia and the value of contributing media to Wikipedia articles.