Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Washington University in St. Louis/Behavioral Ecology (Fall 2013)/Course description

Find the new Fall 2014 course page here!



Course description
This course is about understanding why organisms evolve to act the way they do. We focus on social behaviors and particularly on understanding conflict and cooperation. How do genetically distinct individuals cooperate while still favoring their own interests? We study things like the evolution of aggression, mating behavior, parental care, communication, and the complexities of living in groups and families. We will learn how natural selection operates on individuals in a social context. We study less material in more depth, with many videos. You will specialize in a certain area. In that area you will write for Wikipedia and teach high school students one Saturday. This class is a lot of work, a lot of fun, and you will never look at an animal in the same way.

Links to supplemental pages

 * Wikipedia-editing resources
 * Help
 * Study Guides
 * Davies, Krebs, West, An Introduction to Behavioral Ecology
 * Dawkins sample test
 * Dawkins study questions
 * Joan's website: lots of information on her research
 * Joan's website: videos on social evolution

Wikipedia assignment

 * Syllabus
 * Writing help: How to write for Wikipedia
 * Grading [9]
 * Assignment 1: Creating Account and Sandbox
 * Assignment 2: Review 5 existing Wikipedia pages
 * Assignment 3: Edit existing entry adding 5 references and 500 words
 * Assignment 4: Bring an entry from last year to Good Article
 * Assignment 5: First draft of WikiProject Contribution 10 references 1000 words
 * Assignment 6: Peer review of 3 entries, first draft
 * Assignment 7: Second draft totaling 20 refs. and 2000 total words including previous 1000
 * Assignment 8: Peer review of 3 entries second draft
 * Assignment 9: Respond to peer review, nominate for Good article; link, link, link
 * Assignment 10: Final Contribution (updates in response to reader feedback and talk page contributions to other students entries, response to GA article nomination)

Informational links

 * Expert Wikipedian: Here you can find links to all kinds of resources on creating, citing, etc
 * Teahouse- a forum on Wikipedia for new editors to ask questions about editing Wikipedia, and get support from peers and experienced editors
 * Ambassador program
 * Editing guide
 * Tutorial for student editors
 * Google Scholar | How to add Get it @ WU links to Google Scholar
 * Web of science | Web of Science for WU Users

TA usernames

 * Boahemaa Adu-Oppong: User:Abenaa07
 * Jason Scott: User:Jscott88
 * Kimberley Sukhum: User:Kvarunee
 * Ruth Lewis, Biology Librarian: User:Rulew