Ocean news report 1 | geol1345 | Houston Community College

Oceans are in the news!

This semester you are going to tune your eyes and ears to news stories specifically about the oceans, ocean pollution, marine life, and ocean exploration.

Skills: exploring the news & media for quality scientific news. Learn to connect out-of-class information to in-class information. Spark interest in quality science reporting. Become aware of current events we can change or that impact us.

Submission: A ~500 word write-up based on a news story related to the oceans. Date of article/news release should be after August 2021 (no old news). A news story is not an encyclopedia entry, it’s not a descriptive textbook-like article. A news item is about an event, a discovery, new data, new interpretations, change of policy, milestones etc.

Include full citation information of article/news item included at the top of your submission. Please be sure you are correctly citing your news source. Follow guides you have used in other classes or on the HCC library siteLinks to an external site.. 

Expectations: Find a news item of interest to you related to the wide topic of Oceanography. This should be a news story of substance (more than a couple paragraphs of text or more than 5 minutes of audio/video segment) from a reputable source. Read the article/listen to the story carefully and consider how it relates to what we have been learning.

Your write up should include a clear summary of the scientific news presented (~1 paragraph). Then the majority of the write-up will be your reflection and commentary of the news.

Examples of things to consider depending on the news item you selected:

• What connections did this information have with what we have covered in class?
  • what chapters does it connect to? or will it connect to?
• Did it surprise you?
• Does it impact people?
• Is the event or topic short-term or long-term?

Graded out of 15 points

HINT: I recommend you type your assignment in a word processing program and when it’s “all pretty and done” then copy/paste your submission into this assignment discussion. Spelling and grammar and structure and idea expression count.