Environmental Issues:Project Proposal Approval

Posted: January 20th, 2023

Description
INSTRUCTIONS**************************
Using the National Park, National Forest or a National Wildlife Refuge that you got approved in your Project Proposal create a PowerPoint presentation (other formats by Instructor permission only) of approximately 25-35 slides with the primary goals of:
Describing the plan using the grading criteria below
Critiquing and analyzing the plan using information gathered from peer-reviewed primary scientific literature and course materials
The vast majority of your points on this project come from the critique and analysis. Critique and analysis means that you look at each type of management being done at your site and using peer-reviewed primary scientific research and course materials to evaluate the management strategies being used for specific species, habitats, and other issues at your site. For example, if your site has active management for an endangered bird, then you’d find the recovery plan for that bird and the most recent scientific work on that bird (or similar species) to supplement the recovery plan and use those sources as evidence to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of the management. Or if your site uses a particular management strategy such as prescribed fire, then you’d find the peer-reviewed primary scientific research that speaks to that strategy at your site or sites that are similar. Those are just 2 examples of the sorts of things you might encounter and how you would handle them. If you do not know what makes a source peer-reviewed primary scientific literature, please review the APUS library guidance on this here.
You should have 5-10 sources and you must also cite them on each slide (APA style) and on one of your final slides, which should be a References slide. Your references should include our textbook and your management plan as well appropriate peer-reviewed primary scientific literature, government and NGO reports, and other appropriately scholarly material. Don’t forget that you must cite the sources of your images as well as your data/information. Images can be cited in the same way as text using standard APA citation style. Use appropriate citations throughout the presentation for each fact or figure shown. Information sources should be cited on each slide next to the information, just like you’d do in a paper. Then have a “References” slide at the end using the full APA style reference for each, these should be alphabetized. Image sources can be cited on the slide itself or at the end on a separate “Image Sources” slide – where they would be organized by slide number. Follow APA format for the reference citations both within your writing and in your references section at the end of your presentation. If you do not have a copy of the APA style manual, be sure to review guidance in the APUS library writing center or other reputable sources.
You will be graded here on the professional nature and effectiveness of your presentation as well as the content. You will want to use a consistent and appropriately professional theme for your graphics and color scheme, fonts, etc. When doing presentations you want to use bulleted or numbered lists instead of large unbroken blocks of text. A good general rule of thumb is 5 bullets/numbers per slide and 5 words on each of those bullets/numbers. If in doubt, break it into a second slide. Be sure each slide has an appropriate title that links back to the important requirements of the Assignments. Never have a slide without a title to guide your reader/listener. You can use the notes part of your presentation to include information that you would be saying aloud if you were presenting this to a live audience. Do not simply write a paper and then cut-and-paste big blocks of text from that paper onto your slides. Also do not just cut-and-paste big blocks of information directly from the plan you are using. Be sure it is 100% clear to your Instructor what items in your presentation are simply a report of what is in the plan vs. your analysis/critique of it. One approach is to have the presentation of the management item and then the analysis