Dear students,

Your first draft of your individual blog posts are due this Friday at 9am.The more complete and polished a draft that you turn on Friday, the more valuable peer-feedback you will receive. Taking advantage of multiple rounds of revisions to your blog post will help you to improve your writing skills and will hopefully help you to craft a clear and compelling piece of writing that you can be proud of.

Please bring 3 copies of your individual blog post and three copies of your authors note to class to hand out to your peers for feedback. Please also read the revisions guide.

The authors note is an opportunity for you to share with your peer-revision partner, the strengths of your writing and the areas that you seek to improve or would like specific feedback on.The revisions guide explains the different kinds of feedback that you might want to provide for your peer-revision partners blog post draft.

Your individual blog post should meet the following requirements:

• The body of your article should be no longer than 1000 words
• You should include at least 1 photo. Be sure to check photo permissions and credit the photographer if it is not your photo. DO NOT use images from the Internet without permission from the originator of the content.
• Feel free to include video or links to other content on the internet. The more interactive a blog post is, the better.
• Each post should include at least 5 references. Two must be from the peer-reviewed scientific literature. The other references may be books, magazine or newspaper articles, or links to reputable sources on the internet.
• We will use Science citation format. Complete guidelines for this format can be found here: https://www.sciencemag.org/authors/instructions-preparing-initial-manuscript

Good luck!

Lalita and Krishna

You can download a printable version of Physics Problem Set 5 (due Mon. May 2 at 6 pm via WebAssign) here.

Here’s the gymnosperm and water movement lectures from today.

You can find solutions to Physics Problem Set 4 here.

For Week 5, please read:

• Biology of Plants: Ch. 18, Ch. 30
• College Physics: Ch 11, 12.7
• Life of a Leaf: Ch. 3 – 6 (read as part of physics reading)

Week 5 Schedule:

• due by 6 pm, Mon. April 25 via WebAssign: Physics Problem Set 4.
• due by 1 pm, Tue. April 26: Lab Notebooks for Week 5 check – bring with you to Project Group Meetings
• due by 1 pm, Tue. April 26: Attendance Self-Check and Assignments & Assessments Account – bring with you to Individual Check-In Meetings.
• due by 9 am, Fri. April 29: Individual Blog Post draft and Author’s Note. Bring 3 printed out copies of each with you to class to exchange with classmates.

• 9 am, Tue. April 26. Sem 2 B1105: Botany Quiz; Botany Lecture.
• 1 pm, Tue. April 26. No class meeting. Project Group Meetings with Lalita in Lab 1 1065 or Individual Check-In Meetings with Krishna in Lab 2 3255.
• 9 am, Wed. April 27. Lab 1 2046: Physics Quiz; Physics Lecture.
• 9 am, Thu. April 28. Lab 1 1040: Botany Lab; Physics Lab
• 9 am, Fri. April 29. Sem 2 B1107: Physics Workshop (attempt all of Physics Problem Set 5 problems in your Problem Set Notebook before workshop); Weekly Wrap: Group Project Work and check-ins – bring relevant materials.

In Week 5, you’ll have Project Group Meetings with Lalita (Lab 1 1065, Tuesday afternoon) and Individual Check-In Meetings with Krishna (Lab 2 3255, Tuesday afternoon or Thursday during Lab).

Project Group Meetings:

• Schedule
• Bring:
  • All all relevant project work documentation
  • Your Lab Notebook

Individual Check-In Meetings::

• Schedule
• Bring:
  • Attendance Self-Check and Assignments & Assessments Account
  • Physics Problem Set Notebook
  • (optional) Other materials that document your learning (reading notes, lecture notes, etc.)

• The Attendance Self-Check and Assignments & Assessments Account was handed out in the Week 4 Wrap.
• Complete it to the best of your ability and bring it with you to your Individual Check-In Meeting.
• If you haven’t received a botany or physics quiz back yet, you will in time to fill out relevant entries on the checklists.

We noticed some difficulties in data collection for the photosynthesis lab:

• Several groups used the DPIP/phosphate buffer for the background instead of just the phosphate buffer. This was a mistake in following the instructions, and we think it indicates a misunderstanding of what running a background reference is for. Please review this concept and ask any questions you have.
• Other groups that seemed to have followed the protocols correctly only saw a decrease in UL absorbance between 0 minutes and 5 minutes, and the rest of the time the UL absorbance was basically constant. While we’re not sure of the reason for this, we suspect that perhaps the cuvettes were too close to the light, so the high intensity resulted in high photosynthesis, thus reducing all the DPIP very quickly (within the first 5 minutes).

Several groups did get data that seems useful. If your group’s data is suspect, clearly indicate that in your lab notebook along with some best guesses as to why. You may borrow data from a group that did obtain useful results, but make sure to credit that group clearly in your lab notebook.

We also took some data after lab ended. Here are the results we obtained, which you can use (if so, credit the data in your lab notebook to “instructors’ data”). We’ll discuss this data in class together when we get some time.

Instructors’ data:

Week 4 Physics Lecture slides

You can download a printable version of Physics Problem Set 4 (due Mon. April 25 at 6 pm via WebAssign) here. You can also see the Problem Set in WebAssign directly.