The goals of the Monograph Project are for you to integrate your learning about the biology and ecology of marine micro-organisms with the observational and representational skills you are developing in writing, drawing and animation. The project will also provide you with opportunities to work collaboratively, use digital tools to present your creative and scientific work and share your learning with classmates.

There are 4 stages to this project that scaffold one on top of another, so it is critically important that you manage your time well in order to be ready for each next project stage.

Stage 1, due Thursday, November 18th (week 8)

A monograph is a summary of everything known about an organism. It usually includes one or more images, drawn or photographic, to illustrate the organism. For this project, you are assigned to create three monographs of marine micro-organisms following these guidelines:

Each monograph must have:

  1. Species or Genus name and common name
  2. Two drawings of the organism with length and width information. One of the drawings should show what the organism might look like in its natural environment.
  3. A formal caption (1-2 paragraphs, typed, using complete sentences with correctly formatted citations) describing:
    1. the organism
    2. the general characteristics of the taxonomic group in which it belongs
    3. where in the marine environment it’s likely to be found
    4. ecological information about the role it plays in its environment and/or relationships it has with other organisms or marine processes
    5. Researched information on the organism’s biology or ecology from at least two sources, preferably from the primary literature. Include this information in your caption and cite the sources. Format the citations formally using assigned articles from scientific primary literature as examples.

Of the three monographs:

  1. One must include a pen & ink stipple illustration
  2. One must include an illustration using watercolor pencils.
  3. One must include an animated sequence, minimum 12 seconds long that shows an aspect of an organism’s behavior or life. In deciding which organism to animate, consider the following as potential subjects:
    1. How does each move? Feed?
    2. What roles in the eco-system does each have?
    3. If any are larva, what might the metamorphosis into adult form look like? If it reproduces by cell division, what would that look like?
    4. For the monograph that includes animation, expand your literature research to include more in-depth (2-3 pages) information about the biology and ecology of the selected organism. This review should include at least 2 scientific papers from the primary literature. Summarize the studies and the findings reported by these works. In addition, consider what you’ve learned about this organism from the literature and your own observations, and imagine what this organism could represent symbolically for humans in the 21st What sort of moral lesson or ideal could it represent? Add a paragraph to the caption describing this, and include an illustration of your idea. 

The three monographs are due Thursday, November 18th (week 8). Complete all illustrations in your workbook and type all captions into a Word document. Scan your illustrations and insert them into that. Print the document and bring it and your workbook to class. In addition, save the Word document, animated sequence and all related Dragonframe files in a folder in your cubby titled “monographs_your name”.   (A workshop on the 12th will show you how to scan and save illustrations.)

The Word document must be double spaced, with page breaks between each monograph, and illustrations and a list of sources cited. This is a formal document, so all writing should be in complete sentences, proofread and spell checked.

Here are specs for the animation sequence:

  • Minimum 12 seconds in duration, but we encourage you to go longer if you are inspired to, and if what you want to express warrants that.
  • Challenge yourself express what you want to say without sound, knowing that the primary venue for this work is a blog post with accompanying text. If you feel you really want to add sound, consider carefully what you add both in terms of legality (copyright law) and aesthetics (does it enhance or detract from your animation?). The GIF format does not accommodate sound.
  • You choose the aspect ratio (either standard 4:3, or wide-screen 16:9) that seems appropriate to your vision for the work. You also choose the frame rate that makes sense for how you’ve timed the animation (10 fps or 15 fps for example).
    After shooting, export to Pro Res 422 LT and save the movie as “(name of the organism)_(your name).mov”, following the instructions for exporting as you’ve done before.

Finally, save the Word document, digitized illustrations, animated sequence and all related Dragonframe filesin a folder in your cubby titled “monographs_your name”. The animation sequence must be in your cubby by 8:30 am, November 18th.

Stage 2        Due Thursday, November 19th

This stage involves scanning illustrations for the Word Doc and for the WordPress blog post, and creating an animated GIF of your animation sequence.

  • Scanned illustrations for the Word doc should be a higher resolution than is needed for the blog post. Since it’s easier to reduce resolution than to increase it, scan at the highest resolution you think you might need. A resolution in the range of 300-720 ppi, depending on the size of your original, should be fine. Scan in color and if you prefer the stipple illustrations to be grayscale, make that adjustment afterGive each illustration file a name that includes your name and the genus or species of the organism.
  • Create an animated GIF from your monograph animation following the procedure done in the 11/12 workshop.
  • Option: If you are happy with your organismal motion zoetrope strip and it’s significantly different from your monograph animation, you could also make that into a GIF. A link to directions for scanning and preparing a zoetrope strip sequence so you can make it into a GIF is posted in the Week 7 Canvas module.

Stage 3        Due Thursday, December 3rd

In this stage you’ll create a blog post of the monograph that you animated and did additional research for. Your digitized monograph illustrations, GIF of your monograph animation and captions should be accessible in your cubby. Published posts are due by 9 am Thursday, 12/3.

Required minimum elements: You decide how to arrange text and images in the post.

  1. Title that includes the Species or Genus name and common name
  2. Your name as author. If you prefer not to publish your name you may use your initials instead.
  3. Two drawings of the organism with length and width information. One of the drawings should show what the organism might look like in its natural environment.
  4. A formal caption (1-2 paragraphs, spell checked, with complete sentences and correctly formatted citations) describing:the organism
    the general characteristics of the taxonomic group in which it belongs
    where in the marine environment it’s likely to be found
    ecological information about the role it plays in its environment and/or relationships it has with other organisms or marine processes
    Researched information on the organism’s biology or ecology from at least two sources of primary literature. Cite the sources formally.
    A GIF of your animation. You may add a caption for this that describes your concept for the piece and/or other details.
    A paragraph that speculates what this organism could represent symbolically for humans in the 21stInclude an illustration of your idea.
    Categorize your monograph as either Phytoplankton or Zooplankton. During week 9 you will work with others to come up with additional categories to assign this organism to.
    Publish your post.

Options:

  • Include an animated GIF from a zoetrope strip of this organism (yours or someone else’s).
  • Include other illustrations that you have done of this organism.
  • Choose one image to be the “featured image” shown on the category pages.
  • For the blog header: make a 1440 x 221 pixel banner image. This will cycle randomly through the header with other images each time the blog page is loaded. In Photoshop, select a 1440 x 221 section from an illustration or a full resolution frame from your animation (a still image in the Dragonframe folder) using the marquee tool with fixed frame size. Copy and paste it into a new document. Flatten the image and save it as a jpeg file. Put the file in the Orca workspace folder named “Monograph Banner Images”.
  • For the Welcome page: upload your zoetrope GIF to the Welcome Page folder in the Orca workspace.
  • On your post, include a copyright notice (“© 2015 Your Name”) or a Creative Commons license.

Stage 4              Due Tuesday, December 8th

Collaborate with other students to categorize your organisms, link blog pages to each other and present the results of your research to the class (Monograph organizing jam in class on Thursday, December 3rd).