Assignments

Multimedia web portfolio
Multimedia web research project

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Multimedia web portfolio

The first assignment of your senior capstone seminar is an electronic portfolio that illustrates your learning and development as an environmental studies major or concentrator. This portfolio encourages you to examine what you have done and how you have changed, both intellectually and personally, through your examinations of the environment across the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences disciplines. The portfolio assignment asks you to pursue two intertwined goals:

• Integrative thinking: Constructing coherent relationships among the different parts of your work within the environmental studies major or concentration
• Reflective thinking: Examination of your intellectual and personal growth through the unfolding of your environmental studies major or concentration

MEMOIR ESSAY

The center of this assignment is your memoir essay, in which you examine your learning and development and analyze the ways in which your assumptions, abilities, understandings, commitments and/or future plans have grown or shifted during your work in environmental studies. The essay will be presented in one or more web pages, supplemented by additional materials. Consider the following questions as flexible guidelines as you construct your essay:

• Why did you choose to become an environmental studies major or concentrator? What influenced that decision?
• Can you point to events or people in your college career that particularly shaped your intellectual and personal development as an environmental studies major or concentrator? Consider particular courses, professors, students, books, off-campus programs, research projects, internships or organizational work.
• When you look back at assignments from earlier environmental studies courses, do you see evidence of changes in your worldview, conceptions of nature, ethics, sense of responsibility or future plans? Do you see changes in your scholarly abilities as a writer, analyst or researcher? Which papers or assignments best illustrate these changes, and why?
• In what ways has environmental studies challenged you to critically examine your own behavior, values and assumptions?
• How has your environmental studies major or concentration shaped your plans for post-college life?

SUPPLEMENTARY COMPONENTS

Additional relevant materials will support your memoir essay. Possibilities for these supplementary components include:

• significant work from previous environmental studies courses (e.g., papers, reports, GIS maps, poetry, artwork)
• work you have created in courses outside of environmental studies that helps explain your views on nature and the environment (e.g., music, artwork, posters)
• work you have created specifically for this portfolio (e.g., photos, audio clips, bibliographies)
• links to web sites that are particularly significant to your views, experiences or future plans
• music, art or other public media that have been particularly influential to your development within environmental studies

The IIT HelpDesk can provide digital cameras and other equipment that will allow you to generate original supplementary materials for your portfolio. Materials that are not original can be incorporated into your portfolio only with full documentation and/or copyright permission. Remember that fair-use and copyright laws apply to internet materials in the same way that they apply to books and journal articles obtained through campus library sources.

Supplementary materials must be presented within an analytical and explanatory context. For example, avoid constructions such as "I wrote this paper in Environmental Studies 125," followed by a hyperlink to a Word document. Instead, clearly explain why the paper was an influential project for you and how it affected your understanding or knowledge, providing links only to the most significant documents.

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS AND GUIDELINES

• A web design and training session will be held in Rolvaag 250 on Wednesday, Feb. 25. A follow-up web design work session will be held in Rolvaag 250 on Wednesday, March 10.
• The multimedia web portfolio is due Wednesday, March 31 and is worth 30% of the total course grade. Unexcused late portfolios lose 5% of full credit for each day beyond the due date.
• Your portfolio will be viewable from computers within the St. Olaf local area network (see portfolios created by students in the 2002-03 senior capstone seminar). As a result, your audience will include current and potential environmental studies majors and concentrators who are curious about the implications and possibilities of environmental studies. This wider audience means that you should exclude any material you are not willing to share with campus viewers.
• All files associated with your portfolio must be contained within a single folder (a few essential guidelines such as this will be presented during web design training on Feb. 25). To submit your portfolio on the due date, give the folder a name that clearly identifies you (e.g., "Breen Portfolio") and then copy your entire folder to our course's DropBox folder on the L:Classes/Brit drive.
• Make use of web and multimedia technology but do not let the technology take center stage, for that is where your integrative and reflective thinking belong. Keep your web design simple and straightforward, and keep your analytical thinking first and foremost. If in doubt about how to proceed, you are encouraged to consult with the Multimedia Development Center.

GRADING CRITERIA

An excellent multimedia web portfolio will demonstrate:

• thoughtful, reflective analysis of your learning and development as an environmental studies major or concentrator and the program's integration with other parts of your personal and academic career
• appropriate, relevant, original supplementary materials that are explained in context
• clarity of organization and writing, both within the memoir essay and in the web portfolio as a whole
• ease of navigation and visually appealing design
• no errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar or sentence structure
• creative intellectual engagement with the assignment

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Multimedia web research project

A second important part of your senior capstone seminar is an independent multimedia research project that describes and analyzes specific scientific, cultural, artistic, linguistic, economic and/or political aspects of the Cannon River region as an ecological "place." You will construct a web site that explains your project’s thesis, methods, literature review, evidence, arguments and conclusions. The online project also will incorporate relevant supplementary materials, which may include electronic documents, GIS maps, photos, graphics and/or video/audio clips. Although the projects are individually based and evaluated, collaboration among class members is encouraged.

REQUIRED COMPONENTS

Unlike a printed research paper that must proceed sequentially, your web-based project can assume a variety of organizational structures, depending on the needs of your topic and your intellectual and creative approach. No matter what organizational arrangement you choose, your project must include the following elements:

• An introductory page that describes the project and provides a clear navigational framework
• A literature review of the significant published research that is relevant to your project
• A description of your methodology: Will this project be based on statistical analysis, GIS mapping, interviews, questionnaires, interpretative textual analysis or some other methodological approach?
• A presentation of the empirical evidence and your analysis of that evidence
• A conclusion that describes the significant outcomes of your project and its implications for environmental knowledge and understanding.
• A complete works-cited list that follows a recognized citation style. (One modification, however: Because an indented format is not possible on web pages, double-space between each reference.)

SUPPLEMENTARY COMPONENTS

The multimedia format of this research project allows you to integrate textual and nontextual displays of your empirical evidence (e.g., photos, audio clips of original interviews, text documents, graphics, maps) and other supplementary materials that will help your readers gain greater knowledge of the project. However, the supplementary components can be a distraction if they are not directly relevant to your project, so you are urged to vigorously seek these additional materials but keep your standards of entry high.

The IIT HelpDesk can provide digital cameras and other equipment that will allow you to generate original supplementary materials for your research project. Materials that are not original can be incorporated into your project's web pages only with full documentation and/or copyright permission. Remember that fair-use and copyright laws apply to internet materials in the same way that they apply to books and journal articles obtained through campus library sources.

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS AND GUIDELINES

• Reference librarian Kris MacPherson will lead a brainstorming session on research topics and sources on Wednesday, March 3. She also will hold one-on-one conferences with each student during the week of March 15-19.
• A 2-3 page prospectus of your research project and an annotated bibliography of at least five sources is due Wednesday, April 7. This prospectus must identify the research topic you have selected and outline the analytical and methodological approaches you plan to use. The prospectus and bibliography will be returned with extensive comments but will be ungraded. This research prospectus should clearly answer the following questions:
  • What is the question you are asking? How is it connected to the Cannon River region and a "sense of place"?
  • What data and methodology will you use, and why? (Note: A wide range of research methodologies is applicable in this interdisciplinary seminar, but you must be clear about what approach you intend to pursue and why it is appropriate for your topic.)
  • Which areas of scholarly research will be needed as a foundation for your project? (Note: Sources within these areas also are logical entries in your annotated bibliography.)
• Research project work sessions will be held in Rolvaag 250 during our class periods on April 14, 21, 28 and May 5.
• A complete version of the research project that is ready for class presentation is due Wednesday, May 5.
• The final three class periods—May 10, 12 and 17—will be devoted to class presentations and critiques in Viking Theater.
• The final version of the research project is due Monday, May 17 and is worth 50% of the total course grade. Technical troubleshooting is allowed after the due date but no changes in content are accepted. Unexcused late projects lose 5% of full credit for each day beyond the due date.
• Public presentation and discussion of the research portfolios will take place in Viking Theater Saturday, May 22, 9-11 am.
• All files associated with your research project must be contained within a single folder. To submit your project on the due date, give the folder a name that clearly identifies you (e.g., "Breen Project") and then copy your entire folder to our course's DropBox folder on the L:Classes/Brit drive.
• As part of our growing archive of senior majors' and concentrators' research, projects will be permanently linked from the Environmental Studies Program’s web page for future viewing on the internet (see research projects created by students in the 2002-03 senior capstone seminar).

GRADING CRITERIA

An excellent research project will demonstrate:

• original analysis based on significant research and familiarity with the relevant scholarly literature
• a clear connection with the Cannon River region
• integration of the concept of "a sense of place"
• all required components
• relevant supplementary materials that improve the project's analytical value
• clarity of organization and writing throughout the research project components
• ease of navigation and visually appealing design
• thorough, accurate documentation of research sources
• no errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar or sentence structure
• creative intellectual engagement with the assignment

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