This week's session notes - Week 3 (14 and 16 August 2018)

Hi everyone

On Tuesday, we started with our usual quick test, based on the previous week’s work. Remember that these tests are formative assessments, so they don’t count towards your final mark. The purpose of these tests is to help guide your learning, by reinforcing your learning, week by week.

After this, we turned our attention to Assignment 1. This assignment is due next Thursday 23 August, so now is a good time to make sure that everyone is on-track for handing in a good assignment, on time.

We went over the requirements of this assignment and noted that students need to find three items that can be included in the PSDM Resource Book.

• Your job is to find three quality listings that we can add to the PSDM Resource Book.

• Your three items should consist of one in-depth article, one radio sound clip and one video clip (YouTube or Vimeo).

• DO NOT include Wikipedia articles, Business Balls entries or clips under 15 minutes in length.

• Complete the requirements for this assignment, as per the instructions for Assignment 1, in the Course Outline.

To help you do this, we split into groups and each group was sent off to the student study room to use the PCs there. The instructions that I gave were as follows:

• Go to the computer lab, access the PSDM Moodle page and look through the Resource Book listings.

• Identify the sources that I have used for articles, sound clips and video clips.

• Look at some of these listings and tell me about them (length, source, topics, quality, etc.)

• Find some similar listings that you can use for Assignment 1

• Bring your ideas back to class to discuss.

When the class came back, we discussed some of the sources used in the Resource Book.

We noted that the Resource Book had articles from Stuff, New Zealand Herald and other newspaper / journalistic sources. You should only use articles from Stuff (and similar sources) if they are in-depth reports (at least a couple of thousand words, maybe from a weekend edition). Short news ‘snippets’ of a few hundred words are just NOT enough for this exercise as the content is far too light.

A better source of articles is from university sites, research databases or library sources such as ProQuest. You should also be able to find good material from recognised journals such as Time, Businessweek, Forbes, etc. Even better, are peer reviewed articles (ask at the library for hep finding these).

You can find sound clips from a number of sources, but my recommendations would be either BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/categories/documentaries) or Radio New Zealand (https://www.radionz.co.nz/search). The latter has excellent sound archives, with Nine to Noon (https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/library) and This Way Up (https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup/library) probably being the best for this assignment.

Video clips are really easy to find: Use YouTube or Vimeo or something similar. As with the articles and sound clips, these video clips need to be substantial enough for this assignment, so your general rule is that they need to be 15 minutes or more in length.

Remember, in all cases, that we want a link, so that other students can locate these listings. You also need to discuss each listing in relation to the Learning Outcomes for this paper (see page 5 of the Course Outline).

Among other things, this assignment should help you to develop an insight into the way that tertiary level papers are designed and the way that the tertiary education system operates. Hopefully, you will be able to use an insights that you gain here to help with other papers that you are studying.

Following this discussion, we moved on to a case study concerning PSDM in complex systems.

I gave you’re a brief overview of Yellowstone National Park, in the USA. This park was established in 1872 and it spreads across three states. There is a significant amount of important flora, fauna and natural features within the park and the management of the site is extremely important.

I then asked you to split into groups and to think about some of the management issues in the park. You then needed to come up with a broad management plan:

“Your job is to devise a plan to preserve, protect and enhance the wildlife in Yellowstone National Park. This includes flora, fauna and natural features. Create a plan and report your plan to the class.”

Essentially, your task was to identify potential problems and to find a solution to each problem. You only had about 10 minutes to do this, so your groups needed to be very focussed on the task and the outcomes.

Each group then reported back to the class and it was interesting to see which issues the different groups identified.

I then gave you a bit more information about the park’s history and the way that wolves were eradicated from the park in the early 1900s. The consequence of this was that deer (which the wolves preyed on) had increased as a result and this had led to over-grazing and erosion.

My next challenge to you was to do something about this problem:

“As a result of your plans, wolves have been eradicated from the park. Elk herd numbers have grown as a result. However, there has been a marked deterioration in the park, including erosion and deforestation. Your job is to do something about this problem. Create a plan and report your plan to the class.”

We then looked at a clip about the way that park management has addressed this problem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q). Wolves were reintroduced to the park in 1995 and have successfully re-established themselves. The noted effects of this re-introduction have been:

• Wolves killed old and injured deer, and contained deer numbers

• Deer and elk began avoiding places where wolves could attack them (e.g. valleys)

• As a result, the valleys began to regenerate

• Then the birds returned to the valleys

• Beaver numbers increased because of the trees

• Beavers built dams which became habitats for aquatic life

• Wolves killed coyotes, leading to an increase in rabbits and mice

• Hawks, badgers, weasels and foxes moved in to eat the mice and rabbits

• Bear numbers went up due to more berries and carrion

• Because the deer avoided rivers there was less erosion and the hillsides became more stable

• As a result of this, the rivers flowed deeper and stronger

• The presence (or absence) of the top predators affected not just ecosystems but also physical geography!

(There are other issues relating to the re-introduction of wolves and I encourage you to find out a bit more about this example).

Our takeaways from this session are:

• That complex systems (e.g. ecological systems) can be highly sensitive to small changes

• That top predators can play a key role in ecological systems

• That solutions can have unintended consequences

• That we need to make sure that proposed solutions don’t create more problems!

On Thursday, we only had one thing on our agenda: Building newspaper towers!

This is a deceptively simple exercise which involves me giving you a few resources (newspaper, a length of sellotape, some rubber bands and a length of string) and asking you to build a self-standing tower from which you will suspend a can of soft drink. The winning team will be the one which can suspend the can higher off the ground than any other team.

To give some structure to this exercise, I asked you to use the IDEA model and the brainstorming tool as part of your planning. I also asked you to document your activity and to diagram some of your ideas so that we can discuss them in coming sessions.

The first part of the newspaper towers exercise was dedicated to planning. This involved the teams discussing the task and identifying possible solutions to the overall problem. Your discussion should have taken into account the nature of the task (including the end objective), the resources available (e.g. materials, people, time) and any additional problems that might arise. No actual construction was allowed during this phase.

After that, I took each team to a secret location so that they could build their solution without the other teams seeing it. During this phase, you were allowed to start construction and to test your ideas. This was a real pressure-cooker situation as you had only 1 hour to complete the task. This is when we see how good the planning has been and whether you have anticipated additional problems which might arise.

Finally, we all came back together to admire our handiwork and see which team had won the challenge!

Please think about this exercise during the week as we will be using it in class. You should be reflecting on (thinking about what happened) and documenting (writing down your experiences, thoughts and impressions) this exercise so that you don’t forget what you learned.

Remember that Assignment 1 is due at 1:00pm on Thursday 23 August 2018, just before class. I cannot accept late assignments (and you shouldn’t leave your work to the last minute anyway), but if the ABSOLUTE worst happens (e.g. your assignment gets hit by a bolt of lightning!) and you can’t possibly submit your work on time, then you need to take this up with the Programme Manager. In some cases you might be allowed to submit late but with only a 50% mark, at best.

Irrespective of this, everyone seems to be on track for completing this assignment, as you have had plenty of time to get underway and I have been checking on progress each week. Through the wonders of internet, everyone has the opportunity to access the Course Outline, the Resource Book and other online resources, even if they have been unable to attend class.

You will need to submit your assignment through Turnitin, on the PSDM Moodle page. If you haven’t used Turnitin before, then we will put some time aside on Tuesday’s class to show you how this is done.

You should also use Turnitin to check how close your work is to other people’s work. This is also a good check for plagiarism (see page 7 of the Course Outline). Having said that, it is next to impossible to write a plagiarised assignment without knowing it!

Remember to use proper APA referencing in your assignment and see the APA Guide on the PSDM Moodle site or talk to the library staff for assistance.

You should also be underway with Assignment 4, and it is a good idea to complete a little bit of this each week, as we cover relevant material in class.

Have a good weekend and I will see you again on Tuesday!

Cheers

Phil Sales