Introduction

There is a lot of new information in this section. Rather than reading everything assigned in depth and trying to memorize it all, in this activity you should identify the primary, secondary, and tertiary concepts Freedman presents in the readings.

In order to demonstrate concepts from readings, students can draw concept maps (see Resources Needed Before You Start about concept maps) to demonstrate their new knowledge. The depth of the relationships in the concept map is usually indicative of the depth of the student’s new knowledge, or at least of their reading.

Module Objectives Achieved

You will be able to…

MO 2.1 Recognize Earth systems. (5. #systems)

MO 2.2 Describe Earth systems. (5. #systems)

MO 2.4. Assess environmental challenges facing humans (6. #challenges)

MO 2.5. Use the vocabulary of env sci. in written communication (7. #vocab Course; 2. #commskills Core)

Task

Resources Needed Before You Start : Read the “Concept Maps: What the Heck Are These?” file below.

See more resources near the bottom of this page.

Activity_2_3_Concept_Maps_What_are_they.pdf

1. Read the assigned Freedman Chapters 4, 7, and 8. The exact pages are on the previous Canvas page.

2. Using your Freedman readings of Chapters 4, 7, and 8 (not 9) as your guide, create a thorough concept map of your own for each chapter with as much detail as needed to present a comprehensive picture of your understanding of the topics. To be clear, you are creating three concept maps, not one.

(Option: For the more creative student you may develop three "infodoodles" in lieu of a concept map. Please see Angie Moline's website for more about those. Infodoodle-type maps must be readable and make sense. These are actually more difficult than more traditional concept maps.)

3. Save your three concept maps as a .jpg, .png, or other image file to post in your blog.

(If you cannot “save as” an image, then snip the concept maps from your screen and then save them to your computer to add to your blog.)

4. Write two to three paragraphs (300 to 500 words total) explaining to the average person how each of your concept maps are interconnected. That is, make explicit the interactions, connections, networks, relationships, and associations between the concepts.

5. Post to your blog with a caption for each concept map to briefly explain what it is depicting to the average person, plus your two-three (300 to 500 words) paragraphs.

Criteria

Your declarations page will have the following:

Blog post title: I used Activity 2.3 – Biosphere and Interconnections as my blog title.
Level: My concept maps I posted on my blog are detailed sufficient to explicitly demonstrate my new knowledge of the topics in all of the readings for this activity.
Length: I wrote an interconnections explanation of 300 to 500 words. AND, I included descriptive captions for each concept map.
Citations and References: I used in-text citations and complete, matching references in my work.
Professionalism: I proofread my work twice and there are no writing errors or misuses or lack of of college-level grammar, capitalization, spelling, punctuation, etc. AND, I turned my work in on time.

Resources

Online Concept Map Makers: (pick the one that works best for you)

Text2Map
Bubblus
Cmap: (this is one you can download and install on your computer for free...it's the one I use)
Infodoodle