Science Writing / JOUR 5812

Prof. Tom Yulsman

 

WEEK 1/AUGUST 28

• Personal introductions, overview of the course, syllabus/schedule review
• Sources of scientific news
• Kick-off discussion: What is science? What is science journalism?

 

WEEK 2/SEPTEMBER 4

• Prepare for next week’s field trip
• Ledes & nutgrafs
• Story structure
• Reading for today: Scientific paper I handed out last week, or emailed
• Future assignment: Begin finding a topic for your final project. By 5 p.m. on Tuesday, September 25 (week 5), you will need to send me a short email message describing the general subject of your proposed project. On Tuesday, Oct. 16 (week 8), query letters (to be discussed in a future class) describing the project in detail are due. And on Monday, Nov. 26,the first draft of the story is due.

 

WEEK 3/SEPTEMBER 11:

• Field trip with Tim Seastedt to the Tall Grass Prairie Habitat Conservation Area on Boulder Open Space south of the city to discuss the end of nature. (We will go well beyond The End of Nature by Bill McKibben.)
• Assignment due today: Story memo for the field trip today. (To be discussed)

ASSIGNMENT DUE 5 p.m. THURSDAY, SEPT. 13 (as an email attachment): First story

 

WEEK 4/SEPTEMBER 18

• Review your first stories
• How to write query letters

 

WEEK 5/SEPTEMBER 25

• Yulsman takes on Gore in his internationally celebrated End of Nature slide show! (I have a friend in France who liked it.)
• Reading due today: The Geology of Mankind, available online at http://stripe.colorado.edu/~yulsman/anthropocene.pdf
• Assignment due 5 p.m. today: send me an email (no more than 500 words) describing the general subject you are thinking about for your final project. A subject is not a focus for a story, but it is a start. (And if you already have a focus, tell me what it is.) I will respond with some suggestions. You can also schedule a time to come speak with me. REMEMBER: In just two weeks you need to have a focus and enough information to write a detailed proposal in the form of a query letter.

 

WEEK 6/OCTOBER 2

• Discussion of final story topics
• What is science? Does it deal in facts? Is there such a thing as proof in science?
• Reading for today: Please check out this story,  http://www.thestar.com/article/246027, in the Toronto Star about a recent revision by NASA of its calculation of the hottest year on record in the United States. NASA previously said that 1998 was the hottest year, lending credence to the idea that our carbon dioxide emissions were leading to a significant ramp up of global warming. But a statistician and global warming skeptic named Steve McIntyre found a significant error in NASA’s calculation. And now NASA admits that 1934 was the hottest year. Moreover, there were more hot years during that decade (of the Dust Bowl) than in the last decade. Climate experts like Rush Limbaugh picked up on this incident to cast doubt on climate science and poke fun at global warming “scaremongers.” For our discussion today: What does all this mean, not just for global warming but for science, particularly on controversial environmental topics, and how we journalists should cover them? Think about it. I may call on you to lead the discussion…

 

WEEK 7/OCTOBER 9: Paleoclimatologist James White on climate change

• Reading due to today: To prepare for what Jim is going to speak about, you need to get up to speed on climate change science. If you don’t know anything about climate change (and even if you do), I would suggest going to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change at http://www.pewclimate.org/, where you can review their summary of global warming basics, as well as take a more in-depth look. I would also like you to review the following reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They are long and somewhat technical, but you need to get comfortable reviewing material like this:
• The Summary for Policymakers on the physical science of climate change, from the most recent IPCC assessment report: http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_SPM-v2.pdf
• The IPCC Summary for Policymakers on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM13apr07.pdf
• Lastly, the IPCC policymaker summary on mitigating climate change: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM040507.pdf

I don’t expect you to read every last word. The point is to begin to familiarize yourself with the scientific basis of climate change, current and expected impacts, and what we might do about the problem.

 

ASSIGNMENT DUE 5 p.m. THURS. Oct. 11: Second story (as an email attachment)

 

WEEK 8/October 16:

• Review your second stories
• Follow up on climate science and policy covered by Jim White
• Assignment due today: Query letter proposing final story

 

WEEK 9/October 23:

• Telling Inconvenient Truths: the interface between science and journalism in the global warming debate. A discussion of media coverage of controversial scientific issues.

 

WEEK 10/October 30

• Politicization of science
• Reading due today:
  • Article on investigation of climate scientists: http://stripe.colorado.edu/~yulsman/barton.pdf
  • Union of Concerned Scientists report on alleged suppression and political manipulation of climate science: http://stripe.colorado.edu/~yulsman/scisuppression.pdf
  • Posting on RealClimate.org blog on the issue of false balance in reporting on climate change: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/the-false-objectivity-of-balance/

 

WEEK 11/Nov. 6: NO CLASS TODAY. FIELD TRIP ON FRIDAY

 

WEEK 11/Nov. 9: FRIDAY FIELD TRIP TBA

• If you can’t make it, you can find another story to report and write. DISCUSS THIS WITH ME.
• Reading due today: TBA

 

ASSIGNMENT DUE 9 a.m. MON. Nov. 12: Third story

 

WEEK 12/Nov. 13:

• Review your stories in class
• Reporting and writing the long story
• Scientific paradigms (in preparation for discussion next week)
• Reading due today:
  • Biofuels story (and accompanying video) by yours truly: http://audubonmagazine.org/index.html. (Note: It will appear on the Audubon website on or about Sept. 1) Be prepared to critique it. Also, read this story on the same subject in Rolling Stone: The Ethanol Scam. Two very different approaches...
  • Summary of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn: http://stripe.colorado.edu/~yulsman/paradigms.pdf. (You can skim it. Just make sure you understand what Thomas Kuhn meant by a scientific paradigm and are prepared to discuss it.)

   

WEEK 13/Nov. 20: NO CLASS -- FALL BREAK

 

ASSIGNMENT DUE 9 a.m. MONDAY, Nov. 26: Enterprise Story
(by email)

 

WEEK 14/Nov. 27:

• Review your enterprise stories in class
• Science and religion face off: evolution vs. intelligent design
• Discuss progress on enterprise stories
• Reading due today: New Yorker article on intelligent design, available at http://stripe.colorado.edu/~yulsman/nyorker_id.pdf

 

WEEK 15/Dec. 5:

• The impact of human domination of the nitrogen cycle
• Reading due today: backgrounder on human domination of the nitrogen cycle and its environmental impacts, available online at http://earthtrends.wri.org/features/view_feature.php?theme=1&fid=1

 

WEEK 16/December 11:

• Class wrap-up.
• REVISED PROJECT DUE WED. DEC. 19