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This website features work from the completion of Phase 1 of the SCALES Project.

We are currently seeking partnerships for Phase 2.

Paper

  • OPT Production Game Assignment

    Your assignment is to schedule a small job-shop with the objective to maximize your cash after two weeks. You start with $1500 and you must pay a fixed operating cost of $2500 at the end of each week. There are no loans available and you go out of business if you run out of cash.

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  • From Cancer Cells to String Theory: Communicating Complex Material

    After completing the readings for this session, please write what you think did and did not work about the communication used.

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  • Science in the Blogosphere

    Identify a science blog of your choice from the Discover Magazine “stable” of blogs available at: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/, follow it for at least three days during the week preceding this class, and write a short critical review of it. What is the blog trying to do, and how well is it doing it? Come to class prepared to give a short (2 minute) review of your chosen blog.

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  • Critiquing Science on Display

    Please tour the public galleries on display in the lobbies of the Broad Institute and the Koch Institute, which face one another across Main Street on the MIT campus. Then write brief notes (2–3 pages) that critically compare and contrast the approaches to exhibiting science of these two galleries.

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  • Workshop: Writing Science and Writing Science (cont.)

    Revise your one-page written piece to include the elements you recently learned.

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  • Telling a Tale, Painting a Picture: Writing About Science Using Special Techniques

    Come to class with a first draft of a one-page description of a phenomenon in science for a public audience, a one-page essay on a topic related to science, or a one-page letter to the editor responding to a recent op-ed on a topic in science or technology.

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  • What Does It Mean to Write About Science for the Public

    The readings for this session are two different accounts on the discovery of the structure of DNA. When reading them, take into account the discussion we will have comparing and contrasting both what they say and their ways of saying it.

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  • Assignment 3: Exploration and Environment

    In planning your paper, you will have to make a number of decisions, some of which you’ve already done. You’ve already chosen the subject upon which you will base your essay (if you’re not happy with this choice, you may still change your mind, but it will mean repeating many of the steps you’ve already taken): now it’s time to focus in on some aspect of your topic and how it relates to the environment. How did nonhuman environments shape or impact the expedition or explorer you focus on? How did a particular moment in exploration change the way people understand the natural world, or the way we live in it?

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  • Assignment 2: Bibliographic Essay and Annotated Bibliography

    For this assignment, you will choose a subject within the broad heading of exploration and environment, and write a bibliographic essay about it. What you write about for this assignment will also be the subject of your third assignment—a ten-page research paper—so you will want to chose your topic carefully. It should be broad enough to allow you to analyze political, cultural, economic and ecological factors, but narrow enough to allow you to construct a convincing and well-reasoned argument.

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  • Assignment 1

    Select one of the readings from Mancall and explain the environmental assumptions implicit in its author’s response to the New World and his understanding of the possibilities it presents. These possibilities should include agriculture and natural resources, but may also extend to mercantile, military, and cultural issues. In addition, you should compare these early responses to the New World to a modern interpretation, either the one offered by William Cronon, or that of Judith Carney or J. R. McNeill (or a combination of the three, if you are feeling ambitious). In either case, don’t just offer abstract generalizations—be sure to refer specifically to the texts.

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