Popular Media Science Reporting and Science Research Articles: Exploring the Relationship

1. Wording used in popular science articles:

•   The University of Colorado executed a research about…
•  The WWF reported significant statistics about…
•  The results of the experiment executed by SalvaNATURA’s scientists revealed that…
•  Hundreds of fires are burning across Central America according to NASA satellite images

2. Find a popular magazine, web site, or newspaper article

Amazon Rain Forest, Last of the Amazon

Scott Wallace, 2007. Amazon Rain Forest, Last of the Amazon. National Geographic. [Internet]. Available from: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/01/amazon-rain-forest/wallace-text

3. Find a popular article related to you country’s ecology

Forest fires burn in Central America

The article is about the fires in several countries in Central America such as Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Farmers implement fires in the dry season to prepare the land for agriculture the next season. But these fires are likely to get out of control and expand to other properties including adjacent forested areas. Fires are one cause of deforestation and loss of biodiversity. The UN points out that Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador present the highest deforestation rates in the region, losing 1.26 percent of forest annually from 1990 to 2005. A remarkable example in this article refers about a fire that burned a section of Tikal National Park in Guatemala in 2006. Many other Maya Biosphere Reserves in Guatemala have been affected by fires.  I am interested in this article because I have seen examples of fires near my community. In El Picacho Mountain, every dry season farmers start fires to prepare the land for the next season, but this fires end up out of control burning hectares of forest and grassland that can last for several days. I realized that this is a regional environmental issue that threatens the forests and biodiversity of the neotropics.

Source:

Rhett A. Butler, April 10 2006. Forest fires burn in Central America. Mongabay.com [Internet]. Available from: http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0410-central_america.html

4. Find a peered reviewed article of a similar topic than the popular article to your country’s ecology

Did the Ilopango TBJ Eruption Cause the AD 536 Event?

This article explains the evidence that the eruption of the volcano Ilopango TBJ (a caldera lake located in El Salvador) caused a significant decrease in the temperatures in the northern hemisphere in AD 536. A dust veil covered the Earth surface and caused a drop in temperatures during the summer in the northern hemisphere and affected crops in China and the Mediterranean. The scientist Robert Dull from the University of Texas traveled to El Salvador to find the geological evidence by drilling tephra samples (ash layers underground) and a carbonized tree trunk. These samples were tested with Radiocarbon dating to estimate the age of the eruption. The result of the experiment found that the eruption of the Ilopango volcano was in AD 535 but the sample of the carbonized trunk “cannot be unequivocally associated with the 536 AD event.” The conclusion of the research remarks that “the eruption alone probably cannot explain the entire +14 year cold period observed in the northern hemisphere tree rings record from AD 536, but it seem now the best candidate for the cause of the AD 536 mystery cloud and a major contributor to the cold temperatures that followed.

Source:

Robert Dull, 2012. Did the Ilopango TBJ Eruption Cause the AD 536 Event? University of Texas, Austin. [Internet]. Available from: http://www.fundar.org.sv/referencias/dull_et_al_2010_AGU.pdf

My First Blog - Tropical Ecology Class

1.       What are you excited about learning in your tropical ecology class?

I am excited to learn about how interactions in tropical ecosystem occur. How animals interact with the environment, and how this environment affects animals and plants. What are the levels of trophy in an ecosystem (with specific examples). I am also interested in learning about animal behavior in response to the environment, for example, when animals migrate and why? When is the period of breeding and nesting of some animals, and how seasonality affects animal behavior, diet, etc. I also want to learn about scientific research and how the scientific method works, how a scientific research is developed, and how to read and find scientific articles. In general, ecology is an important branch of biology, and tropical ecology is the topic of matter for the SEED students as we all come from the tropics.

2.       What is one of the main environmental issues your community experiences?

As I live in the suburbs of San Salvador city, trash pollution is the major environmental issue in my community. Just behind my house, there is a creek, and this is very polluted. People throw their garbage in the creek and eventually this affects the aesthetics of the place, and when heavy rains come, floods threaten the houses located on the banks of the creek.

3.       What things have your learned thus far to help improve the environmental conditions of your community? (Think about all the classes you have taken and experiences in the field).

When I was an intern last summer in the Sandy River Basin Watershed Council, I learned with their projects about some principles of hydrology. My supervisor explained to me how the depletion of the riparian vegetation in a creek affects making vulnerable to bank erosion and floods. He also gave me some specific ideas to implement in my community. The key is to reforest the banks.

4.       Post a YouTube video related to the ecology of your country (less than 5 min video)

 El Imposible National Park - Ecological Refuge of El Salvador

5.       Post a link of a website that has information of the flora and fauna of your country.

El Imposible National Park - Flora and Fauna