Most could tell you the significance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the first usage of nuclear weapons in warfare. But many would be surprised to learn that the US continued to drop nuclear bombs on islands of the Pacific, long after World War II was finished. Students in the Japanese Environmental History class taught by Dr. … Continued
Unlike traditional writing assignments where a student’s work is ephemeral, the Wikipedia writing assignment allows for student work to persist on in the public reach. Student work can later become highly relevant and important in response to current events. Last spring, a University of Maryland student in Dr. L. Jen Shaffer’s Researching Environment and Culture … Continued
Mice and rats are not much beloved, and are in fact one of the most common phobias! But did you know that mice and rats are important to ecosystems as a source of prey for many animals and that they represent a large swath of mammalian diversity? Students in Dr. John Hanson’s Mammalogy course at … Continued
Learning how to write effectively is an integral part of the college experience, yet many students dread the general composition course. The writing assignments can be restrictively narrow in scope, necessitating students write about subjects that bore them. Hours of research and writing go into drafting a paper that only the instructor will read. With … Continued
Wikipedia aspires to collect and distribute the sum of human knowledge, but systemic barriers prevent the realization of this goal. Barriers to editing Wikipedia are highest in the Global South, where internet access can be sporadic or nonexistent, and people have less leisure time to contribute as unpaid labor. The entire continent of Africa (1.2 … Continued
“Hi, how are you? Do you want to learn about Wikipedia and education?” It may be pretty simple, sure, but that’s the phrase I said over and over at the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting. As it turns out, many people did want to learn more. I spoke to biogeochemists, dendrologists, and limnologists, graduate … Continued
On Wednesday, the MacArthur ‘Genius’ grants were announced for 2019. The Wikipedian part of my brain, the part that I can’t turn off anymore, immediately wanted to update the Wikipedia article for the Fellowship with the most recent awardees, linking to the biographies that already existed and highlighting which still needed to be created. I already … Continued
If you asked people to name an American women’s suffragist, a few names would get repeated over and over. They’d mention Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony, or Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Perhaps some would be able to name a woman of color, though perhaps just Ida B. Wells. The stories of black suffragettes are often excluded … Continued
Mars has long loomed as a figure in human mythology and art. In the age of space exploration, though, Mars has taken on a new role: potential destination. It’s possible that, someday, humans may live on the Red Planet. To prepare for such an adventure, we must understand the ways in which Mars differs from … Continued