Question

In this assignment, you are to critique a published watershed assessment. You are writing a critical review of a published watershed assessment, not completing your own assessment of a watershed, or summarizing the published assessment.

There are many published assessments available electronically, and they come in many styles and degrees of detail. Here’s a web site that will direct you to Oregon assessments.

https://nrimp.dfw.state.or.us/DataClearinghouse/default.aspx?p=149 (Links to an external site.)

Enter OWEB in the "Search" tab

 You can look at the EPA’s “Surf Your Watershed” if you want to work on something closer to your home, but you may have trouble finding an in-depth assessment, a lot of what you will see is the data used to complete an assessment.

 https://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/locate/index.cfm (Links to an external site.)

Another option, that may be a bit easier if you're not in Oregon, is to look online for watershed councils or land trusts in your area and see if they have watershed assessment reports available. This assignment is a pretty significant part of your final grade, so I would suggest finding the report you want to critique by the end of this week so you have plenty of time to review it before submitting your selection in Week 4.

Once start writing, don't forget that you can use the online writing lab to help you revise your drafts. I'm also willing to help if you have particular questions about specific parts of your draft.

Your critique should have, at a minimum, the following sections and answer the following questions:

• Introduction (20 pts) 
  • Where is the watershed?
  • What are the dominant land uses? Agricultural? Urban? Forestry?
  • Etc…
•  
• What are the Strengths of the Assessment? (40 pts)
• What are its weaknesses? or How would you make it better? (40 pts)
• Conclusion
• Sources Cited

This should take about 6-8 pages double spaced. Pay attention to the outline above, look at where most of your points come from. It doesn't make a lot of sense to write an 8-page paper that has 6 pages of Introduction, leaving only 2 pages for material that counts for 80% of the grade. Also, please make sure to include headings for each section.

I want this to be a test of your critical thinking and your ability to apply what you've learned in this course. Tell me why you like, or don't like aspects of the assessment you are using. Cite your sources, including readings from the class.

I want to see your ability to take the concepts that are discussed over the term, along with your experiences and ideas, and apply them to a real-world example. 

 

 

5 months ago

Answer