Planet Earth (Earth & Environmental Sciences V1053y)

About the Proposal:

• You should identify an unanswered question in earth sciences, and propose a strategy to help solve it.
• Your strategy could involve making measurements, collecting samples, building a model, or any other approach that might constrain or answer the question you have posed.
• IMPORTANT: You do not have to answer the question: you only have to pose the question clearly, and outline a viable course of action, which, if followed, has a decent chance of helping to answer the question.
• Maximum length: four pages.
• Proposal counts for 30% of the course grade.

Time table:

• two weeks before last class session: topic for the proposal must be submitted by email to the TA
• one weeks before last class session: optional critique session for proposals
• last day of class: papers are due, in class

Examples of Good Proposals

• Dinosaur Killing Meteor (grade A-)
• The Earthquake: Can it be Predicted? (grade A-)

Examples of Bad Proposals

• What happened to the Dinosaurs? (grade C--)
• The Mystery of the Dinosaurs (grade D)
• Earthquake Prediction (grade C)