Conservation of Biodiversity
Your new home state of North Carolina is home to the Venus flytrap, which Charles Darwin called “the most wonderful plant in the world.” This plant, found in only a 70 mile radius around Wilmington, NC, is threatened by habitat loss, fire suppression, and poaching. Our writing projects for this course will examine the intersection of scientific research, land management, conservation, and policy, through our focus on plants.
One of our first writing projects will be to review a paper from the scientific literature that discusses issues related to plant conservation. You will then join the conversation, evaluating management plans for plants through an argument paper that builds evidence from your findings from your reviews. We’ll have a chance to go to Duke Gardens and possibly the NC Botanical Garden to learn how these organizations with differing objectives contribute to plant conservation in the state.
From there, you will have built the knowledge base to tackle the writing in the second half of the semester, where we will be working with local conservation partners in the state. The State of North Carolina recently evaluated plant species that are currently listed as Significantly Rare. Some of these plants will be proposed for state protection as threatened or endangered. We will assist them by pulling together the latest research to write fact sheets for some of these rare species. We’ll also have the assistance of botanists from around the state through participation in the Rare Flora Listserv.
After reviewing the current research for these rare plant species for your fact sheets, I will ask you to write a research pre-proposal to argue for the most critical research needs for the species. Finally, we will rethink our work for a broader audience, which will culminate in a scientific poster session. We will invite the local conservation community to learn about your work on these important species. Thus, this Writing 20 class will integrate research with practical application, crafting writing projects that will contribute to the conservation of rare plant species in North Carolina.
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