Student grades will be determined according to the following breakdown: Final grades for undergraduates, undergraduate honors students, and graduate student grades will be assessed separately.

• 15% = Participation (10%) / attendance (5%)
• 40% = Essays including written work for panel presentation (3 submissions for undergrads, 4 for grad/honors students)
• 5% = Oral presentation of paper at mid-term.
• 20% = Mid-term exam
• 20% = Final exam

Hand in on paper, not via email.

For each submission apart from that for the first short essay and the panel presentation:
Undergrads: A minimum of 2, with a maximum of 3, double-spaced pages.
Grad students: A minimum of 3, with a maximum of 4, double-spaced pages.

The first short introductory essay is a maximum of one single-spaced page

For the first essay, use this as an opportunity to

1. introduce yourself as it relates to the class (education, work, home background) and please insert a photo to help us know who you are,
2. state why you have taken this class,
3. state what issues related to the course most interest you, and
4. state your hopes/goals for learning-i.e., what questions you have, or what knowledge you most hope to obtain via the class to help in your life, career, etc. No references required.

For the second, and for the third essay (grad/honors only), choose any topic of interest to you that is directly related to the class lectures or recitations, and explore it-giving both:

1. A summary of the general and technical aspects of the issue that cites and summarizes at least two (but no more than five) published references in addition to the course readings, including high quality web pages from scholarly institutions, governments, scientifically credible NGOs, or high quality news outlets (no blogs, myspace, etc). This should be about 2/3rds of the essay.
2. Your own insights/views/critique of the issue or reference(s) you have chosen to focus on. This should be about 1/3 of the essay. Use of subheadings to help organize and communicate the logical flow of the essay is highly encouraged.

Essays will be graded based on technical content (70%) and quality/clarity of writing/organization (30%). Give full literature citations for all sources cited in a consistent, scholarly format with author, year, title, source, web site URL. Citations in the text should have this form: (LASTNAME or INSTITUTION YEAR), examples: Stone 2007, Stone and Strauss 2009, Stone et al. 1955, EPA 2004). See the lecture schedule for essay due dates. Essays will only be accepted up to one week after the deadline date, but their value for class credit will be reduced by 50% if late.

For "video day" during recitation on May 5th, please identify one short video clip available on the web, either pro-biotech or anti-biotech (or pro- or anti-chemical), or just informative and related to the class themes. Send the URLs and a short description (subject, length) to Strauss by 5 PM on May 4th. Choose one that you can show most of (or a part of) in less than about 2 minutes. Please avoid any graphic images or language that might offend others. You may wish to team up with one other student to show something longer (up to 4 minutes). These will not be graded on video quality in any way, but students will get 2 points toward the final class grade if they submit and briefly comment on a video that is either informative, fun, or just plain cool AND related to the class.

For the panel presentation write-up (see web page on panel discussion), before you speak provide a transcript with your name on it, the role you are taking on, and what labeling issue you are addressing (GE food or cloned animal food). The write-ups should be 2 to 3 double spaced pages for the transcript, or 8 to 15 ppt slides if you choose to use powerpoint slides for the presentation (please print two slides per page for readability, and use them when you speak). They will be graded in the same way, and have the same lateness policy, as described for essays above.

Attendance will be based on the proportion of classes and recitation sections attended

Participation will vary from 50% of the total maximum score (little to no class participation in discussions/instructor questioning), 100% for average level of interaction, and 150% for strong participatinon.