Public Service Announcement

Select ONE of the water borne concerns listed below and covered in the text book reading this week.

Campylobacter spp.—a bacterium
Cryptosporidium spp.—a protozoan
Entamoeba histolytica—a protozoan
Escherichia coli—a coliform bacterium
Giardia lamblia—a protozoan
Leptospira spp.—a bacterium
Salmonella typhi—the typhoid bacillus
Shigella spp.—a bacterium
Vibrio cholerae—a bacterium

Research the biological concern and consider the implications for public health. Your goal for this assignment will be to convey details of this biological concern to the general public, but you must present scientific details including the main routes of exposure, health impacts to humans, the life cycle, diagnosis and treatment to protect human health, and drinking water treatment (personal and treatment facility). These five components must present detailed information to show you understand each. Please use your own words and demonstrate YOUR mastery of the subject. This will involve research beyond your textbook reading.

Your task is to create a public service announcement (PSA), which draws in the audience and has visual appeal. While a PSA should be relatively straight forward so it is clearly understood by the audience, you must be sure you provide scientifically accurate details. You also must cite all sources used in developing the PSA. Sources must be cited in APA style, including both parenthetical citations and a complete reference list. What this means is that at a minimum each slide should have a clear parenthetical citation for the text. If more than one source is used per slide or you also include graphics, these each must be clearly cited.

The PSA can take on the form of::

A flyer in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint or another appropriate layout/design program. If you are using an unfamiliar program, please save the file as a JPEG or PDF format when submitting in the Sakai classroom

Or, Create a slide show in Microsoft PowerPoint, Open Office Impress, or similar program.

You get the idea. There are lots of creative formats to use. The trick is, you must include well-researched scientific information and the PSA must be meaningful to the intended audience. Later in the course we will have the opportunity to share the PSAs with one another, so be sure you get this assignment done on time.

The PSA is intended to give students a creative outlet to effectively communicate complex topics in water science. Please contact me with questions or concerns along the way. There are so many different formats to select from and so many different freely available software programs to use … have some fun, integrate technology, and research hot topics in water science! I am looking forward to your creativity.

Grading Rubric – FOLLOW THIS VERY CAREFULLY

10 pts – sufficient depth of scientific materials regarding routes of exposure
10 pts – sufficient depth of scientific materials regarding human health impacts
10 pts – sufficient depth of scientific materials regarding life cycle
10 pts – sufficient depth of scientific materials regarding diagnosis and treatment for human health
10 pts – sufficient depth of scientific materials regarding drinking water treatment
20 pts – APA Citations – all sources used to develop this PSA must be cited in the text and in the final slide with a reference list – use APA style for these citations
15 pts – grammar/spelling/language/professional tone
15 pts – presentation design – this includes use of audio/visual, graphics, and overall visual appeal