Biology Assignment 2016 Research Notes & Writing Plan

Layout (2 marks) Your assignment must have an informative title that tells the reader what it will be about. You need to organise your assignment in sections. You should use the following sub-headings for each section: Aim Application and Effect on Society Research – Relevance and Reliability of Sources Research – Selection of Relevant Information Processing and Presenting Sources of Data Conclusion Underlying Biology References

Completing this writing frame: Look at each section and complete it with relevant information. What you write here will form the basis of your final assignment write up, so if you do a good job here the write up will be easy. It’s a good idea to keep a record of the references (sources of your information) you use next to the information you input as you go along.

Aim This should describe how one thing affects the other thing: The aim of my assignment is...

Aim What are you going to try to prove in this assignment?

Application & Effect on Society The application is an activity that humans do and why we do it. The effect on society is the consequence of this activity – it can be positive of negative. Find the answers to the following questions: What are pesticides?

Why are pesticides used?

What effect does pesticide use have on the amount of food available to humans/size of the human population?

Research – Selecting Relevant Information First, you need to find evidence of a decline in honeybee population (data, calculations, graphs etc). Write your sources below. Think – how will I process this data?

You now need to find evidence that increasing pesticide use is causing the decline in Honeybee populations. (scientific studies, data, graphs etc). Think – How will I process this data?

What is the effect of increasing pesticide use on the size of the honeybee populations? ( You need to include evidence from sources here)

How are pesticides thought to affect the honey bees? ( You need to include evidence from sources)

How would a reduction in honey bee numbers affect food production? (You need to include evidence from sources here)

How much money are honey bees estimated to be worth to the UK economy every year? (You need to include evidence from sources here)

What other factors could be causing a decline in honey bee numbers? (You need to include evidence from sources here)

Sources used? If writing down a website you must include the full URL for the page where you found the information.

Sources used?

Research – Relevance and Reliability Think carefully about the sources of information you have used so far: How are they relevant to what you are trying to prove? How do you know that they are reliable? Do they offer a perspective (point of view)?

Underlying Biology Describe the niche (role in ecosystem) of the honeybee.

What is pollination?

Why is pollination important? (you can relate this to food webs)

Why are humans so dependent on pollinators such as honeybees? (think population growth & food demand)

How would a reduction in the number of honey bees affect biodiversity (variety of animals and plants)? Can you explain why?

How could a reduction in the number of honey bees affect humans?

Sources used for underlying biology?

Conclusion re-state the aim of your assignment…

How does the information you have presented prove your point? (you should refer back to the evidence and try to link the data from different sources together)

What is your opinion, based on the evidence, of the possible consequences? (again you should refer back to the evidence and try to link the data from different sources together to justify your opinion.)

Include any additional sources used in this space

Honeybee Research - Useful Websites Background Information Intro videos on Bees (role bees play in nature) The Royal Horticultural Society (role bees play in nature/bee decline) BBC iWonder (importance of honey bees) - Soil Association (link between bees and pesticides) - b2i3NyhPoMX16msx65ATFRO5AXPUlG3A8k60RBJLheONwaAkLa8P8HAQ Greenpeace (link between bees and pesticides): Greenpeace (bees in decline report/background info but also contains data): Report_BeesInDecline.pdf Our Bees are buzzing off but why (bees in decline report) -

Pesticide action network (link between bees and pesticides): The Guardian Newspaper (economic importance of honey bees): Sources of DATA Relevant to Bee Decline: The Telegraph newspaper: numbers-in-England-fell-by-more-than-half-over-the-last-20-years.htmlhttp:// numbers-in-England-fell-by-more-than-half-over-the-last-20-years.html Channel 4 news: Greenpeace: Bees in decline report (background info but also contains data): Report_BeesInDecline.pdf

Relevant to Economic Importance of Bees: University of Reading: most-important-animals Relevant to Increased Pesticide Use: The Telegraph newspaper: honeybee-demise.html DEFRA: data.htm