Each part of the United States has at least one ecological crisis based on location, biome, and industrialization pattern. For example, the Midwest was once a prairie with very fertile soil. However, when people realized that with the right watering and drainage system this area could become productive farmland, there arose ecological problems. The conversion of the prairie to farmland is the root cause of many ecological problems in this region.
Regardless of what biome you consider, humans have likely had an impact on the ecology of that area.
For this assignment, identify the biome in which you live. The following are a few examples of biomes:
€¢    Tropical rainforests: This biome has high average temperatures, high moisture levels, and high species diversity.
€¢    Prairies: The prairies have grassland-variable temperatures, variable moisture levels€”depending on proximity to mountain ranges€”and are mainly dominated by grasses and ungulate herbivores.
€¢    Deserts: These biomes have hotter average temperatures, low moisture, lower species diversity, and a composition of species limited mainly to those that are adapted to hot temperatures.
€¢    Temperate forests: The temperate forests have variable temperatures, high moisture levels, and higher species diversity.
€¢    Taigas: These biomes have colder average temperatures, lower moisture levels, and lower species diversity.
€¢    Tundras: The tundras have cold average temperatures, low moisture levels, and low species diversity.
€¢    Coral reefs: These biomes have high average temperatures and high species diversity.
€¢     oceans: These biomes have a wide range of temperatures and species diversity varies.
€¢    Chaparrals: The chaparrals have higher average temperatures, lower moisture levels, and are dominated mainly by grasses and shrubs.
€¢    Alpines: These biomes have low average temperatures, low precipitation, and receive high ultraviolet (UV) rays due to high elevation.
Using the readings for this module, the Argosy University online library resources, and the Internet, respond to the following:
€¢    Explain how humans have impacted the biome in which you live. List the types of environmental damage that have been caused and the species that have been impacted.
€¢    Describe the major pollution issues for your biome, and elaborate on the sources of this pollution.
€¢    List any species that have become extinct in this biome.
Support your statements with appropriate examples and scholarly references.
Write your initial response in approximately 300€“350 words. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.

24.

Much Ado About Nothing

Paper instructions:
Renaissance play texts are both traces of historical performances and the basis for new ones. Whereas the text offers a range of interpretive possibilities, a performance realizes certain of these possibilities while creating its own unique meaning through its staging. In other words, directors and actors have to make strong interpretive choices. These choices include where the play should be set, how the characters should be costumed, and how the actors should move and deliver their lines. This assignment is designed to encourage you to think about how directors and actors might work with the text to make a meaningful performance.
Imagine that you have been asked to direct a production of Much Ado About Nothing for a modern theater company. Write a 3-4 page paper in which you argue for an effective way of staging a section of Much Ado About Nothing (circa 100 lines) as an example of the effect your ideal production would achieve. Your thesis statement for this paper will consist of stating your aim in staging the play (what you want your audience to think and/or feel when watching it) and identifying the specific production choices that will be crucial to realizing this aim.  In the body of the paper, you will then support this thesis by explaining in detail (quoting and citing the text) how and why these specific production choices would achieve their intended effects.

The following steps can help you lay the groundwork for a good paper:

1) Decide what is most important for you in the play

What effect would you want your production to achieve?  What would you want your audience to think and/or feel?  There will likely be a lot of different effects you would like to achieve if you were to direct the play; however, for the purposes of this paper identify the most important one (or a cluster of closely related ones).  This will form the basis for your thesis.

2) Identify key choices and a key scene

Next, you will need to think about what production choices you would need to make to achieve your ideal effect.  Think about how you would use casting, costuming, scenery, blocking, line delivery, etc. to realize your ideal production.  As you are thinking about these choices, think about which section of the play (circa 100 lines) would showcase the most important choices and most clearly demonstrate the effect you wish the staging to have.

3) Craft a thesis statement

Drawing on your ideas from steps 1 and 2 above, draft an introductory paragraph in which you set out your thesis.  This paragraph should consist of you outlining what effect you would try to achieve and identifying the specific choices most crucial to achieving this effect.

4) Structure your body paragraphs

Decide how to most effectively present your explanation you how and why the production choices you identify would achieve the effects that you intend them to achieve.  You should use the section of text that you decide on in step 2 as your primary example€”a chance to show in detail how your choices would work.