Abstract
In the section I teach of Technical Writing at Plymouth State College, students learn to handle the content, form, and style of scientific reports by writing about a snowpack (accumulated snow on the ground). In this context, snowpack study requires students to learn and apply only elementary concepts of snow physics, but it establishes common experiences in science for students with non-scientific backgrounds. During an initial field trip, students examine the layers in a snowpack and observe the various characteristics of snow. For two weeks after the first field trip, students study local weather history and learn basic concepts of snow science, snow stratigraphy, and snow metamorphism. Based on their new understanding of snow, they hypothesize changes that have occurred in the snowpack, and they learn to identify types of snow particles in the field. Then they return to the snowpack to make a second set of observations. During the second field trip, they reexamine the snowpack, compare their hypotheses with actual conditions they observe, and account for persistence and change in the snowpack. At each stage in the snowpack study unit, students write up their findings in a series of technical reports, then write essays in which they examine their personal experience in snowpack study and assess the snowpack
- Journal
- The WAC Journal
- Published
- 1996-01-01
- DOI
- 10.37514/wac-j.1996.7.1.06
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