Day: October 13, 2020

Your college friend who is a psychology major is considering the keto diet and has questions about it. Specifically, your friend wants to know how the diet works and also wants to understand why the CNN article he/she/they read seems to present a conflicting point of view relative to the mouse research article he/she/they heard about on the radio. As someone with enough knowledge to answer these questions, you are charged with helping your friend to reason through this problem by providing information and interpretation based on your own understanding and analysis.

Purpose

Explain how issues of general interest to the public incorporate molecular biology topics and translate your knowledge to understanding those issues.
Interpret scientific research on a topic and relate it to your understanding of molecular biology.
Critically assess conflicting points of view on a topic from everyday life using knowledge of molecular biology to inform your analysis.
Communicate your scientific thoughts to others, supporting your thoughts with scientific knowledge and evidence.

Task

Explain the differences between regular respiration and ketosis induced by the keto diet. It may be helpful to make an outline, create a drawing, etc., to organize your thoughts. Focus on comparing/contrasting and identifying specific points youd need to address to explain these differences to a friend. Be sure to address why people lose weight on the keto diet.
Choose a medium to explain these differences to your friend: You may choose whatever medium youd like to convey this information (you know your friend best!). You may write and record a song, create a cartoon, make a video, write a poem, paint a picture, bake and decorate a cake, do an interpretive dancewhatever you choose, it must clearly explain how cellular respiration works and how it is changed under the keto diet at the molecular level and also at the physiological level.
Decide which terms your friend is likely to need a definition for (consider what someone in college but not majoring in science would need you to define) and decide how you will define those. You may not need to write everything out, but it may be helpful to make notes as you develop your plan.
Communicate your explanation using the medium of your choice; you will not be evaluated on the quality of the creative products, so focus instead on the quality of the scientific understanding conveyed. Upload your product to the Canvas assignment box.
Then, focus on helping your friend to understand how to resolve the apparent conflict between the conclusions of the CNN news article and the mouse research article. Decide on 3-5 major points youd like to make that will help your friend decide how to interpret these two different perspectives. Make sure you use the additional information you learned about the keto diet to support your conclusion about how your friend should interpret the articles.
Write a 2-3 paragraph email to your friend that explains why the two articles differ and how one might best interpret them to make an informed decision about the keto diet. In the email, be sure to tell your friend what information is not included in the articles, and why he/she/they might need more information. Turn in this email in the Canvas assignment box.

Criteria

To be considered successful, the creative product must:

Be accurate, containing no errors in the depiction of respiration or the keto diet.
Be thorough, not including every single detail, but explaining with enough depth to exhibit an understanding of molecular biology and to match the depth with which we studied the topics in class.
Clearly convey differences between regular respiration and the keto diet.
Be original, not mimicking drawings we used in class or materials found on the internet, but reflecting original thought and creation.

To be considered successful, the email must:

Be accurate, reflecting information from the articles that is true and interpreted correctly.
Focus on 3-5 key points, with those points being well supported and relating to your overall conclusion.
Reflect the level of depth at which we analyzed the articles together, being neither too simplistic nor too complex.
Exhibit scientific thinking, showing evidence of critical analysis of the articles, and articulating what is not discussed in the articles, admitting to limitations.
Include reference to knowledge of the keto diet, incorporating clarifications from your own understanding to shed additional light on things in the articles.