Mexico or Hispanic Labor Group Project - revised 2020 (Cases)

Introductory Remarks - Take a breath and relax. The project is really no more than a group term paper with a different presentation format. All cases will related to Mexico and involve reproduction with agriculture, wildlife, pet species and humans. New in 2020 is the use of Google Sites to prepare your website!!!

Background - In this course and within the university in general, we do not train students to be the labor of the future, but rather the directors/managers of industry. Within agriculture, the ability to be effective in an international work place is essential. Current undergraduate students therefore need to develop skills in critical thinking, problem solving and have a global perspective of agriculture and how cultural, social, economic, ethnicity and language or literacy effect solutions to problems.  Even if they do not speak Spanish, they must develop skills to solve a potential language divide. Within Wisconsin, greater than 40% of the agricultural work force is Hispanic and 50% of the those individuals do not speak English. The percentages of hispanic labor is higher in the meat industry or even in construction. Students must understand the impact of the global experience on the workforce in order to be effective in the 21st century. What will you do if you need to communicate in Mandarin Chineese, Russian, Thai, or any number of other languages as a part of your future job on a daily basis?

The project you will undertake will give you experiences in how to solve problems (ie. critical thinking) that we hope will require you to step outside your comfort zone, develop new skills, refine previously acquired skills and force you to connect theory in reproduction with application. As this is a group project, you will also need to develop conflict resolution/solving skills and how to make sure each member of your group is holding up their responsibilities. The project is designed to be more than what 1 or 2 students could do in a semester, hence the group nature of the project.

Global Learning Outcomes of the proposed work are to: 1) solve problems related to a foreign country or novel regions of the US, 2) display communication skills and in particular, strategies to communicate in a language other than English, and 3) display appreciation of ethical issues in global agriculture, wildlife management, federal grazing lands as they relate to reproduction manipulation. The overall impacts we expect to have on students include: 1) illlustrate how theory applies to application in the novel environment of a new culture, location, and ethical system, 2) recognize how differences based on cultural and ethnicity impact individuals, and 3) create human capacity for competitiveness in global agriculture.

General Instructions - You will be participating in the solving of a case in Mexico related to agriculture, wildlife management, human reproduction or western US grazing lands. You will be assigned to a group to work on this project during the semester.

• Your group will consist of 3 - 4 students within your lab section, solve a case and demonstrate your solution to that case via a website and public service audio podcast.
• You must develop a case story/problem/introduction and include a Spanish translation (you can use google translation if you do not speak Spanish). The story/problem/introduction could evolve over the semester. You might start with just a topic in a short paragraph and then over the semester develop this into a story from some hypothetical person who asks some in depth questions.
• References will be an important component of the project. It is up to you to demonstrate the references are credible and you cite everything as it would occur in Journal of Animal Sciences. We accept journal articles as credible but if you use a website you need to figure out how you ensured it was credible. You may not be able to search for credible references simply by using google or other search engines. You may need to use PubMed or other indexes suggested to you by University Librarians.
• Your final solution needs to include some type of Spanish translation as a summary/conclusion along with the English version.
• Prepare an audio podcast that you can think of as a public service radio broadcast on the case, identify the problem, its importance and your potential solutions. Come to a conclusion as to what the groups thinks is the best solution. This will be a 3 minute audio podcast
• Each student must clearly create some equal part of the written and audio project or they will not recieve full credit. A signed indication of this is required.
• Each student must demonstrate via their own completed website pages, 2 of the 3 global learning outcome and/or impacts.

Cases - Your group specific case will be choosen or assinged to you in lab 2.

Materials to Prepare

• Website - Each subject web page that individual students develop will be required to have at least one image that may come from the web, text and 1 table or graph of actual data supporting the topic. Individual pages will include: Problem, translation, subject pages (each student must create one of these), conclusion including a translation and references. In addition you will need to cite references in the text as they are cited in Journal of Animal Sciences.
• Website questions - Your group must prepare 3 questions (true/false only) regarding your web site that you submit within Canvas. At least one of these will appear in the final exam for your lab section. You are required to read, view and understand all submissions from other groups in your lab section. You are not required to read material from other lab sections but it may be interesting to compare how others solved the problems.
• Web Page Construction - New in 2020 you will use Google Sites to prepare your website. Here is the link to the google site help page. We will no longer restrict how your website appears but will provide you with a template (the links is also within Canvas (home page then go to Mexico Project Information FA2020) and instructions on how to copy this to your own google drive and add collaborators. Your webstie is graded on content and not how it looks, although Dr. Parrish must be able to navigate through the site without problems. Dr. Parrish must be listed as a collaborator in order for him to grade your site. No one should graduate this university without understanding how websites are constructed as you will almost surely be using a website in your future job if not daily life. You may use other software to construct the site from scratch but Dr. Parrish may or may not be able to help you with problems if they develop and you must figure out how to give Dr. Parrish access for grading.
• Audio presentation - Prepare a 3 minute public service audio podcast. The audio can be as creative as you wish. While some students simply read a prepared text, others do an interview or discussion about the topic. Points for originality will be given. Use the computer set up to do this in the laboratory (128 Animal Sciences). A transcript of the recording is also required. You will be able to upload the audio file to your site. I will post instructions later. You can use any other audio recording software you like but will require an MP3 file to upload. Here are instructions to add audio.

Presentation, Due Date and Grade :

• All submission are due in Canvas assignments under "Mexico project" with specific assignments for each part of the project.
• There are "Specific Due Dates for the Mexico Project in Canvas".
• Specific points
  • Case introduction (5 points)
  • Case Translation (5 points)
  • Outline of approach to solve case. (5 points)
  • Initial rough draft of project to include something on all parts of the written material related to website (5 points)
  • Final rough draft, project essentially completed for review by instructors. (5 points)
  • Due by start of your lab section - Final project (80 points), including case audio (30 points).

It is your responsibility to make sure your website works and viewable by the instructor in canvas. Be sure the final audio presentation is within your website.

As sites are in google drive, I will create a page viewable by the entire class linked to from within Canvas. On the final lab day, we will view the front page of the sites and listen to the audio. Time will be given for the class to ask questions of your group as you are graded on your responses.

You will be graded 80 points for the website itself (content, grammar, effective communication etc.) and 30 points for the audio (quality of presentation, communication, style, easy of understanding etc. along with transcript of recording). A group self evaluation will also be passed out at this time. Each member of the group will initially receive the same score. Deductions can then occur if indicated on the group evaluation that certain individuals in the group did not contribute equally or the quality of specific student pages are not up to the groups other contributors (judged by instructor). There are a few students each year who loose points based on the group evaluations and often results in a reduction of their final overall grade in the class. A small number of additional points will be allocated to completion of milestones at the appropriate time (see above).

Evaluation Forms - All evaluation forms/rubrics are available in canvas.

Be imaginative and learn something new!