Annotated Bibliography - Natural historian. As a cultural endeavour, the history of natural history is populated by an extraordinary array of individuals, scientists, philosophers, collectors, explorers, populists, museum people that have made an indelible impact on our understanding of the natural world.
Early in the unit, you will be expected to select one natural historian to focus on for Major Assignment 1 and Major Assignment 2. The specific individual you chose can include both ancient and contemporary people (and many in between). If you are having difficulty selecting a natural historian a list of possible choices will be available on iLearn, although you do not need to be limited by this selection.  [You cannot choose the following as they are covered in-depth in lecture material: Aristotle, Charles Darwin and Carolus Linnaeus (or Carl von Linné)].
Choose your natural historian carefully as this assignment will form the initial basis of research that you can build on for your second major assignment. If you are unsure if the person you wish to do your assignment on could be classified as a natural historian, please email the convenor museumstudies@mq.edu.au .
This short assignment is due early in the semester so you need to start working on it straight away.  It is expected that you will evaluate 6 scholarly journal articles or book chapters for this assignment.

The word count for this assignment is 1200+/- 10%.  Please ensure you reference your assignment in a consistent academic style.
If you are unsure what an annotated bibliography entails, the following may be of use to you:
 http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/content/how-prepare-annotated-bibliography 

Your Natural Historian in Context: Important and influential figures in natural history.
In Major Assignment 1 you developed an annotated bibliography, while this will help form part of the basis of the research for the essay which is Major Assignment 2 – this is a third year unit so you will be expected to critically engage with the literature and your topic. That means you will need to read more widely then you did for the first assignment.
Your report should include:
• An introduction to the significance of your chosen personality to the field of natural history.
• A clear discussion that covers biographical information, major achievements and assessment of that individual’s impact on our understanding of the natural world.
• Include at least three images (these may include photos, drawings, maps, diagrams, charts etc) that relate to your topic, label these as Figures (Figure 1, Figure 2 etc) and indicate the source (ie: article, book, URL and date accessed for URLS - remember if you are the photographer you must state that in the figure caption as well). When you use a figure, it is expected that you will refer to it in text.
• You are expected to use and critically engage with adequate scholarly material.
• Consistent referencing throughout the body of the assignment (either in-text or footnotes).
• A full bibliography of the material that you referred to within the essay must be included at the end of the assignment.

In this assignment students explore an essay topic related to the lectures presented during the unit in greater depth. You may select one of the following topics:-
i) Early European natural historians in Australia were immersed in a curious, new ―upside down world and completely ignored indigenous knowledge systems. This dismissal of indigenous knowledge still hampers our understanding of the continent of Australia today. Discuss.
ii) Biologists argue that the Darwinian revolution is complete; the impact of the theory of natural selection has permeated our understanding of the biological world and beyond. Yet studies show that many people do not believe in evolution. Should natural history museums strive to promote a Darwinian understanding of the world, are they already doing this, could more be done or is it not their role and responsibility?
iii) Is it appropriate to conclude that any system of taxonomic classification is essentially a cultural construct and does not, by itself, provide insights into how the natural world works? Discuss this proposal with illustrations and examples from the history of natural history.
iv) How should natural history museums respond to the challenge of climate change? Do they have a role to either educate or alarm the populace about the need for behavioural change and/or political action? Are they already doing this or could more be done?

Word count is 2500 words +/- 10%. Read your chosen topic carefully, you will need to ensure you have adequately unpacked and addressed all aspects of the question.

The essay should be logically structured, well argued and correctly referenced. We will expect you to use scholarly journal articles and book chapters in your research.

The 10% assessment for tutorial participation will be based on discussions on iLearn throughout the whole semester. To facilitate this discussion topics will be posed online; there will be four different topics throughout the semester; you will have roughly a fortnight during which to engage with each topic. Your final participation mark will be based on the quality and thoughtfulness of your contributions to each discussion.  The lectures which will be available online will help to provide context to these topics – failure to listen to these lectures will diminish your ability to participate adequately. Online discussion contributions will not be recognised and marked after the last day of semester as marking will have commenced (Closed for recognised contributions at: 5pm, Friday 14th November 2014).