Subject Code :- SCIE1000 SCIE1100
Title :- Python And Communication
1 The scenario
A new public science museum in St Lucia is developing an exhibit A feature of the museum is that each exhibit item is accompanied by two explanations, each written for a different audience. One explanation is pitched to the science rookie and the other to the science enthusiast. Patrons read the explanation tailored to the level at which they feel most comfortable. Some characteristics of a typical audience member in each category are described in Table 1.
SCIE1000/SCIE1100 Python And Communication Assignment
The museum is planning an exhibition called Plastics :
A Cautionary Tale which examines how human kind’s voracious appetite for the production and consumption of plastic products can have calamitous con sequences for the natural environment around us. The aim of the exhibition is sum-marised in the following passage from the exhibition prospect us:
Plastics have revolutionised the cost effectiveness and versatility of manufacturing in the post war era. Plastics have become so commonplace in modern times that it is hard to imagine life without them. How ever as plastic consumption has increased so too has our knowledge and under standing of the potentially devastating impacts of mis managed plastic waste. As we plan for a more sustainable future we must examine our dependency on plastics and the consequences of inaction on the future health and prosperity of the planet.
In this particular exhibit patrons will gain a sense of scale for the rate at which plastic products are produced and explore potential interactions between plastics and the marine environment both now and in the future.
The museum director has asked the SCIE1000 teaching team for help in finding skilled volunteers to develop exhibit items. Once developed the items will be maintained and potentially modified by museum staff each of whom has a strong background in high school mathematics combined with a beginners level of Python experience. The director has been informed that SCIE1000 students are skilled at: making mathematical models using a mathematical toolkit familiar to any student of Mathematical Methods aka Maths B or equivalent writing Python programs including those which use arrays loops plots and new functions and communicating scientific information to various audiences.
2. An overview of the task
You will write an interactive Python program that will run on a machine in the exhibition hall at the new science museum as part of this exhibition. Your program will guide users to a better under standing of the scale of plastic production and the impact this may have on marine environments.
The information you need to create the relevant models is provided in Section 5 of this document and a high-level overview of how to complete the task is provided in Section 6.
This assignment requires you to produce two deliverables (D1) and (D2) as outlined below:
(D1) A Python code file that satisfies the specifications in Section 7. This includes following the logical flow laid out in the flowchart provided in Figure 3 (see Page 9).
(D2) An audio-video screen capture file 3-5 minutes long in which you show your code and give an over view of your approaches to modelling programming and communication aimed at museum staff who will need to maintain your code. One way to create such a file is by recording with Zoom open a Zoom meeting share your screen and select Record → Record to this computer. Please note that 5 minutes is a hard upper limit for the recording and museum staff will stop watching your video at the 5 minute mark.
3.Submission and grading
Both deliverables (D 1) and (D 2) are to be uploaded via the Blackboard submission link by 1 pm on 2022. If your video file is large or if there are many other Blackboard users it can take time for your video file to load and you need to wait for your browser to complete the submission.
The UQ guidelines on Blackboard assignment submissions recommend submitting at least 3 hours be-fore the deadline in case of any internet/computer/technical issues. If you do have technical issues
you should contact the student IT service “AskUs” at the library. Late submissions without an approved extension will be penalised according to the policy in the ECP consult Section 5.3 of the Electronic Course Profile for more information.
Your submitted code will be run and tested as part of this grading process. A rubric grading criteria for this assignment is on Page 10. The file that you submit will be checked using software which is specially designed to detect plagiarism in code. Consult Section 6.1 of the ECP for more information and procedures concerning plagiarism.
This assignment has an advanced section which must be attempted by students aiming for grades of 6 or 7 see the grading criteria for more explanation. The shaded section of the flow chart indicates the requirements of this advanced section. If you have any questions please contact the course lecturers via the course discussion board (see Section 4 below).
4. About getting help
This assignment is a piece of summative assessment, designed to let you demonstrate your level of mastery of several learning objectives in this course. As such it is very important that the work you submit is all your own. This does not mean that you cannot receive help in regards to this assignment but that help must be limited to general advice about modelling Python and communication. This task sheet has been carefully constructed and part of your job is to interpret the information it contains. Some choices have been left to your judgement and this is intentional. Using regression software such as Excel or Desmos or similar to develop any of the models is not permitted.
5.Modelling plastic production
5.1 Plastic production
The term plastic refers to a broad group of synthetic polymers that have become ubiquitous in modern manufacturing due to their low production cost and broad utility across a huge range of different industries including packaging consumer products textiles transportation construction and
electronics. The origin of large scale plastic production dates back to the 1950 s and global plastic production has increased year-on-year in all but three years since then [1].
The museum exhibit aims to convey to patrons the scale of plastic production both now and into the future and what implications this may have for our oceans.
SCIE1000/SCIE1100 Python And Communication Assignment
Selected data for the global rate of plastic production between 1975 and 2014 is provided in Table 2 [2]. You should use this data to formulate a model for the global rate of plastic production over time. For modelling purposes you may assume that any relationship you derive for the global rate of plastic production over the interval 1975 – 2014 be extrapolated to future years. How ever you should clearly communicate to patrons when your model is being used to make predictions beyond the scope of the data provided.
Table 2: Data for the annual global rate of plastic production from 1975–2014, sourced from [2] via [3].
5.2 Plastics entering the marine environment
The lifespan of a plastic product is the time that elapses between its creation until it becomes waste. The lifespan of plastics varies significantly depending upon the type of plastic and how it is used. For example plastics used in building and construction typically have longer lifespans on the order of decades where as plastics used in packaging may have an average lifespan on the order of months [4]. There are many different pathways for dealing with plastic wastes including reuse recycling thermal destruction and disposal. How ever reused and recycled plastics eventually need to be disposed of since these processes cannot be repeated indefinitely [1]. Mismanagement of plastic waste can lead to plastics entering the marine environment.
SCIE1000/SCIE1100 Python And Communication Assignment
Estimating how much plastic enters the world’s oceans is a complex problem. Jam beck et al. (2015) developed a frame work for estimating the amount of mismanaged plastic waste from coastal populations that could potentially become marine debris. Based on data from 2010 they estimated that approximately 2.96% of the plastic produced in that year ended up as ocean plastic [5] as depicted in Figure 2. Using this information and your model for plastic production you should develop a new model which estimates the global rate at which plastics enter the world’s oceans. You may assume that this relationship between plastic produced and plastic entering the oceans holds true in other years however discerning science enthusiast patrons would value an explanation of any limitations of your model that follow from such an assumption.
5.3 A compounding problem
Once plastics have entered the marine environment they can remain there for a long time. In the ocean plastics do not generally biodegrade on a timescale that would contribute to the removal of plastics from the environment. Instead plastics at the sea surface are likely to undergo solar UV- induced photo degradation reactions. This weathering of plastic materials in the ocean can cause
larger macro plastics to break down into microplastic debris [6]. The small size of such debris creates additional problems for effective detection and can hamper efforts to remove plastics from the ocean.
Consequently without targeted intervention we can assume that all plastics that have entered the ocean remain in the ocean. We can estimate the accumulation of ocean plastics over time as the area under the curve of the rate of plastics entering the ocean over a given interval.
SCIE1000/SCIE1100 Python And Communication Assignment
5.4 Impact of plastic on marine environments
Ingestion or interaction with marine plastics such as through entanglement ghost fishing dispersal by rafting and habitat alteration has been shown to affect more than 800 marine species many of which are listed as being at risk according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature
[7, 8]. These effects can include ill health and death. Microplastics have been shown to collect in the gut digestive tract and gills of various marine species when ingested, and some species have been shown to accumulate microplastics in other tissues through translocation [8].
5.5 Looking to the future
Geyer (2020) suggests that based on current trends in plastic production waste generation and waste management recycling and incineration will not be sufficient to sustainably manage plastic in the long term. Hence it will be important to consider mechanisms for reducing the amount of plastic produced and consumed [1].
Furthermore sustainable consumption and production have been identified by the United Nations as a key sustainable development goal as part of a larger collective of 17 goals aimed at providing a global vision for achieving a sustainable just and safe planet [9].
6.A detailed overview of the task
Your assignment submission must follow the specifications listed in Section 7. Below we first give a high level overview of how to approach the main section and the advanced section.
SCIE1000/SCIE1100 Python And Communication Assignment
To complete the main section you will need to:
• Determine an appropriate mathematical function to model the global production rate of plastics using the information provided in Section 5.1. You will write a function plastic production in your code which implements this model. Your function plastic production should take one input time in years since 1975 and return the global production rate of plastics in tonnes year−1 at that time.
• Determine an appropriate mathematical function to model the global rate at which plastics enter the marine environment using the information provided in Section 5.2 and clearly communicate the potential scale of this issue to patrons. You will write a function new_ocean_plastic in your code which implements this model. Your function new_ocean_plastic should take one input time in years since 1975 and return an estimate of the global rate at which plastics enter the marine environment in tonnes year−1 at that time.
• Inform the user how long it will take for the rate of plastics entering the marine environment to double from the present day value, based on your model.
• Communicate appropriately with patrons as informed by the main section of the flow chart in Figure 3.
• Include a description of how you approached this section of your code in your screen capture video (D2) including briefly how you developed your models and the overall code structure.
SCIE1000/SCIE1100 Python And Communication Assignment
To complete the advanced section you will need to:
• Use appropriate numerical techniques to estimate the accumulation of marine plastics by calculating the area under the curve of the model of the global rate of plastics entering the ocean.
You will write a function total_ocean_plastics in your code which implements this numerical integration algorithm. Your function total_ocean_plastics should take two inputs representing the start and end times given in years since 1975 of the interval over which accumulated plastic will be calculated and return an estimate of the total mass of plastics that have entered the marine environment in tonnes over this interval.
• Communicate appropriately with museum patrons as informed by the the advanced section of the flow chart in Figure 3. In communicating the potential scale of ocean plastic accumulation to patrons you should utilise conditionals to produce at least three simple comparisons for patrons to consider which depend on the magnitude of the output of the total_ocean_plastics calculation. Your comparisons should provide patrons with a clearer understanding of the scale of plastic accumulation using every day terminology references the general public will understand.
• Include a description of how you approached this section of your code in your screen capture video (D2) including how you developed your models.
7.Specifications for your submitted file
Specifications about the Python:
• Museum staff have supplied a flowchart describing how the program should run Figure 3 on Page 9. Your code must be an implementation of the flowchart provided.
• Your code must be well-structured and follow the guidelines for programming practice, as introduced in SCIE1000.
• When ever you prompt the user for information you may assume they enter a suitable number and you can store their answer as an integer or as a floating point number as appropriate. You do not need to check for incorrect inputs.
• You may only use Python commands introduced in SCIE1000. Recall that museum staff must be able to maintain and modify the code so you may only use commands that they understand. Museum staff have a beginners level of experience using Python which you may regard as the equivalent of a student who has taken SCIE1000. The Python commands you have covered in this course should be more than sufficient to complete the assignment.
SCIE1000/SCIE1100 Python And Communication Assignment
• Museum staff have identified several functions that they think will be useful in possible modifications and extensions of the code. You must define these functions in your code with the exact names specified in Section 6. You should use these functions in your code as appropriate. You may define other new functions as needed.
Specifications about the communication:
• All messages to the user, including prompts to enter data, should communicate in a manner appropriate for the level of patron and should serve the purpose of the program.
• You should write no more than a couple of sentences for each piece of information you explain to the user. Follow the principles for communication in science as described in Appendix B of the lecture book. Be precise clear and concise!
• You should use units appropriately in your communication with the user. Make sure you are aware of the units of values being passed into functions and the units of values being returned from functions.
• You should include useful and appropriate comments in your code to help the museum staff who may need to maintain and modify the code. Any variable names and function names you define should be chosen with communication in mind.
• Whenever you produce a graph you should provide appropriate labels and accompanying explanatory text.
• Your screen capture video should provide a clear overview of how your code works and why you made the choices you did. This does not replace excellent commenting in the code.
• To reference sources other than those cited in this task sheet you should include a bibliography as comments at the end of your code to show the museum staff maintaining the code where you obtained any relevant information you used Any referencing style is fine.
File type and file name:
• Your assignment (D1) should be saved as a .py file called Plastic Oceans. py with the string replaced by your student number.
• Your screen capture audio/video file (D2) should be saved as Explanation.mp 4 with the string replaced by your student number.
• It is your responsibility to ensure that the file types are correct.
Figure 3: Flowchart for the interactive program (shaded section indicates the advanced section).
SCIE1000/SCIE1100 Python And Communication Assignment
Python and Communication Assignment Grading Criteria
Your marks for the Python and Communication sections of the assignment (each on a 1–7 scale) are calculated by combining the mark that best matches your answers for the main section with the marks for the advanced section. Your overall mark will thus be up to a maximum of 14. The table below shows the criteria for each grade.
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