Talk:Central Park
From Science and Technology: Baruch IDC 3002H
Hello Central Park group,
You have a good start with your citations and pictures, although note that one of your citations was duplicated in the list!
In general, it seems that you have an excellent number of sources on the ecology of Central Park, and I have no doubts that you can include a lot of interesting information on the wiki and your poster. Let me know if you want to borrow the Mannahatta book and make some copies of relevant material (also check out the website).
In terms of the environmental history aspect of the project, you have a few good sources. I will want to see good information, including figures and maps, of the location of Seneca village and other features of the area before Central park was created. Your project is a bit challenging in that the history of the Park is so well documented. You will probably want to tell us something about Central Park before its existence, shortly after its creation, and today, in terms of both ecology and human use.
Your pictures are fine, although as with the other groups you will want to have photos / videos of areas as they are today that you can compare with materials from the past.
On both the wiki and the poster, we will want to see your photos and information from the trapping. I will leave it up to you as to how you want to combine the env. history with the trapping on your poster, but would suggest that you focus on the ecological history of Central Park and have just a small section (with lots of pictures!) on the trapping that you did. You should work on finding some information on white-footed mice and why it might be important that they continue to exist in Manhattan.
Regards, Jason
Hi Central Park group,
I am going to make some brief comments here before our conference tomorrow.
Your present-day and trapping pictures need to be integrated in to the wiki! Don't just stick them all at the top with no discussion!
The introduction sounds a bit like a commercial! Maybe revise to summarize what your wiki will be about.
Make sure that you have citations for any images that you use, i.e. the British Headquarters Map from the Mannahatta project!
The "early history" section is OK, but there needs to be more specific information on what was going on in the area that became Central Park. The Seneca Village section in particular needs to be expanded quite a bit, as it was one of the features that I highlighted when I assigned you Central Park! Again, you need a citation for the Seneca Village map.
The "Park's Creation" section is pretty good, but there need to be some paragraph breaks! The one block of text is too long to read comfortably. There also need to be citations supporting what you have written. It may not be a good idea to rely on a single source...
There is a map in this section. When / where is it from?
You briefly mention the huge amounts of soil and plants that were brought in to construct the park. Where did these come from, and what are some potential ecological implications of their origins?
The "contemporary" section is fine, although the departure of Robert Moses was not the only issue in the decline of parks (Moses was also a potential enemy of parks given all of the parkways that he built!). Economic decline led to many of the problems you mention...
The "Ecology" section needs a lot of work. The species lists are fine, but what can you tell your readers about the structure of the woodlands (and where are the woodlands in the park!?), role of invasive species, importance for the bird migration, etc? You also mention nothing about the small mammal survey. At the end of this section you can create a narrative about the small mammal survey you ran in the North Woods. What does it mean that white-footed mice and rats are coexisting in the North Woods? It would also be a good idea to include some information on the destructive storms from this year, given that they had such an impact on the park woodlands.
IMPORTANT
It seems that many of the papers you cite as sources were not actually used in any of the wiki. Make sure you extract the important information from these scientific papers, i.e. what can you tell us about plants, heavy metail in soils, etc in Central Park? These sections could be supported by real science, and thus could be the strongest areas of the wiki.
