Week 3 Briefing: Foreign aid
Separating what the mother-tree carbon-sharing experiments measured from what the popular retelling added to it.
Rajarshi Rit · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Case file 03
Case file 03- Date
- 8 March 2027
- Metaphor
- Foreign aid — resources moved to a needy party without an immediate return
- Phenomenon
- Carbon transfer between connected plants through a shared mycorrhizal network, and the popular 'mother tree' account of that transfer
Before the session#
Read the assigned excerpt on Douglas-fir/paper birch carbon transfer and one piece of the critical response it later drew. Note every sentence in either piece that claims more than the data in it supports.
In the session#
Draw a line down the middle of the board: measured claim on one side, popular addition on the other. Every phrase you brought goes on one side or the other, out loud, with a reason.
Afterwards#
This week is the sharpest test yet of the credentials rule from week 1. If “aid” survives the line-drawing exercise, say exactly what work it is still doing once the overclaiming is removed.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
- you can name the two tree species most associated with the mother-tree carbon-sharing story
- you can state, separately, what the original experiments showed and what the popular retelling adds to it
Teaching team
- Tobias Lindqvist — tutor