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BIOLO 1110: Building a Green City

Ecoregion and Ecosystem Research

Get started by learning everything you can about your chosen ecosystem/ecoregion.  What are its characteristics?  What challenges does it face?  How will climate change impact any of the answers you get above? 

Start by looking at your textbook. and then check out the following sources to see what you can find: 

Not finding what you need?  You can also search the catalog or Google for Ecological Regions and the continent that you're working on.  (For example, ecological regions and Africa)

If you're using websites, make sure you have evaluated them for currency, accuracy, and bias: see the box below. 

Design Your City: Research Subtopics

As you start to design your sustainable city, think about the different topics you are asked to address, and start to search for information specific to your ecoregion.  Starting places for your topics include: 

 

  • Find native plants suggested by zip code (US only.)
  • US Department of Energy: SLED (Stats and Local Energy Data) provides detailed information about energy usage, talks about buildings and efficiencies, renewable power, transportation, etc. Look up data by city or state
  • Google Maps will show you a good physical layout of your area, from greenspace to public transportation options to whatever else you might be able to imagine.
  • Data USA will provide  city or county-level data about demographics such as income, housing, and health. This database draws upon census data and was constructed by MIT.

There are also many books that address the different topics you're researching.  A sample of them include:

Keep looking

If these don't fit, try searching the catalog using the following keywords: 

  • Green cities
  • City planning -- Environmental aspects
  • Public Transit
  • Sustainability and cities
  • Sustainable urban development

Local Resources

Interested in resources to design a city in the Chicago Region?  Check out the following resources: 

Other Potential Information Sources

So, you've exhausted the sources above, and would like to look for more information?  Here are some other places to look: 

  • Adding site:.gov  to your Google searches will get you government results for your topic
  • Adding site:.edu to your Google searches will get you educational results for your topic (and many universities have good info about sustainability as well.)
  • If you do a general Google search on your topic, remember to evaluate the information you find. 

You can also search library databases for any of your topics specific to your ecoregion.  Try searching for your specific topic and region to limit the number of results.  For example. Chicago and architecture or United States and south and public transportation
 

Good starting places include: 

Using SIFT to Evaluate Websites

The SIFT strategy, designed by Mike Caulfield, is a good way to test the information you find to make sure it is accurate and authoritative.  SIFT involves the following steps: 

  • Stop!
  • Investigate the Source
  • Find Better Coverage
  • Trace claims, quotes, media to the original context

Stop

Before you read the information, ask yourself what you know about the topic (what information would you expect to see?) and the website that published it. What is the website’s mission? What type of information would you expect to see covered?   This step is especially important to follow when the headline, image, or lead sentences of an article provoke a strong emotional reaction.

Investigate the Source

Begin by asking if the individual author of your work is an expert in some way. This might include education, life experience, or in the case when the information you find does not have an individual author, looking at the group that takes responsibility for a website. (For example, the Environmental Protection Agency does not generally list individual authors of content on its pages, but given that experts in environmental sciences work there, the information found on its pages can be assumed to be reliable. See their page on clean energy programs as an example.)

If you cannot easily find information about your author on the source you’re using, search for more information using Google or another search engine. Most professional authors will have a website where they list their education, experience, and the focus of their work.

Find Better Coverage

If you are quoting something that might be questionable such as a website that might be biased, or one that doesn’t have a clearly labeled author or corporate author, or one that has information that might be out of date, look for the information you need in a trusted source such as a newspaper, scholarly article, government website, or other place where information is put together by trusted professionals?  If so, use that source instead. (If you’re ever hesitant about whether or not your information is too old, speak with your professor about the right date range for your topic.)

Trace claims, quotes, media to the original context

If the source you are evaluating has images, quotations, or claims from other sources, try to find them in their original context. You can follow a citation, search Google for recognizable text, or even right click on an image in order to search Google other places the image might be published. This will help you to determine if your original source is accurately representing the image, claim, or quotation, or if they are not providing truthful information.

Learn More

You can find more about SIFT as a technique for evaluating information on Caulfield's website.  You can also look at the COD Library's guide to evaluating information.

Cite

Want some more concrete help with citations? Try the following: 

Want to use software to create citations for you?  Check out Zotero. 

  • URL: https://library.cod.edu/biolo1110/greencity
  • Last Updated: Sep 25, 2025 8:46 AM
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