Science and Environmental Journalism

JOURN 415 teaches strategies for communicating science to the public, including explaining complex concepts, storytelling, and evaluating evidence.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Fall 2026 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 4

A historical review praises Deborah Blum's ability to teach through her professional experiences, noting significant improvement in student writing skills.

Grade history

average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

JOURN 335 or graduate/professional standing

  • take one
JOURN 415

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of

Professors

Fall 2026

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Historical reviews of Deborah Blum: Deborah Blum is described as a great professor whose personal experiences are highly educational. One reviewer noted that she significantly improved their writing skills more than other journalism professors combined.

DEBORAH BLUM is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2011, Fall 2013. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Fall 2026

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Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records

No records available.

Student experience

the class

A historical review praises Deborah Blum's ability to teach through her professional experiences, noting significant improvement in student writing skills.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2015: 3.00 GPA, 62.5% A/AB (n=8 letter grades); Spring 2024: 3.92 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=12 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.70 GPA, 80.0% A/AB (n=10 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Historical reviews of Deborah Blum: One student found the instruction highly effective for writing development, surpassing previous journalism professors.

Topics

  • Explaining difficult concepts and processes.
  • Storytelling techniques.
  • Evaluating scientific evidence.

Skills

  • Strategies for communicating science to the public.
  • Explaining difficult scientific concepts and processes.
  • Storytelling skills for science communication.
  • Judging scientific evidence.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Fall 2026.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Not enough comparable courses for Fall 2026 in UW–Madison.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records
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Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Model outputs & technical records
nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4
LLM outputs across runs
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Model & dataset provenance
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  "model": "nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4",
  "model_revision": "1355db6a052410cfd62085d94b58866fd0f2c3c5",
  "task_version": "14",
  "output_id": "b57fc799b9d90708711c37e17b6825502d05ec0e1b422da8d113e61b6f1e3e44",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00"
}