Each year Mr. Packard’s AP Biology class works together to better the world’s largest, most accessible encyclopedia – Wikipedia – by contributing images to augment articles on science. The collective goal is to contribute excellent biology diagrams to the Wikimedia Commons and to corresponding Wikipedia articles.

“I think having them be able to make a real world contribution on such a widely used website is a meaningful opportunity for our students.” says Mr. Packard, of the project.

Students have three weeks to complete their projects, working on them solo, and including labels and captions for their images, as well as submit a summary on why the student has selected his or her topic.

Mr. Packard views this approach to constructing a scientific document as far more authentic and interesting than a traditional exam.

Says Packard, “Rather than researching for a paper that is destined for the teacher’s eyes and then a one way trip to the circular bin, we contribute to the world-wide data base for others to benefit.”

Below are links to the project pages for the years the classes have done the Wikipedia Science Image Final Exam Project. Most of the images are currently in use in one or more Wikipedia articles. One of the 2013 images has already been translated and used in a Wikipedia article from another language (Hebrew). As of this post, the images from these projects have been translated and put to use in 19 different foreign languages (including Chinese, French, Russian, and Japanese).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AP_Biology_Bapst_2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AP_Biology_Bapst_2012