Behavioral Ecology Project:
I am offering you an opportunity to take the time to look closely at the natural world, something rarely performed in post-industrial American life. I expect you to choose a species of animal, and, over the next couple of months, closely watch what it does. In essence, I am asking you to turn off the Discovery Channel and look directly at a piece of your own backyard. Of course, this exercise will be much more worthwhile if you have a biological context for your observations. To provide this context, you will need to go to the scientific literature to find out what other folks have observed in your animal, and then attempt to understand how these researchers have interpreted the results of their observations. Your text will help you with some general background in doing your analysis. One essential task for you will be to explain the similarities and differences between your observations and those of others. Another essential task will be for you to identify a specific research question concerning your animal's behavior, develop a hypothesis about the behavior, and to design and carry out an experiment to test your hypothesis.
