Projects
The final week of the course was focused on research projects that were designed, piloted, executed, and then written up as formal research papers entirely by students. In groups of 3-6, students were free to choose their own topics (within the constraints of the timeframe and resources at our disposal). Through feedback by Irby and Dustin, and a long development/pilot process, broad ideas where honed into focused research questions. The project topics and groups were as follows:
Horn length predicts outcomes of play-fights between male Impala
Marianne Moore, Michel Ohmer, Brynn McCleery
Response of harvester ants (Messor sp.) to increased food resources along traveled highways
Megan Blanchard, Kristen Crandall, Heather Cringan, Peter Sherman, Sharri Zamore
Non-random avian nest site preference in ant-inhabited Acacia drepanolobium
Tyler Davis, Evelyne Kuo, Bethan Lemley, Glenn Seeholzer, Ben Winger
Dung as an index of ungulate species diversity across a glad-to-woodland ecological gradient
Alon Mass, Ken Tseng, Ayhan Yoruk
The research process was not without its trials but it definitely gave students first-hand experience in the workings of actual field studies.