BIOEE 2640

Tropical Field Ornithology

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2019-2020.

Provides students with the opportunity to study birds intensively in a neotropical environment. Students learn observational and field techniques, formulate and participate in group research projects.

When Offered Multi-semester course, Fall (weeks 8-14).

Permission Note Primarily for: students with limited or no bird knowledge.

Course Attribute (CU-ITL)

Comments Students must enroll in BIOEE 2640, BIOEE 2641 and BIOEE 2642 to receive a final grade.

• Students will learn to find literature, read and interpret literature relevant for the course.
• Students will be able to understand and explain what observed bird behavior means (foraging, aggressive, territorial, reproductive,...) and place it in the relevant ecological context.
• Students will be able to ask critical questions about scientific papers, discuss them and summarize their main findings.
• Students will learn how to observe animal behavior in the field and how to record their observations (find and identify observed birds, place them in the proper taxonomic group; describe their observations supported with field sketches).
• Students will design field observations and experiments required to test hypotheses and carry out the necessary field work.
• Students will be able to analyze and interpret the observations in collaboration with peers, explain and defend their interpretations and conclusions.
• Students will learn to extract information to formulate research hypotheses and develop an observation protocol to carry out the fieldwork in order to collect critical data (observations, experiments) to test their hypotheses.
• Students will be able to write up their results in the format of a scientific publication.

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