PROJECT

• Biggest tip to success: TURN IN EACH ASSIGNMENT EARLY.
  • WHY? Because I will give you feedback (if turned in at least one week early), and then you can modify the assignment and resubmit it before the due date for a higher score potentially. Get it in early enough and you should get 100%.
  • Also, because NO EXCUSES ACCEPTED FOR LATE WORK.
• Second big tip: FOLLOW DIRECTIONS PRECISELY.
  • Follow the format and sample exactly for the proposal and report (see links above).
• Let's get you started doing science:
  • First step: Ask a Research Question
  • Second step: Write a Proposal
  • Third step: Collect and Analyze Data
  • Fourth step: Write a Report

OBJECTIVES: For you to practice science through conducting a hands-on, scientific investigation. For you to gain further experience and confidence in your ability to do science and to critically think. For you to gain experience in writing a scientific report.

BACKGROUND: Many factors affect where plants and animals occur and in what abundance. You likely will study either plants or birds (because they are animals that are relatively easy to see and identify) and collect data on their abundance and species richness in locations that differ in one or more factors (e.g., elevation). After you have collected, summarized, displayed, and analyzed your data, you will use your natural history knowledge from the class and your readings to come up with possible explanations (hypotheses) for your results. I hope you enjoy the opportunity to spend some time outside, focusing on either plants or birds, and practicing what you are learning in class.

RESEARCH QUESTION: Submit a research question by email based on one of the topics from those listed below or another topic of interest to you. In other words, you can use one of the questions below or you can come up with your own.

PROPOSAL: Submit a Proposal by email containing an informative title, your name, your research question, your hypotheses, your proposed methods (see suggested methods), and sample table(s)/graph(s) that you will produce once you have collected your data (see Project Proposal Format and Sample Proposal). Please note that you should not begin data collection until you have received feedback on your proposal from me (otherwise, you risk having to collect the data again if I ask you to change something in your methods). Also, please aim for about 8 hours of data collection.

REPORT: Submit a Report by email of approximately 3-5 pages that includes the following headings: Research Question, Hypotheses, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Annotated Bibliography (see Project Paper Format and Sample Report) as well as your Title and Name. The report must include at least 2 literature citations.

REVISED REPORT: Much is learned through revision, and this option provides an opportunity for those who submitted the Report to improve their grade by submitting a Revised Report by email based on my feedback. Points lost on Report for being late cannot be recovered (you can only earn points based on revisions). (Points awarded = 75% of difference between grades received on revision and report)

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