Course Project: Case Report

Due Mar 27 by 11:59pm                           Points 100                     Submitting a file upload

This assignment aims to give students experience applying behavioral principles to measure and analyze animal behavior and communicate their findings to both public and scientific audiences. Students will imagine they are a behavioral consultant for a client in the animal field and will be tasked with creating two deliverables. Students will be compiling a presentation aimed at a general audience, and a behavioral report aimed at a scientific audience, for an animal species of their choice.

The client could be an animal organization such as a zoological park, wildlife sanctuary, conservation organization, aquarium, or animal shelter. Because people at the organization may have varying levels of experience with animal behavior, the student is tasked with presenting their findings at two levels of expertise so that no matter how familiar or unfamiliar their client is with behavioral concepts they will be able to understand the findings.

The assignment will provide real-world skills, including: the ability to define, measure, and analyze behavior; how to communicate scientific concepts, in both oral and written form, to people of various backgrounds; and how to apply their findings to provide recommendations to help promote animal welfare. These topics will be content in the preceding weeks leading up to the course project so that students build off their minor assignments for their course project.

Guiding Scenario

You will be creating a scenario in which an animal organization is looking to increase the welfare of the animals in their care. To do this, the organization will be implementing various enrichment activities. However, they are unsure of what activities are most important. Before they begin this process, they hire you as a consultant. They would like you to provide a snapshot of the current behavior of one of their resident animals.

Your...