BIOEE 2640

Tropical Field Ornithology

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

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).

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

Course Attribute (CU-ITL)

Comments Multi-semester course, students must complete BIOEE 2640, BIOEE 2641, and BIOEE 2642 for a final grade.

• Find, read, and interpret literature relevant for the course.
• Understand and explain what observed bird behavior means (foraging, aggressive, territorial, reproductive,...) and place it in the relevant ecological context.
• Ask critical questions about scientific papers, discuss them and summarize main findings.
• Observe animal behavior in the field and record observations (find and identify observed birds, place them in the proper taxonomic group; describe observations supported with field sketches).
• Design field observations and experiments required to test hypotheses and carry out the necessary field work.
• Analyze and interpret the observations in collaboration with peers, explain and defend interpretations and conclusions.
• 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 hypotheses.
• Write up results in the format of a scientific publication.

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