In this activity, students will play the role of a field biologist quantifying and explaining animal behavior using the scientific method (observation – hypothesis – prediction – test). Powerpoint slides contain a series of photos of scavengers at deer carcasses. Students will form hypotheses about the behavioral interactions in the photos, then make predictions that could be used to test their...

Publisher: EcoEd Digital Library

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Estimating the population size of animals is an important task for wildlife biologists, who can use the data to assess the health of a population. It requires diligent observation skills coupled with the ability to use empirical models that effectively determine the number of animals based on field surveys. The most common method for estimating the population size of animals is mark and recapture....

Publisher: EcoEd Digital Library

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Students use their ecological knowledge of soil processes, energy, water systems, and human interactions to compare the environmental impact of food production. Each group of 3-4 students develop life cycle analyses (LCA) for a single crop grown under different scenarios. As individuals, students are responsible for developing two LCA for that crop, and then together in their groups, they compile...

Publisher: EcoEd Digital Library

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Using tiles from a Scrabble game, we present methods to create simulations of sampling exercises and to develop diversity indices. The tiles represent species, and so a known sampling universe (100 tiles) allows comparing a sample with the known distribution of species. We then offer several variations to simulate different kinds of sampling (larger sample size, more samples), alter the rarity...

Publisher: EcoEd Digital Library

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