Exploring Animal Behavior in Laboratory and Field: An Hypothesis-Testing Approach to the Development

Exploring Animal Behavior in Laboratory and Field is designed to provide a variety of exercises that engage students actively in all phases of scientific investigation, from formulating research questions through interpreting and presenting final results. It attempts to share the collective teaching expertise and experience of members of the Animal Behavior Society with all who are willing to benefit from their wisdom. Four types of exercises are presented: (1) traditional exercises in which students follow a pre-determined protocol to test particular hypotheses explicitly stated in the exercise, (2) traditional exercises that can easily be adapted to inquiry-based approaches, (3) combined pedagogy exercises that involve both traditional and inquiry approaches, and (4) inquiry exercises in which students first brainstorm to generate their own hypotheses, then design their own experiements to test their hypotheses.