BIO240 Zoo research

The purpose of this assignment is for you to connect with real-world scientific research and reflect on that experience.

To give you an idea of effort spent for full credit on this assignment, the work I expect you to do reading, searching and/or on a task is 1-2 hours and the written answers should total at least a paragraph but less than a page. There is a rubric for you in Canvas as well.

CONSERVATION QUESTIONS: PAPER ABSTRACT

Visit the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research https://science.sandiegozoo.org/ web site and find a conservation project that interests you. Based on the information about the project, select a species and a behavior/characteristic that is interesting to you and come up with a research question about the organism that you are curious about. It doesn’t have to be based on Zoo research, but often it is easier to get started by looking at some examples. If you have another question in mind, go ahead and use that one.

1. What is your organism?
2. What is your research question?
3. Now go to Google Scholar at https://scholar.google.com (Links to an external site.) and search for research articles that relate to your topic. Pick one paper that best relates to your question. Copy and paste the citation and abstract from the journal web site and paste it into Canvas. Make sure the paper is related directly to your question. (You may need to slightly change your question to match a paper you find, go ahead and do that if you need to!)
4. What did the paper conclude? Summarize the abstract in your own words in a sentence or two. How does it answer your question?

Return to the Discussion next week and respond to at least one other student post by any one of these:

A) Ask a BIO240 level question, such as something about the biology of the organism or the results of the paper

B) Comment on the relationship of the stated research question to the topic and results of the paper (do they match?)

C) Provide any additional information (BIO240 level) that you know (or looked up because you were curious) about the organism that relates to the topic