Typically 6-9 meeting are required for a project, depending on project complexity and goals.  Meetings are often scheduled every other week and can be used to create a full semester class.  

This instructor only takes 2-3 mentoring students during the spring and fall semesters.  Please inquire about availability for this class by emailing info@fieldbiologyclass.com

This class is for self-motivated students interested in conducting college-level field biology research. The semester-long course Ornithologist in Training: Avian Field Research and Scientific Writing is a prerequisite for this course. 

During this class, students will work one-on-one with an experienced field ecologist to design, conduct, and communicate a unique field biology research project. Students might investigate patterns in bird species richness, insect foraging behavior, plant cover, and more. The list of possibilities is only limited by your curiosity and interests. 

Students may choose focus on communicating their results through a professional poster, oral presentation, and/or scientific paper. After the initial meeting and discussion about research interests and goals, the instructor will design a unique syllabus for each student, including the proposed class meeting sequence and schedule. Any syllabus or schedule modifications will be approved by both the instructor and the student/parent before implementation.

During each meeting, the instructor will collaborate with the student on the planned meeting content and then will identify homework assignments to be completed before the next meeting. A meeting summary with clearly communicated homework expectations and due dates will be provided to both the student and parent after each meeting. In addition to the 40-minute meeting, the class price also includes individual written feedback on homework assignments before the next meeting, as well as question support. Students should plan to spend about 2-3 hours weekly on this class.  

Meeting sequence example:

Actual topics and schedules vary with each student project

Meeting 1: Design Your Research Project:  

During this meeting students will:

• Identify research interests
• Decide on a research question
• Form a hypothesis and identify independent and dependent variables
• Begin writing a procedure to test the hypothesis

Homework: Write methods section and begin background literature research for project

Meeting 2: Firm up Research Project Methods:

During this meeting students will:

• Finish research project design (including locating study sites, as needed)
• Finish research project protocol 
• Discuss background literature and biological context and biological rationale
• Design a data sheet to use to gather data 

Homework: Write the introduction section and being gathering data

Meeting 3: Data Collection Check-in

During this meeting students will:

• Discuss data collection progress
• Troubleshoot any data collection challenges
• Begin organizing data for analysis
• Discuss data analysis methods

Homework: Finish collecting data and begin data analysis

Meeting 4: Understand and Display Your Data

During this meeting students will:

• Organize data for analysis
• Analyze their data   
• Display data in graphs and tables with appropriate axis labels, titles, and/or captions. 

Homework: Finish analysis and write the results section 

Meeting 5: Interpret Your Data

During this meeting students will:

• Interpret the data to determine if it does or does not support the hypothesis
• Draw conclusions about the data and how it fits into what is already known in scientific literature
• Brainstorm future research ideas
• Brainstorm the broader implications of the study
• Discuss title options

Homework: Write the discussion section and revise and submit the entire scientific paper 

Meeting 6: Scientific Paper Feedback

During this meeting students will:

• Discuss the written feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the scientific paper.  
• Identify concrete ways to improve the scientific paper
• Discuss Research next steps

Homework: Submit final scientific paper for final round of feedback

Note: This class is hosted independently using Google Classroom and Google Meet. Students must have a Google email to enroll.