A paper from the STEM Annual Conference 2012.
This paper discusses the development and running of a residential animal behaviour field trip. The trip has a number of elements that challenge and develop the students. First this trip is open to students at levels two three and M. This allows us to engineer a certain amount of peer assisted learning. Second the students live together and have to cook and maintain the property. This leads to teamwork and sensible methods of dealing with disagreement. Third the academic work is curiosity led. We expose the students to a number of field sites and allow questions to naturally emerge. From these questions we can develop project hypotheses. Fourth the students develop appropriate methods for observation and analysis. Fifth theory is gradually introduced through discussion in the field the accommodation and at a drop in surgery at the tavern where they can talk one-to-one with a staff member. Finally when back at University they can engage in more formal supervision to complete their project. The benefits of this approach are many but include developing a sense of the scientific process which is lacking in the more prescriptive class-based assessments that typically form research methods teaching. Finally all of the students report feeling better prepared for future scientific project work.
