Animal Behaviour

AGR 355
Fall 2019
Behavior Project Guidelines

DUE DATES:
Outline: Saturday, October 26th at 11:59pm via Blackboard
Final Project: Saturday, November 23rd at 11:59pm via Blackboard

Overview of Assignment
For this assignment, students will observe a group of animals and detail the animals’ behavior. Here are the specifics:
Must be a group of at least 5 animals, preferably larger
Animals can be wild or domestic
Observe for at least 1 hour on three different occasions; each occasion should be a different day and time (try to pick days that are different in temperature, environment)
Observations should include:
Maternal behavior
Social behavior
Sexual behavior
Behavior at feeding/drinking
Communication between animals
Aggression and social structure
Behavior towards humans & behavior during human/animal interaction
The observed behavior could be with another person or with you
Take note of specific behaviors that you observe and try to count the number of occasions that you observe (ie. you observe mutual grooming and you count that it occurred eight times). On behaviors where you were able to count, please put in a table format and separate by occasion (see example below). Outside of counted behaviors, describe the behaviors that you observed and if they are or are not what you expect. I’m looking for a lot of details on what you observe and why you believe that you observed it. Also within your paper address differences in the three different occasions that you observed these animals. Address the environmental differences and how you believe they correlate to the behavioral changes. Students will write a paper with an introduction, body, and conclusion. See the rubric for a guide on what to include in each section. The paper should be a minimum of 3 full pages, double-spaced, 12 point font and 1 inch margins. A title page with your name, AGR 355, and animal observed should be included. The table should be placed at the end of the document. Both the title page and table do not count toward the three page minimum.

Behavior Occasion 1: 9/20 at 10am Occasion 2: 10/20 at 5pm Occasion 3: 11/20 at 7am Total
Mutual grooming 5 9 2 16
Flehman’s response 2 1 5 8
Butting heads 3 2 4 9

Name

AGR 355 – Fall 2019
Behavior Project
Grading Rubric

Outline (30 points)
Animal and location of observations
Planned occasions (dates & times)
Behaviors expected
Submitted by due date (10/26)
Paper (100 points)
Introduction
Who, what, when
Expected behaviors
Body
Behaviors observed
Human interaction
Differences in occurrences
Environment
Rationale for behaviors observed
Conclusion
Wrap-up
What you gained from the experience
Paper formatting (20 points)
Length
Grammar
Title page
Table
Total Points (out of 150)
Comments: