Group Project

BEHAVIOR OBSERVATION PROJECT AND FINAL REPORT

1. select a topic for study on the group of Cotton Top Tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) at the Potawatomi Zoo (in South Bend) (topic list to be distributed by Prof. Fuentes during week 2 of classes
2. conduct background literature review on that species (minimum 8 sources)
3. pose a hypothesis to be tested with behavioral activity data
4. spend at least 2 hours as a group reaching an inter-observer reliability of 85% on the focal species
5. collect no less than 4 hours per group member of behavioral activity data (no less than 20 hours minimum per group, >25 preferred) from the focal species at the Potawatomi Zoo
6. analyze the data appropriately and present (as a group) a ~12 minute overview of the focal species, your study and its results (in class, using PowerPoint).  The powerpoint presentation will be submitted on disk or cd to Prof. Fuentes after the in-class presentation.
   

Each group member will:

1. be responsible for finding at least 2 bibliographic sources (noted by student names in the final group presentation)
2. collect at least 4 hours of data
3. participate in the analysis of the data and the discussion of its meaning
4. submit an individually written, brief (~5 pages double-spaced text, not including bibliography and any charts/graphs/tables), report on the project, including: introduction to the species, introduction to the hypothesis and why that hypothesis was chosen, a summary of the methodology, the data (in tabular and/or graphical form), and a discussion of the data and the overall study. 
   
   
   The 75 points for the assignment are divided as follows:
   
       25 points- achieving effective data collection and background research
       25 points- group project presentation
       25 points- individual report