Experimentation is the foundation of science and an important process for students to understand and experience. However, it can be difficult to teach some aspects of experimentation within the time and resource constraints of an academic semester. Interactive models can be a useful tool in bridging this gap. This freely accessible simulation…

This paper presents a new mobile software tool, PhotoMAT (Photo Management and Analysis Tool), and students' experiences with this tool within a scaffolded curricular unit--Neighborhood Safari. PhotoMAT was designed to support learners' investigations of backyard animal behavior and works with image sets obtained using fixed-position field cameras…

Emerging evidence suggests that nicotine may enhance short-term memory. Some of this evidence comes from nonhuman primate research using a procedure called delayed matching-to-sample, wherein the monkey is trained to select a comparison stimulus that matches some physical property of a previously presented sample stimulus. Delays between sample…

We developed an exercise for a university-level ecology class that teaches hypothesis testing by examining acorn preferences and caching behavior of tree squirrels (Sciurus spp.). This exercise is easily modified to teach concepts of behavioral ecology for earlier grades, particularly high school, and provides students with a theoretical basis for…

This bioacoustics activity combines concepts in invertebrate taxonomy, animal communication, and acoustical physics while providing a unique opportunity for physics and biology teachers to collaborate and introduce their students to an exciting, interdisciplinary research field. Here, we propose a lab-and field-based activity that uses hydrophones…

This article highlights a core lesson that has been used in a number of Lincoln Park Zoo educational programs. The lesson teaches students to conduct an ethological, or animal behavior, study on a bird. This study can be implemented in a variety of outdoor settings, including a park, schoolyard, or zoo. Using an ethogram, students will practice…

This is a set of animal behavior investigations in which students will practice scientific inquiry as they observe crayfish, ask questions, and discuss territoriality, social interactions, and other behaviors. In doing this, they hone their skills of observation, learn to record and analyze data, control for variables, write hypotheses, make…

This experiment compared descriptions of concurrent choice by the stay/switch model, which says choice is a function of the reinforcers obtained for staying at and for switching from each alternative, and the generalized matching law, which says choice is a function of the total reinforcers obtained at each alternative. For the stay/switch model…

The notion of a system adapting itself to provide support for learning has always been an important issue of research for technology-enabled learning. One approach to provide adaptivity is to use social navigation approaches and techniques which involve analysing data of what was previously selected by a cluster of users or what worked for…

Zentall and Singer (2007a) hypothesized that our failure to replicate the work-ethic effect in pigeons (Vasconcelos, Urcuioli, & Lionello-DeNolf, 2007) was due to insufficient overtraining following acquisition of the high- and low-effort discriminations. We tested this hypothesis using the original work-ethic procedure (Experiment 1) and one…

This article seeks to contribute to the idea of "posthumanist education" by unfolding an educational situation where an assemblage of two humans and 33 former battery hens is gathered to carry out a so-called cognitive bias experiment for two days. A Deleuzian repertoire is set in motion to configure the dynamics of hens intervening in…

Attempts to evaluate the hypothesis that rats are more hesitant to ingest novel-flavored substances while they are under the influence of a toxic agent than in the normal state. (Author/RK)

This research used tasks analogous to Delayed Matching-to-Sample tasks to study pigeons' Short Term Memory for responses and reinforcers, as well as for more conventional stimuli. The broad question is whether stimulus, response, and reinforcer memories are all influenced in the same way by the same independent variables. (Author/RK)

Investigates memory capacity in rats for information about spatial location and provides information about some of the characteristics of the storage process used in this memory. (Author/RK)

The ventral eye of "Limulus" (horseshoe crab) contains only one type of photoreceptor. Behaviors mediated by the ventral eye provide an unambiguous representation of the function of that single-receptor type. Compares such behaviors with results of acute, single-cell investigations to assay for the contributions of candidate neural codes in the…