Happy stories from wrapping up this semester as a #NewPI :
Students in #wildlife pops this semester wrote short papers (4.5 - 5 pgs) about how #research has benefited the #conservation & or management of species of wildlife. (Thanks for the suggestion @BBQ_Ecologist !)
Students wrote their own papers & peer-reviewed another student's paper. I then graded the final papers.
Everyone was evaluated as an author and as an editor.
We took class time to discuss how to both give & receive/handle constructive criticism. (amazon.com/Writing-Withou…)
When they turned in their final #wildlife papers, students also submitted a short reflection on their experience with the peer-review process. Here's one of the better reflections:
I'll tweak aspects of this assignment in the future, but I'm pleased with the first implementation!
If anyone has done something similar with #writing in #STEM fields, or has suggestions for improvements, I'm happy to 👂
🏙️#Sex biases in the individuals studied in the lab & field. Why is it more often males of a species? What data are we missing because of that bias? 🤔
(Prompted by: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…)
3/4
Any recommendations for ways to collect data about color & pattern from images of #wildlife? We want to quantify things like %cover by a color & intensity.
Have enjoyed reading some of the work by Davis & Grayson on quantifying #color, hue, % coverage in #newts and other animals.
They used Fovea Pro, a Photoshop add in. The newer version (QIA-64) costs ~$800 😬
Am also considering the methods of Paterson & Blouin-Demers where they quantify continuous variation in throat color in #lizards using Adobe & ultimately analysis in #imageJ (but haven't had time to test it out yet)