The major project is designed to guide you through the process of conducting ecological research. The main goals of the project are to:
Develop and revise a working hypothesis through detailed field observations
Design and implement a field experiment to collect data and test that hypothesis
Place your experiment into a larger theoretical context by evaluating your findings in light of existing peer-reviewed literature
Preparing a scientific report
The major project will span the length of the course, and you will have four main tasks to complete and document as you move through the stages.
Blog postsYou will create a series of blog posts documenting your efforts, including selecting and describing your study area, noticing interesting potential research subjects and patterns, formulating testable hypotheses and providing a theoretical context for your research.
Small Assignment SubmissionsYou will also have several small assignments related to your research project. These submissions will be evaluated and commented on. This will allow your Open Learning Faculty Member to assess your progress and give you feedback throughout the course of your research project. These submissions, each worth 3% of your final mark, include your initial field data, your research hypothesis and experimental design, an annotated bibliographic entry, your final field data, and a table or graph derived from your field data.
Annotated BibliographyYou will submit an annotated bibliography with at least 10 citations from the peer-reviewed literature, worth 10% of your final mark.
Final ProjectYou will prepare a final report of your project, worth 20% of your final mark. Your blog posts, and other submissions, will help you complete this final report.
Blog posts (5%)
To document your journey through your major project, you will use a weblog (blog). This space will allow you to post the different components of your study, and will allow you to comment on and share your ideas with your instructor and fellow learners in the course. To get a BIOL 3021 blog account you can email either Brian Lamb ( ) or Colin Madland ( ). You will be making posts to an open weblog site, so if you do not wish to use your own name, you can ask to use a pseudonym for your account. For detailed instructions on how to create your first post go to the course blog site and click on the Tutorials tab.
You will have nine blog assignments in seven of the modules (see timeline below and each module for the details). Each blog entry is worth 5 points (except for the multipart entry in Module 2, which is worth 10). Each entry will be evaluated using the following criteria.