General Information
Professors: Maguil Céspedes MSc y Alejandro A. Valerio PhD
Participant Institutions: CIBRC
Duration: 2 weeks
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The Field Ecology course is an advance course for students in related careers to the biological sciences. The course has the objective to train young professionals in the planning, design and implementation of projects in ecology in the field. To accomplish this, the course has a set of theoretical classes about experimental design, statistical analysis, sampling techniques, etc.
The classes are supported with short term research projects in the field, which will implement the knowledge acquired by the students during the lectures to solve the problems presented to them. The course also has as series of lectures about different aspects of tropical ecology.
At the end of the course every student has to design and implement a sort term research project to graduate. In parallel, the students are introduced to statistic software which can be used during the short-term projects during the course.
This course offers a great opportunity to immerse the students in a critical oriented discussion environment about ecological related topics as well as an incredible opportunity to exchange professional experiences with people from other countries. Because of the mentioned characteristics of this course the student should be prepare to work until late hours at night (indoors and out doors) to collect, analyze or write reports about the projects.
Objectives
At the end of the course the student will be capable of :
* Debate and understand about sampling techniques commonly use in the field of ecology
* Generate data to answer specific questions in ecology
* Rigorously analyze scientific data using statistical scientific standards
* Use correctly the commonly used equipment use in filed ecolological research
* To develop, plan and perform ecological projects in the field
REQUIREMENTS
* Basic knowledge of English.
* Bachelor degree in biology or related field of studies.
* Resent transcript of courses approbed for the obtained bachelor degree.
ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES
Seminars
At night a series of short talks about different topics in ecology will be imparted. These talks will focus in analytical techniques as well as different methodologies use in the field of ecology.
Lectures
As supplementary course materials a series of articles in ecology will be required prior to the talks to increase the interactions with the speakers as well as deepens the knowledge of the students about the discussed topics.
Field experiments and projects During the course a series of short term projects under supervision of the professors in charge will be undertaken inthe filed. During these short term projects the students will have to deal with problems that will required the students to implement the skills and knowledge acquired during the course. |
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Individual projects
Each student will be required to plan and execute his/her own sort-term project using the knowledge acquired during the course. To implement this project a draft of it will be presented to the other students for discussion and feed back. Finally, at the end of the project the student will present his/her results and conclusions as well as a written inform as a scientific article for the class.