Handbook of Engaged Learning Projects

Sight and Sound in Nature

Collaboration

Information Sheet	Scoring Rubrics	Basic Research Qs
Internet Links	Collabor'n Ideas	Timeline

Ideas for Collaboration:

One of the objectives of the year-end project is to demonstrate the ability to cooperate/collaborate with others in order to sustain a challenging project which is sustained over a lengthy period of time. There are a number of means by which you and your group can demonstrate this ability to collaborate. The following are offered as suggestions.

1. Each Physics 163 project group will be given an e-mail account which will be active only for the duration of the project. This e-mail account is to be used exclusively for use on the year-end project. You and your group will be required to periodically send e-mail messages to other project groups who are engaged in the same study - the study of Sight and Sound in Nature. You will be asked to e-mail the other Physics 163 project groups on at least three occasions:
   1. After the first draft of the literature search. This e-mail should briefly describe your research interests, a brief citing of the sources which you have found most useful, and a question which you hope another Physic 163 student can answer.
   2. After the Technology Acquaintance Day. This e-mail should describe the purpose of your experiment (including dependent and independent variables) and list the equipment which you will be using to accomplish this purpose.
   3. After the last day of experimentation. This e-mail should describe the results of your experiment and describe your tentative plans for the presentation (e.g., how you will be organizing the presentation and what audio-visual or visual tools you will use).

2. Your e-mail account can be used to send and receive communications from scientists whose addresses you locate on the World Wide Web. Such correspondence should be intelligent, cordial, and respectful. When asking a question of a scientist, you should:
   1. be as specific as possible so that the scientist is able to respond succinctly and still answer your question.
   2. be respectful of the scientist's time, allowing her/him an opportunity to decline the return correspondence (e.g., "If your time does not allow you to respond to my question, then I would totally understand . . .").
   3. avoid asking questions which you could answer yourself by doing simple literature research.

3. Your e-mail account can be used to join the BIOACOUSTICS-L listserv. By subscribing to this listserv, your group's e-mail address will be added to a mailing list. You become a subscriber (or member) of an extensive network of scientists (or students or merely enthusiasts) who have an interest in bioacoustic topics. The BIOACOUSTICS-L listserv is "for discussion of any subject related to sound in the natural world, including animal communication, sonar, acoustic behavior, signal processing for bioacoustics, the impact of noise on animals, acoustic tracking, and any other topics that may come up." Subscribers of the listserv send e-mail to a central address and all members of the mailing list receive that e-mail. Subscribers can read the e-mail and subsequently respond. Typically, if a question is sent to listserv subscribers by e-mail, as many as five or ten other members might respond with an answer to the question. This is an excellent opportunity to correspond with scientists and professors whose expertise is in the field of bioacoustics. You may join the BIOACOUSTICS-L listserve by filling out a short form at http://www.ornith.cornell.edu/BRP/bioacousticsl.html.

4. There are several pages on the World Wide Web that invite students to ask a scientist. By e-mailing an intelligent question, you are likely to receive an intelligent answer. A few such addresses include:
   • Many Ask a Scientist/Math Opportunities http://njnie.dl.stevens-tech.edu/curriculum/aska/science.html
   • The Mad Scientist Network http://128.252.223.239/~ysp/MSN/

5. You may collaborate with a cooperating scientist through the Electronic Emissary Project at the University of Texas-Austin. With your permission, your teacher will apply for the project and (if available) you will be assigned a subject matter expert whose focus of professional study corresponds to your area of interest. You can subsequently ask questions and receive prompt answers. The Emissary Project does require that you send and receive at least three mail messages a week. This involves a strong commitment! Yet once you identify an area of interest, you will likely benefit greatly from such a commitment.

6. Our school has already registered our project with the Global School Network's Internet Project Registry. By registering with GSN, we have become listed as a school conducting research on the physics of such topics as sight, sound, acoustics, bioacoustics, animal vision, etc. Your group can search online to see if there are any other high school students conducting similar projects. If you are fortunate enough to find such a group of students, you are welcome to collaborate with them on your project. You may find that you can offer each other much assistance in finding information, sharing experimental data, and sharing successes and failures. It is definitely worth a try.

7. One final source of information which your project group should definitely not neglect are the local forest preserve rangers, the Botanical Gardens, the Shedd Aquarium, the local universities and colleges, and the local zoos. You may find that there are scientists at these locations who are conducting (or have conducted) professional research in the specific area of your interest. A simple phone call and inquiry may lead to some ongoing collaboration in your project. Who knows - perhaps you might even find yourself at the Shedd Aquarium on a Saturday afternoon, using available detectors to study the sounds of their beluga whales? Don't forget - the sky is the limit!

Information Sheet	Scoring Rubrics	Basic Research Qs
Internet Links	Collabor'n Ideas	Timeline

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