Background Bullet Points
Design Project Background Bullet Points. Due Sept. 13.
Assemble your background info to begin your analysis (below).
Use the library and the Web to find general information about your animal. Get help from us and/or the librarians. Look through the Design 1 assignment (posted later today) and gather all necessary information to start your analysis. This report will be about your animalʻs metabolism and heat balance, which you will present in a talk and write up a short paper.
Instead of an introduction, I want you to bullet-point the key background elements and end with a statement of purpose. You will want to cover relevant questions such as:
- What kind of animal was it? What did it look like? (Please draw the figures yourself, it is part of the learning process).
- Its position in the tree of life.
- Include any info that you find particularly interesting about the animal.
- Where/when did it live? What did its world look like at the time?
- General environment (think metabolism and heat balance, so climate, humidity, range of ambient temperatures, habitat, etc.)
- What other sorts of animals and plants lived at the same time?
- Was it an active animal? How did it obtain food? Did it seek cover for shade or hiding places from predators (think how it might impact heat balance and activity)?
For the sake of completeness, please organize your info into categories such as
- general morphology and physical description,
- phylogeny and closest living relatives,
- time period and range,
- habitat, climate, and thermal biology,
- lifestyle and behavior (such as foraging mode, locomotor strategy, social behavior, etc.)
Eventually when you write the intro, you will want to foreshadow (i.e., hint at) any potential challenges with regard to heat balance (or maybe life was easy in every situation)?
Start with your Library Books, but continue the search using journal articles, online reviews, and books borrowed through interlibrary loan. [Library Day]