This article discusses misconceptions about birds (and penguins in particular). It provides tools for formative assessment and ideas for teaching correct scientific concepts.

Emotions play a crucial role in our lives because they have important functions. This module describes those functions, dividing the discussion into three areas: the intrapersonal, the interpersonal, and the social and cultural functions of emotions. The section on the intrapersonal functions of emotion describes the roles that emotions play within each of us individually; the section on the interpersonal functions of emotion describes the meanings of emotions to our relationships with others; and the section on the social and cultural functions of emotion describes the roles and meanings that emotions have to the maintenance and effective functioning of our societies and cultures at large. All in all we will see that emotions are a crucially important aspect of our psychological composition, having meaning and function to each of us individually, to our relationships with others in groups, and to our societies as a whole.

People have a deep intuition about what has been called the “nature–nurture question.” Some aspects of our behavior feel as though they originate in our genetic makeup, while others feel like the result of our upbringing or our own hard work. The scientific field of behavior genetics attempts to study these differences empirically, either by examining similarities among family members with different degrees of genetic relatedness, or, more recently, by studying differences in the DNA of people with different behavioral traits. The scientific methods that have been developed are ingenious, but often inconclusive. Many of the difficulties encountered in the empirical science of behavior genetics turn out to be conceptual, and our intuitions about nature and nurture get more complicated the harder we think about them. In the end, it is an oversimplification to ask how “genetic” some particular behavior is. Genes and environments always combine to produce behavior, and the real science is in the discovery of how they combine for a given behavior.

Students will observe mealworms and earthworms and then make and record observations about their behavior. Students will differentiate between learned and instinctual/inherited behaviors by observing the worms' actions in a variety of scenarios.

This module provides a basic overview to the assessment of personality. It discusses objective personality tests (based on both self-report and informant ratings), projective and implicit tests, and behavioral/performance measures. It describes the basic features of each method, as well as reviewing the strengths, weaknesses, and overall validity of each approach.

Does your dog eat their dinner quickly? In this episode of Pet Detectives, learn about some new techniques for feeding your dog, similar to strategies we use for animals at the zoo, that might change the time your dog spends eating. Changing up the feeding routine can be a great way to improve your dog’s well-being and keep your dog engaged. Let us know which of the three techniques worked best for your dog.

We have created a helpful clip if you're unable to watch the full video:
1.L.1 Foraging enrichment/feeding strategies (30 sec): https://youtu.be/p1aRQQr96xE?t=27

Is your dog ready for telecommuting? Join us in our second episode of Pet Detectives to test how your dog perceives the virtual world. Try communicating with your dog remotely and share your results in the comments – did your dog recognize you on the small screen?

We have created a helpful clip if you're unable to watch the full video:
1.L.1 How dogs perceive the world around them (1.5 min): https://youtu.be/EvYyKk-DjLc?t=18

Visual representation of measurable bird behavior responses to an approaching human is shown in this chart.

We can test if a behavior is inherited or learned by taking some individuals born into one enviornment and raising them in a different environment and seeing what traits change and which ones stay the same.

Follow all procedures to develop a working model for the juncos behavior being learned or inherited. This lesson has several readings for guidance on protocol.

Exploratory behavior in juncos is inherited. Alleles that are or are not inherited can influence what substances are or are not produced by cells in any living creature. We think this might be what is causing differences in their behavior.

The relationship between a bird's Flight Inhibition Distance and exploratory behavior will be discussed.

Consider what Flight Initiation Distance and Exploratory Behavior actually mean for the birds in the two populations.

In stressful situations the amount of stress hormone in the blood stream is different for juncos from these different populations. This is correlated to the amount of exploratory behavior they engage in. The variation in this physiological mechanism is heritable, which leads to variation in behavior between juncos.

Novel or changing environments expose animals to diverse stressors that likely require coordinated hormonal and behavioral adaptations.