User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I really struggled with this course overall. I had a difficult time creating a hypothesis. I had a hard time making sure that my hypothesis and study was even tangentially related to ecology as I have absolutely no background in ecology at all. I was challenged to trust my results as I felt that it would take a much longer study period to really and truly make valid conclusions. The main issue that came up with implementing my field study was being available during the same time period every day. There were a few days that were missed due to work schedule changes that had me travelling out of the city or my parents forcing me to attend Thanksgiving dinner. I was lucky in that I was able to recruit an assistant (my husband who is contractually obligated to help me out, as stated in our vows) to attend a few days for me while I was away at a conference for 5 days. Overall, were I to attempt this study again, I would like to set up a remote monitoring system that would allow for 24 hour tracking for a full year to really gather a full sense of the variables that affect the populations of the park. I have so much appreciation for anyone who practices ecology as their knowledge and commitment far exceeds my own.
