Manatee Health and Conservation is an online course designed to introduce students at the graduate and undergraduate level to the natural history, anatomy, physiology, behavior, conservation and health issues of manatees. Graduate students will practice scientific writing skills with a term paper requirement.
Course Objectives
The class will focus to a large extent on lectures, a significant amount of reading from book chapters and primary scientific literature, and discussion to establish a baseline of information on manatees. You are expected to leave this course having a working knowledge of the manatee topics listed in the above goals, but also having been exposed to the current experts in these fields.
Students will be expected to review the reading material and the MediaSite lectures, then complete the module quiz and related homework assignments. The quizzes are designed to assess your assimilation of the lecture and reading material, may be taken 3 times before the due date, are open book, and the highest score will count towards your grade. Students will have 3 exams throughout the course, the last exam will not be cumulative.
Elluminate sessions will be provided at regular intervals throughout the semester as an opportunity to ask questions in real time and have discussions with some of the experts involved in the course. While preferred, it will NOT be required for students to attend the real time session, but students WILL be asked to provide questions through the discussion board. Questions will be answered during the sessions, which will be taped, allowing access through a link to be viewed at the student’s convenience.
