Enhanced onsite learning for animal behaviour students at Fota Wildlife Park

About this initiative

Biasutti (2015) noted that removing third-level environmental-learners from the traditional classroom and immersing them with their peers in a learner-centred natural environment, produced higher quality learning and environmental awareness by allowing students to focus on activities and develop their own ideas. Previous research at Fota Wildlife Park with younger students also found that longer educational experiences led to enhanced and longer-lasting learning compared to a one-day educational activity (Collins et al., 2020). ZY3020 Animal Behaviour is a School of BEES module for third year zoology/ecology as well as visiting students. The goal of the module is to illustrate a range of behaviours in invertebrates and vertebrates and to explore a number of concepts in animal behaviour, including recording and measuring behaviour with one 6-hour practical at Fota Wildlife Park (FWP). The main objective was to pivot from the typical classroom experience of lectures and tutorials in UCC to an immersive learning experience at FWP, giving students more time at Fota to gain research experience, over a 5 week period, than a single field day there, as well as greater integration of the data handling workshops. Staff of the main stakeholder, FWP, were invited to attend the sessions.