When beginning this course I knew I wanted to research something in my own yard, as I am a full time working mom and student, with limited time to travel to another location.
I originally thought how easy it would be to study plants, as I am Horticulturalist but as soon as I was able to start conducting research summer turned to fall. I turned my focus towards studying the House Sparrows that seems to frequent my yard. As I continued to observe, I noticed a pattern of them specifically choosing to land on specific plants in my perennial garden. My original hypothesis of plant density influencing the presence of the house sparrow seemed to work for the study. My predictions were correct and the data I collected justified that.
I under-anticipated the amount of time I would need to conduct this study, as well as the amount of time it took me to collect initial data by setting up quadrats and recording plant material to identify the most to least dense quadrats. This all had to be done before conducting my point count stations, to justify my predictions.
Engaging in the practice of ecology has increased my appreciation for the experts in the field conducting studies and writing papers, for us to better understand the world around us.
I thoroughly enjoyed conducting this study while I navigated through this course.