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Predator Module 1

Dogs & People Workbook

Predator Module 2

Wolf Family Workbook

Predator Module 3

Wolf & Prey Workbook

Predator Sources for Students

Predator Sources for Teachers

Acknowledgements

Download Entire Curriculum for Predator

Download Dropbox and e-mail Dr. Packard to gain access to additional course materials

Predator Module 1

Dogs & People Partnerships



 

Most of us think about our interactions with dogs in terms of Folk Psychology, in other words, we project our own feelings, beliefs and desires onto our canine companions. Then we are surprised when they do not behave the way we expect them to act! In this activity, you will be guided through the inquiry process of "learning to think like a scientist" so you can open your mind to how dogs think like dogs. In this process, we will be focusing on some of the basic building blocks of inquiry: objective observation, form vs. function, and critical thinking skills.

Learning Objectives:

  • Distinguish between observation (fact) and inference (interpretation) when folk psychology influences our understanding of dog behavior.
  • Identify how the body language of dogs and people may differ in form (structure) and be similar in the type of consequences (function).
  • Discover how to use detective work (critical thinking) to sift through the evidence from biased sources and personal experiences to move beyond folk psychology to testable hypotheses about canine social behavior.

Background:

Recently, scientists are examining in more depth the hypothesis that the "family life" of wolves was a precursor to the traits that humans selected when they domesticated dogs. Ability to learn the body language of parents and siblings would have had advantages for young wolves born into wolf families as well as those who came into contact with human families. Imagine yourself inside the head of a hungry young wolf tempted by the smells coming from a pile of garbage left by human hunters on the tundra that we now call Mongolia. When the hunters return, you learn to read their body language and sneak some scraps of food. Your sister does not learn as quickly as you and she goes hungry. Now switch roles and imagine yourself in the head of one of those hunters. How would you read the body language of the wolves?

To encourage you to learn more about this topic, we recommend starting with this presentation titled "Man Meets Wolf". It is a take-off on a popular book by Konrad Lorenz: "Man Meets Dog". Dr. Lorenz was one of the forefathers of ethology, the study of the adaptive nature of animal behavior. Next, we invite you to explore some of the links that look interesting to you on this list of background information, so you are aware of the available information that otherwise might be hard to find.

To prepare you for the activities that follow, brush up on your understanding of the distinction between observation (fact) and inference (fancy) with this group activity. It will help you learn how to interpret the body language of dogs.

If you are feeling a bit uncertain about how the concepts of "structure" and "function" may be applied to animal behavior, here is some background information. Note that ethologists use the words "causation" "cause mechanism" and "form" interchangebly with "structure".

Activities:

Jump right in and learn by doing! You may choose to download this module and save it on your computer so that you can work off-line. You may print it and write on it with a pencil, or use the tools in Adobe Reader (9: typewriter tool; 8: advanced text tool) to write directly on the pdf file on your computer. If this guided inquiry is not intuitive, we recommend reading the teacher's manual for some handy tips. If you are familiar with spreadsheets, you may choose to download the entire curriculum and use the Excel Workbook.

  • Wolf Inquiry Activity [microsoft excel workbook]
  • Video clips for Modules 1-3 [podcasts]
  • Source handout for A1 jigsaw activity [pdf]
  • Module 1 [printable pdf] [for a Word file format email request to: j-packard@tamu.edu]
  • Teacher's Manual available from Dr. Packard

 

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