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From Erika Bauer, the Zoo’s first Fujifilm Curatorial Resident in Animal Care
August 2008
Science Day
One of the most difficult aspects of working at a large institution like the National Zoo is that it’s hard to keep track of the multitude of things happening throughout the organization. As a researcher, I’m very interested in the cutting-edge science that takes place here. We have so much going on at our D.C. campus, at our Conservation and Research Center (CRC) in Front Royal, Virginia, and in the field. (Smithsonian science projects take place on all seven continents, so we really can say we conduct research all over the world.) Luckily, August presented an opportunity to get an update on at least some of the work that we’re doing to advance science and research: Science Day 2008.
Science Day was a day-long event that took place at the CRC Auditorium on August 12. It was designed to highlight current research projects being conducted by young scientists, post-docs, graduate students, and interns working with the Zoo. The timing of the event provided a perfect opportunity to give our Animal Behavior Group interns an added professional experience as they wrapped up their summer internship session. The interns I mentor and I prepared five poster presentations for the event.
The schedule for the day was packed with a series of talks by researchers throughout the Zoo, many of whom I know by name but have never had the opportunity to meet in person. As a part of the organizing team for the event, I even had the opportunity to moderate one of the sessions.
Topics ranged from habitat use of the endangered Shenandoah salamander (shown at right) to disease syndromes affecting the sustainability of captive black rhino populations; from cognitive studies of orangutans and gorillas to a novel approach to captive population management involving the controlled management of groups of animals rather than individuals (a talk had the intriguing title "Safe Group Sex"!). It was an amazingly diverse array of studies all linked to a common theme—animals and conservation. Attending this event was a wonderful reminder of the far-reaching impact of the organization I am now working for. The National Zoo is truly an exceptional leader in science and conservation.
For our part, my interns and I presented posters on a few of our summer research projects. All of our studies focused on animals housed and exhibited at the Zoo's D.C. campus, so these are all animals with which you may be familiar. I am so proud of the work done by our interns that I would like to take this opportunity to recognize their contributions to our science program this year. Here are the titles presented by our Animal Behavior Group members at this year’s Science Day:
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Enrichment preferences in African lions and Sumatran tigers, Cindie Hengen and Marieke Kester - Investigating the intraspecific behavior of a group of captive Asian small-clawed otters, Christine Olarte
- Night-time activity budget of captive Asian elephants, Bonnie Baird and Courtney Loftus
- An ethogram and activity budget for two captive double-wattled cassowaries, Joel Higgin
- Trying to reduce stereotypic pacing behavior in an adult male sloth bear: an assessment of enrichment strategies, Erika Bauer and Heidi Hellmuth
When possible, I like to plan internship sessions according to a format designed to allow interns to experience as much of the research process as possible. Ideally, my program provides an opportunity for interns to start with the development of a research question and move through all the stages of a project—reviewing the literature, developing hypotheses, making predictions, designing appropriate methods, analyzing data, writing up a paper, and presenting the results.
This is a lot to pack into a three-month internship, but luckily it’s a worthwhile challenge that I hope gives our interns a great scientific experience. Usually, our results are presented to Zoo staff and volunteers who work within the animal units where the studies were conducted. But Science Day was a great way to reach a wider audience in a more academic setting.
For several weeks, the interns and I worked hard to develop concise descriptions of our studies and present them in an easily understandable, visually appealing format. The creative juices flowed. As a bonus, this summer one of our interns was also a talented photographer, and she helped us to collect photos that would help communicate what our projects were about. Her pictures definitely enhanced the appeal of our posters. Once we had our presentations prepared, we worked with the Zoo's Exhibits department to coordinate the printing of the posters in time for the event.
Poster Presentations
If you’ve never been to a poster presentation at a professional conference, here’s a basic description of the experience. Multiple posters are displayed, usually in one big room. At a scientific conference, each poster will generally have several brief sections, including an abstract, an introduction, a description of the methods used, a summary of the results, and a conclusion.
During a poster session, each presenter stands near her or his poster, while people mill about the room, wandering from one poster to another. There’s often not enough time for the audience members to visit every poster to read about each study in depth, but each person usually has time to stop and focus on at least a few posters. Even if these erudite wanderers just read the title, they have a little more information about the current science taking place.
Visitors to each poster might choose to read the text in depth or might ask the presenter to quickly walk them through it. This gives the poster presenter an opportunity to practice communicating the important messages associated with his or her project. Either way, visitors will probably make some comments or ask some questions. If they are working on similar research, a discussion is likely to ensue, and ideas are shared.
It’s a great way to network and meet new people. Presenters get compliments and critiques on their projects, and everyone goes away having learned something new. I’m so glad that we were able to provide this opportunity to our summer interns. It was a great experience for them, and a wonderful way for us to communicate about the behavioral research projects on which we’ve been working so hard.
