Description

"Little is known about sea turtles and their habitats at the remote Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (PANWR) in the Central Pacific. This lack of knowledge may hinder management and conservation efforts. To help provide insights into protection strategies, in this exercise you will make suggestions for designing a comprehensive research program on globally endangered sea turtles of the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. You will then use existing survey data to answer questions about the relative abundance of endangered sea turtles along the atoll, and critically analyze your results. Finally, you will carry out research to devise your own methods for studying sea turtles at the PANWR." (adapted from the original publication)

The publication includes:

1. the original teaching notes and answer keys to the worksheet
2. a presentation of background information and exercises on the worksheet
3. revised teaching notes & implementation plan (including assignment description)

Quantitative learning objective:

• The ability to search and identify peer-reviewed research papers related to the sea turtle conservation topic.
• The ability to understand and comprehend scientific data and research methods used in published studies.
• The ability to compare, contrast, and evaluate the quality of research design and data analysis of published studies.
• The ability to write a research proposal on a specific topic related to the sea turtle conservation project.

Socio-environmental learning objective:

• The ability to situate the sea turtle conservation project within the broader socio-environmental context.
• The ability to formulate management and conservation objectives.

This QUBES resource is a modification of "Globally endangered sea turtles of the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge: A Focus on Scientific Analysis". The original materials can be found at this link: https://ncep.amnh.org/index.php/Detail/objects/62

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