Tool Description Assignment

Each student is expected to detail a research method and to present both a written report and oral presentation on the method.  The list below provides topic suggestions.  Before starting on any topic, check with the instructor to make sure that the scope is appropriate and that the topic has not already been chosen.

The goal of the written report should be the production of a manuscript that is submitted to the journal Ethnobotany Research and Applications (ERA).  Students who have a research method manuscript accepted for publication in ERA will receive a "perfect" score for this part of the course.

In preparation for this exercise, you must read two editorials.  The editorial by Will McClatchey outlines scope of what he feels should be included in a series of articles that will help ethnobotanical researchers. A subsequent editorial by Kim Bridges and Han Lau expands on McClatchey's editorial and provide some additional considerations for such articles.

The oral presentation must demonstrate your knowledge of the research method and describe the situations in which it has been (and should be) applied.  In short, you are both an expert and an advocate for this method.  Your presentation should demonstrate that you have mastered the use of PowerPoint and that you are knowledgeable about the best techniques in giving public presentations.

• Activity Patterns
• Boundary Mapping
• Canopy Measurements
• Collection Permits and Permission
• Data Coding and Data Exchange
• Dietary Surveys
• Field Phytochemistry
• Forest Valuation Measurements
• Free-listing Group Interviews
• Growth and Yield Analyses
• Home Garden Analysis
• Household and Community Economies
• Household Mapping
• Informant Consensus
• Informant Selection
• Informed Consent and Human Subjects
• Intellectual Property Right Recognition
• Interview Techniques
• Location Determination
• Market Surveys
• Micro-environments
• Notes, Notebooks and Databases
• Opinion Sampling
• Participant Observation Methods
• Phenology Analysis
• Plant Biomass Analysis
• Plant Life Forms
• Plant Size and Frequency Analysis
• Plant Voucher Specimens
• Questionnaires
• Rapid Vulnerability Assessment
• Remote Sensing
• Resource Distribution Mapping
• Spatial Distribution Analysis
• Species Density
• Sustainability Assessments
• Time Allocation
• Use Value Measurements
• Vegetation Analysis

"Techniques from the Literature" Assignment

The objectives of this exercise include the following:

• Experience in examining the literature of ethnobotany with the purposes of determining what techniques are in common use and to become more knowledgeable in the style in which techniques are described.
• Accumulation of a set of technique descriptions. (If, for example, 8 students each did 12 descriptions, there would be nearly 100 examples at the end of the semester.)

Strategy

Each student, in each class meeting, will briefly introduce a technique as reported in the ethnobotanical literature.  This will consist of:

• A five minute (maximum) presentation & discussion.
• A PDF file of the article to be distributed to the class.
• A two-paragraph summary of the technique.

All students are expected to participant in all aspects of the discussions including presentation, critique, and consideration of alternative applications of each method presented.

Sources of Information

Appropriate articles will most likely come from the published journal literature.