Using a Field Journal to Enhance Observation Skills

In this exercise, you will have the opportunity to go outside to practice and refine your observation skills and develop strategies for maintaining a field journal. In the first part of the exercise, a guided practice with your class will lead you from noticing, observing, and recording the natural world, to expanding and practicing new strategies for these skills. Following your guided practice, you will use your newly refined skills to complete independent field journaling practice for one or more 30-minute sessions (as indicated by your instructor.) A wrap-up reflection assignment asks you to use your field journal observations to make connections to conservation biology concepts, course themes, and preexisting knowledge.