Preliminary Observation, Day 1

well, today I started my preliminary observations, which I am planning to last a week. During this time, I will be observing both zoo visitors and the gorillas in order to narrow down my research topic, define specific visitor/animal behaviors, start setting up a control behavior definition (so that I have something to compare to) and just other general things like that...

Today went pretty well, for a first day. I was able to write out a whole list of behaviors from the gorillas, and several from several guests as well. I was also able to get an idea for how the gorillas behave when only I am around, as compared to when guests are around. I've learned too, that observing 3 Gorillas, and the guests that are at the exhibit all at the same time is difficult, and will be working on a way to remedy that problem. Unfortunately, the zoo isn't big enough/popular enough to make it 100% possible for me to do scan sampling. Scan sampling is when the observer scans the behavior of all animals/guests every say, 5 minutes. This helps the observer get more random data, as compared to just writing everything down or the interesting things down. It also helps the observer focus a bit, as constant observing/writing is difficult. Anyways, I still have some kinks to work out, which is what I'll be doing over this next week at the zoo. Here's my reseach time period plan for this week:

Monday: 9-11:30
Tuesday: at home research
Wednesday: 11-2 or 3:00
Thursday: at home research
Friday: At Bird Park
Saturday: 12/1 - 6
Sunday: 12/1 - 6

Sat. and Sun. times will probably be shortened... while researching is fun, I don't think I'll last 6 hours. But we'll see where I am as those days get closer. Sat. and Sun. however are the most important days, as those are the days when the most people will be around. Overall I may not stick to so many hours as I have written down here each week, but since this is "working-out-the-kinks" week, I need lots of hours to work out my kinks. Anyways, just thought I'd let everyone know what the deal was. Oh! And I found out that I may only have to do this one research project for my Diploma, as compared to two like I thought. I'm not sure though at all... so we'll see. But if I only had to do this one, that'd be great. But if not, then that's okay too.