Funds are sought to purchase the sound analysis programs known as SIGNAL and REAL TIME SPECTROGRAPH (RTS) and the event recording program known as OBSERVER and the computer equipment on which they can be run. The purpose of this purchase is to help reinstitute courses successfully taught during the 1970's which offered undergraduates the opportunity to collect original observations on familiar bird species. These courses taught the fundamental precepts of science as organized curiosity of focussing on the student's own perception of the birds and on research problems of the students' own devising. Students came to understand scientific methods not as arbitrary constraints as a way of accomplishing goals of their own devising. Since bird song is the most salient feature of bird behavior, these courses will be made much more effective if students have access to a simple, convenient device for the display and analysis of bird song. Such a device will enable many students, particularly the more inventive and persistent, to develop and test hypotheses concerning the relationship of bird song to other behaviors that they are observing.
