Pre-conference Events

Public Day

Saturday, July 30th | 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Animals Helping in Society
Hosted by the ABS Applied Animal Behavior Committee and Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists

​This event has been approved for CEUs by CCPDT and IAABC

Click here to sign up for CEU's.

The goal of the 2016 Public Day is to educate the community and ABS members about dilemmas facing the service animal community and regulatory agencies, and the role of Animal Behavior professionals.

Animals play multiple and diverse roles in the lives of humans. The positive effects of the human-animal bond are well documented by empirical research, and supported by both the pet-owning public and the professional pet service community.

Service animals are a special arena of the human-animal bond, which includes therapeutic animal partners, working dogs, counseling programs, and the legal world of human-animal regulatory agencies, as well as the professional animal behavior community.

A wide range of species are employed in the service role to meet the diverse needs that arise from health impairment conditions. Animal Behavior professionals have a specialized knowledge base for advancing these therapeutic partnerships. This Public Day event aims to enlarge our understandings of these relationships.

Speakers include:

Sue McDonnell, PhD, CAAB & Robin Foster, PhD, CAAB. Selection and Retention of Therapy Horses
Rebecca Johnson, PhD, RN, FAAN. Humans and Animals: Wellness Benefits for Both Ends of the Lead
Simon Gadbois, PhD. The Science of Sniffer Dogs
James C. Ha, PhD, CAAB. Stress and Well-being in Working Dogs: Principles and Evidence
Kristen Collins, MS, ACAAB, CPDT. Using "Helper Dogs" to Rehabilitate Canine Victims of Animal Cruelty
Panel Discussion. Issues in Service Animal Certification

Outreach Fair

Saturday, July 30th | Time: 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Do you love animals? Do you wonder why animals do what they do, or how scientists learn about the animal superpowers you see on TV? Please bring your family to the Animal Behavior Outreach Fair on Saturday, July 30th (1-5 PM) in the Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Building on the Mizzou campus. Researchers from around the world will be sharing their science with young people in the mid-Missouri area. Using interactive displays, activities, and live animals, learn more about how insects, frogs, fish and mammals help scientists to learn more about how our brains, bodies, and world works. Listen to insects walk, get up close and personal with reptiles, make your own cricket song, blow dart a ‘baboon,’ radio-track a mouse, and hear popular songs through the ‘ears’ of other animals. Activities will be available for children of all ages!


Teaching Workshop

Saturday, July 30th | Time: 8:00AM - 5:00PM (8am light breakfast and coffee will be served,
9:15 first session begins)

We invite ABS members to a special workshop that will take place on Saturday, July 30 at University of Missouri Columbia. We will not have invited speakers who talk about teaching. Instead, five master teachers will actually model and teach four different types of classes. This will allow participants to easily incorporate these lessons into their animal behavior courses. This workshop is targeted at graduate students, post-docs and new faculty, but everyone is welcome. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. 

Sampling Animal Behavior:  Dr. Susan Margulis, Associate Professor in Animal Behavior, Ecology and Conservation, and Biology, Canisius College, will teach a lesson on focal, scan and all-occurrences sampling. Participants will use different sampling methods to collect data from video footage. Analysis and discussion will illustrate the appropriate use of different methods to different research questions.

Teaching with Wikipedia: Dr. Joan Strassmann, Professor of Biology, Washington University. Wikipedia can be a powerful teaching tool. What better way to teach your students the strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia than having them write for it? The Wikipedia Education Foundation is there to help, even if you don't know how to edit well yourself, there is tons of help out there! This workshop will introduce you to this wonderful resource, including information from a course on behavioral ecology.

Parental Care in the Wild (in the classroom): Dr. Alexandra Basolo, Professor of Biology, University of Nebraska, will teach how to identify behaviors exhibited by parental cichlids. Then we will collect data from video of parents, young and predators in a stream in Belize. Finally, we will learn to summarize the results and we will discuss differences between the parents.

Case-Study Based Module Teaching: Dr. Laura Sirot, Assistant Professor of Biology, The College of Wooster and Dr. Heather Zimbler-DeLorenzo, Associate Professor of Biology, Alfred University. The goal of using case study modules is to allow you to transform your classrooms into active, student-centered learning environments. Modules last two weeks and cover at least 2-3 core concepts that students in Animal Behavior would be expected to learn. By using the C.R.E.A.T.E. (teachcreate.org) method, students use the primary literature to explore the main module question.

This workshop offers a unique opportunity for those looking for some new ideas to incorporate into their animal behavior classes. Join these experts for some exciting hands-on learning opportunities. Please pre-register for this event by clicking here and adding it to your conference registration.