With the majority of students and staff being advised to work and study from home, this is how our librarians are supporting online learning…
How do you train an animal on a farm? What does its habitat look like, and how does it play? These are just some questions that an ALES class needs to answer for an assignment in this new, all-virtual, learning environment. They need to pick an animal species related to food or resource production and describe its many behaviours. But where to begin? Our Librarian, Jessica, offers these helpful tips and tricks:
To start, see the ALES Library Guides for resources related to your topics (eg. Animal Science).
These are some of the key databases where you can look for articles:
If you are looking for information on cows, including their natural traits and how to train them, your search could look something like any of these combinations [these will work in the databases noted above]:
- (“natural behav*” or instinct*) AND (cattle or beef or cow or cows or bovine or calf or calves)
- (behav* or habit* or character) AND (cattle or beef or cow or cows or bovine or calf or calves) AND (farm*)
- (train* or teach or learn* or instruct* or coach* or condition*) NEAR/3 (cattle or beef or cow or cows or bovine or calf or calves)
- (behav* or character or temperament) AND (calf or calves)
- Using terms that speak specifically to baby cows, this search focuses on their juvenile behaviour.
You can try this search with other animals – just substitute the cow terms for ones related to a different animal. You may want to adapt, try different combinations, remove terms or try other things.
