Discovering New Questions through Chasing Chipmunks

For more than 12 years, Merav Ben-David and her wildlife students at the University of Wyoming have been chasing least chipmunks up at Happy Jack Recreation Area, located outside of Laramie.

Each year, they trap them, measure the little critters and quantify their habitat and food availability. And, each year, the students in Ben-David’s “Wildlife Ecology and Management” class come up with a hypothesis or question they want to study regarding these small mammals.

Ben-David has extended this experience the previous summers to high school students from as part of the Native American Summer Institute.

“What makes this different than other labs or similar activities is that, every year, the class develops a new research question,” says Ben-David, a zoology professor of the Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience. “We spend the rest of the semester addressing the question with the data we’ve collected.”

Over the years, this chipmunk experience has helped Ben-David’s undergraduate students decide to enroll in graduate school and continue honing their research skills. And it keeps them asking questions.