Research symposium that focuses on animal behavior research and a special partnership between Gladys Porter Zoo, UTRGV, and Harlingen CISD.

About this Event

Animal Behavior Meets Social Science: A Research Symposium, is a virtual event that will be held on May 5, 2021. The goal of our research symposium is to educate the public about animal behavior research through engaging virtual presentations by Rio Grande Valley students and a panel of educators and our community partners at the Gladys Porter Zoo. Our event website will go live at 8:00 a.m. on May 5, 2021, and can be accessed at the following URL: https://sites.google.com/view/animalbehaviorsymposium/home

The event website has the following resources:

• Main (intro) page for the site that has the title of our symposium and acknowledges our partners: Gladys Porter Zoo, UTRGV, and HCISD
• Pictures of our presenters and moderators
• A bios page that provides information about our presenters, moderators, and content providers
• A schedule that lists the different sessions, including zoom links
• A section for on-demand videos that attendees will be able to access throughout the day. Some of our students will provide prerecorded videos of their presentations, and we will also have other types of content (e.g., informational videos and interviews). All content will be relevant to animal behavior.

We will be using the video conferencing program Zoom for all of our virtual sessions that are listed below:

• Keynote address by Dr. Patrick Burchfield, Director of the Gladys Porter Zoo (2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.)

• UTRGV and Harlingen CISD student presentations – two concurrent sessions (3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.)

• Panel Discussion with UTRGV faculty, Gladys Porter Zoo community partners, and Harlingen CISD educators; moderated by Dr. Mari Gil and Ms. Patricia Scanlan (4:15 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.)

• Lessons Learned: Reflections on Community Engagement and Experiential Learning, a final session moderated by Dr. Christian Corrales, Assistant Vice President for UTRGV Community Engagement

*All times are in central standard time

If you have questions regarding our event, please contact Dr. Mario Gil at mario.gil@utrgv.edu or Ms. Katelynn Renteria at katelynn.renteria01@utrgv.edu.

A special thanks to our partners for their support: UTRGV Department of Psychological Science, Gladys Porter Zoo, Harlingen CISD, UTRGV Engaged Scholarship and Learning, and UTRGV Office of Community Engagement