Real-Life Communication
You are an animal physiologist studying endangered wildlife. You
work at a zoo. Your time is split between studying animals in captivity at
the zoo and in the field. And when you are studying animals in captivity,
part of your time is devoted to securing funding for your research projects.
One
project for which you have recently submitted a grant proposal is a study
that you are conducting on the Indiana bat. The Indiana bat has been the subject
of your research for more than five years. In that time, you have learned
the bats usually return to the same cave during mating season each year, and
that their migration habits differ from year to year.
The goal of your
research is to help provide an understanding of why the bat is endangered.
You hope that through what you learn, you will be able to provide suggestions
that will help preserve the species.
The grant proposal you have written
requests $50,000, which will be used to purchase sonograph and tagging equipment.
The tagging equipment will be used to tag captured bats for identification.
Then the sonograph equipment will be used to track the bats and to monitor
their communication noises.
After several months, you have made it
to the final round of funding for the grant. Now you must appear in front
of a review board to give them a very short presentation of what you have
learned and what the money will be used for.
You have five minutes
in which to tell them about your project, and to convince the members of the
board that your project is more worthwhile than two others that are also competing
for the grant.
Write a short speech that outlines what your project
is, how long you have been working on it, what you have accomplished thus
far, and what you hope to accomplish in the future. Be sure to give the review
board an overview of how the money will be spent.