Crows make tools and hold “funerals.” Elephants have names for each other. Cats read our facial expressions, and connect images and human words. Many creatures (including rats!) show empathy. And scrub jays plan for the future. What is it like to be another species – a dog, chimpanzee, orca, octopus, or bumblebee? What do they “talk” about when they communicate? How do animals transmit cultural knowledge and respond to the ecological and social challenges they face? In this course we will learn the tools for studying animal behavior, and explore the worlds that other creatures inhabit. We will examine the evolution of problem-solving abilities, mating strategies, parenting, cooperation, friendship, deception, empathy, aggression, tool use, self-medication, sensory “super-powers,” and the ability to innovate. Through discussions and hands-on activities, we will engage with the latest research in animal cognition and behavioral ecology, hone analytical skills, and discover fertile ground for applications to storytelling, world-building, and imagining new perspectives on intelligence and sociality.Science and Math (SCIMA) courses develop students' capacity for evidence-based reasoning through the study of life, earth, and physical sciences and of computational and theoretical mathematics. In these courses, students learn to recognize and interpret meaningful patterns of information; to assess the validity of empirical claims, distinguishing between opinion and fact; and to understand the sociocultural relevance of scientific and mathematical thinking.

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