Short videos can be used as case studies by stopping at appropriate time points and asking questions to cue student attention, encourage critical thinking, and make the students part of the story.

This video case study focuses on how elephants communicate over long distances. It is appropriate for a range of biology courses, including regular and honors high school biology, AP/IB biology, and college-level introductory biology.

Prior Knowledge

Students should be familiar with terms associated with experimental design, including control and experimental condition, and dependent and independent variables.

Student Learning Targets

• Describe different methods used by animals to communicate with other members of a group and to interpret their environment.
• Generate a hypothesis to explain observations.
• Design an experiment to test a hypothesis.
• Predict the results of an experiment, based on a hypothesis.
• Interpret the results of an experiment and draw conclusions based on those results.

Background Information

• Organisms have adaptations that allow them to communicate in different environments, including the ability to both send and receive signals.
• To be used to communicate, a signal must be created and transmitted by the sender and be received and interpreted correctly by the recipient.
• Organisms are constantly receiving different kinds of signals about their environment. Correctly interpreting these different signals helps organisms respond appropriately to their environment, including to other animals living in that environment.

The video case study is presented in eight modules, each followed by embedded questions. Educators can use the extension questions listed below for additional class discussion or written assessments.

Module 1 begins with a prevideo question asking students to list different ways in which animals communicate. After briefly discussing the different modes of communication, begin the video. Module 1 provides background information on the case study and the phenomenon being studied. The module ends with a question asking students to design an experiment to investigate whether elephants can communicate by interpreting signals transmitted through the ground.

Extension questions:

• What are the controls, independent variables, dependent variables, and manipulations you will include in your experiment?
• What is the difference between a low- and a high-frequency sound?

Module 2 describes the first experiment and the results of testing how elephants respond to sounds traveling through the air. Module 2 ends by asking students to interpret the results presented so far and to predict what O’Connell will do next as part of this experiment.

Extension question:

• Why do you think O’Connell started the experiment by playing the alarm sound through the air?

Modules 3 and 4 explore the second condition tested: whether elephants can detect low-frequency sounds traveling through the ground. Module 3 ends by asking students to predict what will happen when low-frequency sounds are transmitted through the ground. In Module 4, students see the response to sound traveling through the ground. This module ends by asking students to evaluate several graphs to determine which one represents the results of the experiment.

Extension question:

• In your own words, explain the purpose of the watering hole, the shaker, the geophone, and the microphone in this experimental design.

Module 5 reveals the experimental results and asks students to interpret what they mean.

Modules 6, 7, and 8 look into the finer points of this phenomenon. Module 6 asks students to consider why elephants would have different responses to the signal transmitted through the air versus ground in O’Connell’s experiment. Module 7 prompts students to think about another experiment to further test how elephants perceive different kinds of stimuli transmitted through ground and air. The case concludes after Module 8, which summarizes the components of the study.

Extension question:

• Thinking about your own experiences, how do you use different forms of incoming information to interpret your environment? What do you do when the different forms of information are consistent with one another? What do you do if they are not consistent?