What you're doing: Although the Course Project due dates are weeks' away, picking your issue is the critical first step for all the project assignments, and serves as the backbone for your explorations. For the course project, you are going to be acting as a citizen advocate promoting the need for a new state law or modification of an existing law by providing the foundational reasons why the change is potentially necessary. To be a successful advocate, you must be completely informed about your issue and able to communicate the needs and concerns to a variety of audiences and decision makers. Drafting the law is NOT the first step to advocacy, and is beyond the scope of the projects and this course. Your job as citizen advocate for your issue is to become the informed messenger awaking the masses to the importance of the concern! For this assignment, you are going to be selecting your issue and the state that you are lobbying for the law or change. It is anticipated that at this point you may not know much, if anything, about the issues, Animal Assisted Interventions or the laws governing the use of animals to support people. Not to worry! Knowing something about the topic is not necessaryor even desiredto complete this first assignment! Even if you know a great deal about a particular topic, the projects are constructed in a way to expand your understanding and explore alternative perspectives. Wherever you are in your knowledge you are exactly where you need to be to complete this first assignment! e Review the issues in the Course Project Issue Bank. In looking them over, consider the topics without preconceived ideas. Instead, contemplate the issues from a 'free inquiry' perspective, shifting your focus from what you know or think you should know about the topic, to how to evaluate if the issue is of interest to you. The guestions on the Issue Assignment Sheet are developed to assist with your initial inquiry. Review them first to help guide your selection. Although not required, the following chapter from your textbook is suggested to provide a brief overview of some (not all) of the topics addressed by the Issue Bank: Aubrey H. Fine, Handbook on Animal-Assisted Therapy (Fifth Edition), Academic Press, 2019. Chapter 11 (pgs. 163-173). Once you've made your choice, review the questions again and jot down your responses. Although you will submit the assignment sheet, your grade is dependent on completing the assignment, not the substance of your responses. You are not required to include any research, extensive discussion, APA format or even complete sentences! The questions and your responses are merely there to help you get started. Feel free to include additional thoughts or questions that come to mind and help guide your selection. As you go through your research for your project, you may also want to refer back to your initial thoughts as a reminder of your first impressions. Your final projects have you developing different ways to communicate your issue and concerns to different audiences--people who likely won't know more than what you knew when you picked your topic. Knowing what you were thinking before you embarked on this journey, and what you thought would be important to know, may help you relate to what your audience may want to know to excite their interest, as well. PART I: What issue are you selecting for your projects? Remember, the same issue is used throughout all four course project assignments. PART II: Initial Inquiry: 0 ha . What about the topic looks interesting to you, or why do you care about the issue? What would you like to know about the topic, in general? Why do you think a law would be beneficial for the particular concern, e.g. is there a public health concern? Would standardization help remove barriers to the option or increase obstacles? Who would benefit from having a state standard? Rememberyou do not need to know if you are correctthese are your initial thoughts! What would be necessary to make the law effective, for example, do you think there might be a funding issue, enforcement concerns, public health concerns that you would need or want to explore? . What about the animals associated with the issue, e.g. what would you like to know or what do you think would be important to address in a law to benefit them and insure their protection? Aside from peer-reviewed journals and internet searches, what other resources might help you understand more about the topic, its application and whether it is interesting to pursue? For example, would it be helpful to speak with someone in the field? Other questions or thoughts that come to mind and make a topic seem worthwhile to you. If you have no other ideas, you may state that, as well. PART IlI: Pick a state as your 'home base' for your advocacy you are not limited to your home state! The only requirement in picking a state is to check if there is already a law in place that adequately addresses your issue. Even if the state you choose already has a law, you may want to modify or expand upon it to better address the issue, so no problem if the law already exists but you should at least find out as a starting point. Aside from determining if the state already has a law on the books, do not get bogged down trying to find the perfect state! Pick someplace you've always wanted to visit, or your home state, and settle inno deep inquiry is needed! The Animal Legal & Historical Center table of State Service Animal Laws provides a comparison of all 50 states' service animal laws for several categories as of 2019 and is a great starting point for determining if a state law on your issue already exists. It is also interesting to look through since we cannot cover all the laws in this class due to timing. You can find the table here