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Experiment
Cricket
Meals
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Problem: Are crickets plant
eaters or meat eaters?
Research: Look up information
about crickets and insects. Your background research should explain what
type of animal crickets are, what they look like and where they live.
Hypothesis: Predict whether
crickets will choose to eat pieces of plants or pieces of meat when you
give them both.
I think that most crickets will choose
______________ when I give them both plants and meat scraps.
Setting Up the Experiment:
Materials:
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20 crickets
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covered terrarium or large plastic container
with a lid (make a lot of small holes in the lid so the crickets can get
air)
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3 small plastic lids
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cardboard tubes from paper towels or toilet
paper
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plant pieces: grass, leaves, lettuce, carrot,
apple, raw potato, other vegetable or fruit pieces
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leftover meat scraps (for safety use only
cooked meat scraps)
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chart to record your results
Procedure:
Manipulated Variable: Type of food
(This is the only thing you can change.)
Responding Variable: The number
of crickets that choose that food each day (these are the results
that you will count)
Steps:
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Set up the terrarium. Place the cardboard
tubes in the bottom so the crickets have places to hide. Put some water
in one of the lids and put it in the middle of the terrarium. Put the other
two lids at opposite ends of the terrarium. one lid will be for plant pieces
and the other will be for meat scraps.
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Add the crickets and give them some time get
settled.
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Place a small plant pieces in one lid
and some meat scraps in the other lid. Crickets are most active in the
evening and at night so that would be a good time to feed them. Give the
crickets time to choose a food - they may check out both.
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Record the number of crickets eating each
type of food. Remove uneaten food after about 2 hours so it does not get
smelly.
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Repeat the feedings every day for 7 days and
record your results.
Results:
Make a chart like this to record your
results. Then you can graph the totals on a bar graph.
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Day
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# of crickets eating
plants
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# of crickets eating
meat
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# of crickets that
weren't eating
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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6
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7
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Total
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Conclusion:
Look over your results. What did you find
out? Did most of the crickets eat only plant parts or only meat parts?
Did the crickets eat both? Write your conclusion and answer the problem.
Tell if your hypothesis was correct or incorrect.