Food Preference Inquiry Food preference inquiry Create your

Food Preference Inquiry

Food preference inquiry • Create your own hypothesis about the food preference of ants • Example: When offered cornbread, honey and dead mealworms, my ants will feed equally on all three food substances

Protocol • Locate an ant feeding trail • Place a small rectangle of plywood near the trail • Put equal amounts of the three food substances on the plywood • Come back later in the day to observe • The same protocol can be used in the classroom in an ant farm

Data collection • Record data after ants locate the feeding area • Count the number of ants visiting each food for a ten minute period • Have three teams of students make similar observations • Have students observe the ants to determine if they are all the same

Reporting findings • Have students average the number of ants visiting each food substance • Ask students what the results suggest about their hypothesis • Based on their results, encourage students to speculate about what other foods their ants might like (students can conduct another inquiry to test their theories)

Conclusions • Most ant species will show distinct differences in food choice experiments • Have students observe the ant feeding trails to observe their natural food source • Consider similarities in their natural food and the food chosen in the preference test