Animal Behavior Lab Instructions

1. Animal Behavior Lab Instructions

2. How to perform an Investigation in AP Biology: The Animal Behavior Lab

3. Some Background Information • “Iso” means similar/equal • “Pod” means foot • It has 14 legs. • It has a segmented body. • Also, known as the “RolliePollie”, • “Roly-Polie”, and “Sow bugs” • It is not an insect. • Phylum: Arthropoda • Class: Crustacea ( same class as • Crustaceans like lobster, shrimp, • and crabs. • They breath through gills. • Genus: Armadillidium • Species: vulgare

4. The Animal Behavior Lab has to do with EthologyEthology – The study of animal behavior Couple of terms you need to know: Taxis: animal moves toward or away from stimulus. Kinesis: random movement - without respect to stimulus.

5. Just a mental image to help you remember: When you get in a taxi, do you tell the driver to take you to a specific place towards somewhere? Or just drive around to where ever he wants to and then let you out?

6. Check for understanding: • What do each of these mean? • What is the stimulus? • Which way is negative? • Which way is positive? • What does phototactic mean? • What does chemotactic mean? • What does Geotactic mean? • I am going away from light?

7. Your hypothesis • You will need both a null and alternate • Null • Alternate • Sample: • Null: There is no preference difference in moist and wet environments. • Pill bugs prefer moist environments

8. Guided portion of the lab • 1. Place 15 pillbugs in your choice chamber gently with a paintbrush. • 2. Make observations for 10 minutes. • What do they look like? • How are they moving within the chamber? • How are they interacting with each other? • Remove the pillbugs.

9. Guided portion of lab cont. • Place a moist filter paper on one end of the choice chamber and a dry filter paper on the other end of the filter paper. • Place 5 pillbugs in each end of the chamber and 5 in the middle gently with a small paint brush. • At 10 minutes, count the number on each side. This will have given them enough time to make a decision.

10. Collecting Data • Make a small table similar to the one below. This was actually a table given for this lab on the AP Exam. Remember you are using pillbugs and wet vs. dry.

11. Analyzing Your Data • If you look at the flow chart in your lab station manual, you will see that we collected discrete data. (follow the pink) • Our tool box will have consisted of expected and observed values. • We will use a bar graph. • Then we will use the Chi-Square test.

12. The bar graph Title: Y-axis label: X-axis label: Independent Variable: Dependent Variable: .

13. Methods of Analyzing your Data You can organize your data for calculating Chi-Square in a table like the one below. This is an actual sample from the AP Exam 2012.

14. Now find that Chi-Square value(critical value) on the Degree of Freedom chart below. This is the actual chart available to you on the exam. • Will you be rejecting the null hypothesis?

15. For the guided lab: • You will not be assembling a mini-poster, however, all of the information must be in your lab notebook. • Site references later for your back-ground information on mini-poster; • Don’t forget AP Lab Manuals, as a source

16. Now it’s time to design your own experiment in Animal Behavior. Before you get started:Follow pre-lab design rubric.

17. You will need a composition book to record the following: (See rubric in lab station manual) • 1. Members of your work group • 2. Primary question for investigation • 3. Background observations and contextual information – support why? • 4. Hypotheses and rationale for the investigation • 5. Experimental design – strategies/tools for testing hypothesis, using appropriate controls, and variables • 6. Materials required (Make a sticky note shopping list for your lab station) • 7. Safety issues • 8. Procedure in sufficient detail so that someone could replicate your results. • AT THIS POINT, YOU MUST GET MY APPROVAL BEFORE BEGINNING EXPERIMENTATION. • 9. Results, including graphs, tables, drawings or diagrams, and statistical analysis • 10.Conclusion and discussion - Was the hypothesis supported? What additional questions remain for further investigation? • 11. References

18. Example of Mini-Poster

19. Mini – Poster Requirements • Title • Abstract – (like NFRSEF abstract from Science Fair) • Introduction – with primary question, background (like a review of Lit), and hypothesis (null and alternate, please) • Methodology – Materials; Design • Results, including appropriate graphs and descriptive statistics, tables/charts, and statistical analysis information (test and interpretation) • Conclusions: your interpretation of your results based on your hypotheses, including Reject Null or Fail to reject null, etc. • Literature cited.

20. Evaluation • You will present your findings during a gallery walk of your peers. • All groups will prepare for presentation and set up meaningful mini-poster. • Group members will rotate out and visit other lab stations for presentations. • This first investigation will be graded by your group members, your peers, and me!

21. College Board Referencesyou must be included in allinvestigative labs: • AP Dirty Dozen number 12 – this is located in the large notebook for your lab station • AP Investigation number 11 – this is located in the 2 green notebooks for your lab station. • All of your references need to be in APA format.