My science
- 1. Question What ground insects are there in our forest and what material will attract ground insects into our forest?
- 2. Why we chose this We chose this question because we love skinks and geckos
- 3. Background We have a Skink and Gecko area beside our Native forest at school and we haven’t seen any there. We talked to an expert who told us we need to attract bugs/insects for them to eat. So we needed to find out what insect are already in our forest, what insects skinks and geckoes eat and also what habitat the insects like to live in.
- 4. Hypothesis -What We Think We think we can make the surrounding where our skink and gecko area more ‘insect friendly’. Sam. I think that there will be more insects under the stone block because it is darker and I think insects like dark places where they can hide from their enemies. Sally. I think insects will like protection and food and not too dry in our forest.I think they will like the wood the best.
- 5. Test Method Place down materials in our forest close to the skink and gecko area FOR 7 WEEKS every Wednesday check under materials and see what’s there. Record what is there.
- 6. Materials Brick Stone block Wood Drift wood Carpet
- 7. Result/record The main insect/bug we found over seven weeks was the Ground beetle and it was mainly seen under the wood. We found a small amount of little spiders Over the 7 weeks insects found under the Carpet 2, Drift wood 42, Wood 19, Brick/Stone block 5 insects or spiders.
- 8. How We Made It Fair Testing We checked under every object each time and we replaced the material where we had it and always wrote down the amount of beetles, spiders or insects there. We did the testing in the side of the forest where we found the most insects when we did our first insect count and leaf litter count
- 9. Further Question We wanted to know what type of leaf litter ground beetles liked so we are going to do a beetle test.
- 10. Hypothesis - What We Think We think it will go to the damp dark side because when we checked in the forest the ground beetle was always under the wood.
- 11. MATERIALS Box Dry leaf litter Damp leaf litter Black piece of paper Beetle.
- 12. Record/Result The beetle went first to the dry dark side then it went to the damp light side.It stayed in the damp dark side. It was there the next morning We figured out that beetles like dark damp places.
- 13. How we made it fair testing We had a even amount of leaf litter on each side. We put the beetle straight in the middle of the box. Put beetle in centre of the box to see which condition he hides in Check again the next morning
- 14. Future Action We will put more wood and piles of wood around and close to the skink and gecko area. This will give homes and shelter for the insects If we did the experiment again we would put the materials in other areas close to the skink area, like beside the boundary fence or in long grass because insects live there too.
- 15. Conclusion Insect live in all sorts off places in our forest on the ground, in the leaf litter, in the cracks of tree trunks, on the leaves on trees. Ground insects like mainly living under drift wood in our forest and in sheltered places where there is damp leaf litter If we put more logs and wood and hiding places in our forest we will get more insects for skinks and geckos to find.