# Science Fair Project Ideas



## Alan (Jan 12, 2005)

My daughter has the option to participate in a 5th science fair for gifted and talented students. That said - most of the projects should be operating on a 7th or 8th grade level. She is considering a project based upon dart frogs (among others).

She would welcome your creative ideas of what theme of science fair project she could do related to PDFs. She has approximately 45 days to complete it.

She has daily access to about 50 vivariums and a wide range of Tincs and thumbnails - and a good number of them actively breeding with an active supply of eggs and tads already in progress.

As a refresher to those of us that haven't had to do a science fair project in a while - it begins with a question or hypothesis, followed by an experimental method or procedure that produces data, analysis of that data or oberservations - leading to a conclusion.

The presentation will be in a two or three panel display.

I welcome your creative ideas!

Thanks,

Alan


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

Maybe the effects of feeding tads exculsively with various live foods? Such as springs, ffs, RFB larvae, etc. Test morph time and the like, it might work.


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2006)

Maybe some sort of color vision test?


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2006)

Maybe a reaction to a threat? Like a fake snake? Just don't scare them to death!  See if they know just how toxic they are. (Or how toxic they think they are.) Frog psychology?


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2006)

Could be considered unethical.

But a behavioral test would be what I would think of first.
Vision, reaction type/time, I don't know what else.


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2006)

That's what I was worried about. Thinking about scaring a poor somewhat-defenseless animal like that...shame on me.  Yeah, I'm outta ideas also.


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2006)

How about you test them for risk behaviour.

You feed some with standard fruit flies,
You feed others with dusted fruit flies, 
This happens consistently for 45 days, 
and then you see if there is a difference in apetite, and what the frog is willing to do to catch a different kind of food that is naturally rich in vitamins and or calcium. 
I would assume that the calcium/vitamin denied frogs would be more willing to eat that yummy vitamin filled/calcium rich food source in a place of relative danger than the frogs that have gotten plenty of vitamins and calcium. 

Too complicated? Might not work?? Does it matter if it works or not, as long as you follow the scientific method.


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## Dunner97074 (Sep 19, 2004)

Alan,
In college I did a behavioral study that may work. Since you have a bunch of different species you could modify the study a bit. Here goes:
I did a study on the tenacity and territoriality of D.pumilio. Where I tested the males through sound, visual, and both. Timed reaction and measured out the tank to grade tenacity. Another idea could be; Reaction to recorded calls same species -vs-other species. I play recordings of my frogs back to them as well as recordings from the internet and see if the reaction is the same. 
Good Luck and PM me if you have any questions,
Mike


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## back2eight (Dec 19, 2005)

We are in the middle of science fair time right now, too. My son is in the second grade and his project won first place at school, so tomorrow we are headed to the next science fair where all the first place winners from the different schools get together and compete. I have an idea that I wish I had before he did his project. How about doing a project with different strains of fruit flies. Take a winged but flightless culture, and another culture of the same type of fly but bought from a different source and mix the flies together and see if they produce offspring capable of flight. Take a culture with wings and another culture of the kind without wings and mix them and see if their offspring is capable of flight. Mix a heidi with a melanogaster and see what kind of offspring they have. Something like that.


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2006)

Characterize a frog's sensitivity function for fruit fly motion. It'd be a parametric study. 

You could manipulate fruit fly motion (activity) by putting them in the freezer for short, but varying amounts of time. And so basically it'd be a psychophysical measure of the proportion of flies eaten as a function of the motion of the flies.

Then you could compare motion sensitivity curves across species.

There's a *huge* body of literature, both behavioral and neurophysiological, on the motion discrimination in humans and monkeys...


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Since she only has 45 days, how about a study on egg development. She could manipulate incubation temperature or water conditions (IE different tadpole teas, use of acriflaven (sp?), etc.). Another idea, would be to observe incubation time across morphs or species. Fruit fly production VS media type/ingredients would also fit within the allotted time period.


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## JFarlin (Jan 18, 2005)

Although already mentioned I think a comparison of tadpoles fed different live foods would be very interesting. You could have a control group, an herbivorous group, and a carnivorous group. Then compare the three growth rates. If she changes her mind about frogs I rememeber in 8th grade I made a hydrogen reactor, using RV solar panels, copper electrodes and an old 10 gallon aquarium. It was cool to show the video of the hydrogen pushed into a ziploc blow up. Let me know if you would like a diagram. BTW anyone here read Backyard Balistics before? Just a thought.

James


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## tyler (Feb 23, 2006)

I think that doing a project on the parenting behavior of some species of PDFs would make a nice project. She could include watching the young, carrying tadpoles, how many each species carries, etc. You could even bring the diff. species to the show if it's allowed.


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## Viv (Mar 5, 2006)

I like the idea of the growth rate of tads that are fed diff. things.. JMO though[/list]


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## Alan (Jan 12, 2005)

I appreciate all of your responses and creative ideas! Thank you.

Alan


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