Maze Mice

Ilene's Formal Lab Report

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that the older mice would find the food faster than the older mice due to knowledge, experience, and scavenging skills.

Materials

cardboard to build a maze

a timer

Frick

Morgan

Speckles

food for small rodents

Procedure

First I cut and taped cardboard to form a maze with passage ways, obstacles, and walls that were high enough so that the mice could not crawl over. The next step in my experiment was to pick out the younger and older mice that I wanted to use in the experiment. This was a rather hard step because the mice had built tunnels in their cage and hid when I tried to pick them up. Once I picked out mice and got them out of the cage we put them in a box while we put food for mice at the end of our maze. First I tested Bo, then Speckles, then Morgan, and last Frick I timed the results of how long it took them to go through the maze with the timer I got from Mr. Purnell. After each run I recorded my results, to make sure my results were accurate I timed Bo, an older mouse, twice and Speckles one of the younger mice twice.

Results

Bo (older) 1.08 s, .33 s
Frick (older) 2.38 s
Speckles (younger) .59 s, .32 s
Morgan (younger) 2.24 s

The mean of the time it took for an older mouse to find the food at the end of the maze was 1.26 minutes. The mean of the time it took the younger mice to find the food was 1.05 minutes. The results was it took older mice about 21 seconds longer than it took the younger mice to find the food.

Conclusion

Our hypothesis that the older mice would find the food at the end of the maze in a shorter amount of time than it took the younger mice due to knowledge and experience was incorrect. Our experiment showed the results that younger mice are actually better scavengers than the older mice. It took the older mice about 21 seconds longer. I believe that maybe the reason for this is the older mice have begun to lose their sense of smell and direction.

Literature Cited

Mr. Purnell

Sources of Error

My experiment had a few possible sources of error. One was that our times of how long it took the mice to get to the end of the maze were not precise. Another source of error was that two of the mice went through the maze two times, but the other two mice only went through the maze once.

Liz's Formal Lab Report

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that the older mice will get through the maze first. I say that because I think the older mouse will have developed more intelligence than the younger mouse, and therefore the older mouse will be able to get through the maze faster. Also, I think that the older mouse will have more experience in searching, so it will be able to find food faster than the inexperienced young mouse.

Materials

cardboard

scissors

tape

timer

mouse food

2 old mice

2 young mice

Procedure

First, I built a maze, with the help of Ilene, out of cardboard. I took a box and created walls with random pieces of cardboard. Then, after I had my maze built, I took a mouse and timed how long it took the mouse to get through. Then, to make sure I tested the mouse again. I did the same for the next mouse. After testing all three mice I looked at the results.

Results

I took Bo, the oldest mouse, 1 minute 9 seconds to complete the maze the first time. It took Speckles, the mouse "competing" against Bo, 59 seconds the first time. The second time it took Bo 33 seconds to get to the end of the maze. It took Speckles 32 seconds, only a little less than Bo, but still enough to make a difference. My second test was Frick against Morgan, who I only put through the maze once. When I tested Frick it took her 2 minutes, 38 seconds to go through the maze. It only took Morgan 2 minutes, 24 seconds.

Conclusion

It compared to the each mouse's opponent the younger mice won, but if you look at all the information put together, it shows that it didn't really matter if the mouse was older or younger. However, in the mice that we tested twice there times improved a lot.

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