Kyle loi AP Environmental Science Pests and Pest Management Purpose: the purpose of this lab is to measure the number of pests that are found in household foods and to investigate methods of controlling pests. Hypothesis: If household foods are in sealed containers then it will work as an effective pest management system because the number of pests in the food will decrease. Results: Independent variable: The method of pest management Dependent variable: number of foreign objects Materials Number of foreign objects Opened/closed Type of container Flour 11 open paper Sugar 5 closed ceramic Oatmeal 3 closed cardboard Rice 6 closed plastic How it was designed: First, I placed newspaper on the floor. Then I placed all the different foods in different containers and set them all up by laying them down onto the newspaper. I left the containers of food out for 24 hours for the foreign objects to come. Then I took a magnifying glass to examine how many pests were in each container. The container that had the least number of foreign objects was most effective with the pest management. Reflection Questions: 1. Were you aware that all of your food products probably contain pests or pest parts? How does this influence what you purchase and eat? I was aware of this because all the food that I consume are typically exposed to the same kind of environments. This doesn’t influence what I purchase and eat because in the end day, the pests are not harmful to me, and I usually wash the foods I get from the market before I consume them. In addition, I can’t see these pests quite that clearly with the naked eye, so I don’t mind. 2. How is pest control an important factor in food production? Pest control are an important factor in food production because pests are the carries of disease, bacteria, and viruses. These pests can lead to the contamination of food products and work stations. That is why food producing companies pay close attention to their pest control, and make sure everything meets health standards. 3. Do you think the pests were present before the food entered your home, or were the pests present in your home and found the food when it was brought in? Explain your reasoning. I think that the answer to this question is a little bit of both. I think that these pests were present before they entered my home because the food I buy still sit at the store for a while before being purchased and brought home. That time where they sit at the store, there is a possibility that pests can get onto exposed foods. At the same time, I think that the pests could have gotten into the foods after they entered the This study source was downloaded by 100000848057009 from CourseHero.com on 06-02-2022 16:24:05 GMT -05:00 https://www.coursehero.com/file/38172565/704-Pest-Management-Labdocx/ Kyle loi AP Environmental Science house because, houses can have things like exposed fruits and grain which attract flies, and that way, the rest of the food in the house is exposed to the flies. 4. In your examination of food substances, which had more pest/pest parts? Why do you think this substance was most affected? In my examination of food substances, the flour had the most pest/pest parts. I think that this substance was most affected because it didn’t have a good pest management system. The flour was placed inside a paper pest management system which was probably the easiest to get in to compared to the plastic, ceramic, and cardboard systems. Not only that, but the paper system wasn’t closed completely, meaning that the flour was exposed to the air and at that point, the flour can attract all kinds of pests in the environment. Conclusion: My hypothesis was correct because when I placed the different foods into different containers, the containers that were closed, had significantly less pests than the paper container that was open. My independent and dependent variable played a huge role in the experiment because they were great at testing what contraption was the best source to test the quality of all the different contraptions. If I were to redo the experiment, I would have done it with the same foods because the different foods would have probably attracted different amounts of pests. Not only that, but I would have also done more trials so that the average amounts of pests would be more realistic. This relates to the outside would because being able to manage pests is what keeps out foods safe to eat. If we were to let different pests roam all over our crops, production of safe crops would decrease significantly and the whole world would go into starvation. This study source was downloaded by 100000848057009 from CourseHero.com on 06-02-2022 16:24:05 GMT -05:00 https://www.coursehero.com/file/38172565/704-Pest-Management-Labdocx/ Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
