Pill Bug Lab- Prelab
Name:
Period:
Background: What do you know about pill bugs? (also known as Rolly pollies)
Describe their natural habitat (where would you find them)
Based on your background, make a hypothesis as to which type of environment the pill
bug would prefer. Circle one of each: Wet/Dry Dark/Light Rough/Smooth Hot/cold
You are going to design a well designed investigation to determine which type of
environment is preferred by the pill bug. You may only change your environment in one
way (you can do hot vs cold, but not hot and dark vs. cold and light).
How do you want to change your environment?
How can you measure which environment the pill bugs prefer?
What is your independent variable in this experiment?
What is your dependent variable in this experiment?
Write a Testable Question for this experiment:
Write a hypothesis for this experiment:
What will you keep the same in this experiment (constants)?
How will you set up this experiment so that only the 2 factors you want to test will be
changed?
What materials will you use in this experiment? your options include: 6 live Pill bugs,
Plastic Petri dish, sand paper, black construction paper, paint brush (for pushing pill
bugs- not for painting), cold water, ice cubes, transparent tape, white paper, clock, warm
water, paper cups, scissors, paper towels.
Draw a picture of your set up below:
Procedures: Write down what you will do to make sure that you have accurate data (it is
repeatable), that the only factors that are changing are your independent variables, and
that will give you data to prove which environment the pill bugs like best.
Data Chart: Make a data chart below to record the data that you will collect. Make sure
you include room for multiple trials and a place to record the average results.
Graph: What type of graph will you do? (line or bar graph)
Which variable/units will go on the x-axis?
Which variable/units will go on the y-axis?
What will the title of your graph be?
Conclusion: How will you know which environment the pill bugs liked best? What
could be a source of error in your experiment?