Inquiry Lab- Investigating Worms Essential Question: How do biologists study living things?

Earthworm  Lumbricus terrestis means

Earthworm Anatomy

Earthworm Classification

Observing your worm  Get a paper towel  Moisten it  Clear your desks except for paper and pen  Only use your hands to touch the worm  Keep your worm on the towel  Observe its heartbeat

Observing its heartbeat  Find the artery in the tail end  Focus on 2-3 segments  Count how many times its switches from light to dark in 30 seconds

In your lab notebooks  Introduction: Make a table of observations/inferences (5)

Doing things in a scientific way  Observe  Wonder  Question  PLAY (perform your experiment)

Potential Questions to ask  What condition(s) cause a worm’s heart rate to increase?  How many times will a worm select (move towards) a specific condition?  How long does it take for a worm to respond to a specific condition?

Experimental Design Guidelines  (IF) Independent Variable: condition or situation you will set up  (THEN) Dependent Variable: Must be quantitative the NUMBER that you will record

IF/THEN hypothesis should reflect your question  Hypothesis predicts how variables will change  IF the temperature increases, THEN heart rate will go up.

Data collection should reflect your question  Independent Variable (x-axis) =  Dependent Variable (y-axis) =

Conclusions--Evaluate your hypothesis and explain results/error  Respond to your hypothesis using data.  Connect to ideas and future experiments  Explain errors and suggest improvments to minimize error

Your Lab Notebooks  Introduction/Observations  Hypothesis (If…then…because)  Procedure: Variables: IV, DV, Controls What you did  Data: Table (organized collection of data) Graph (sketch)  Conclusion: Data/Response to hypothesis, Future Testing, Errors