Meal Worm Exploration

Goal: Our goal for this experiment was to see if the mealworms would respond to music, and if so, if their responses would be different for certain styles of music

 

Materials: Paper plate, iphone (for music), and two different kinds of songs 

 

Hypothesis: We believe that if we play loud music that the mealworms will get upset and curl up, and if we play calming music they will slow down. If the loud music is played they might wiggle but stay in place.

 

Procedure: First, we played a loud, upbeat pop song to see how they would react.  After playing this music for thirty seconds we placed a cover over the mealworms for sixty seconds and then played calm sounds to see how they would react.

 

Observations:

First song: Taylor Swift "Begin again"

They remained active and acted normally, as if they did not seem to mind it.

 

 

Second song: Taylor Swift "Shake it off"

The mealworms seemed to be attempting to figure out where the sound was coming from. They stopped moving temporarily and then began to crawl away from where the rap music was emanating from.

    

 

Results:  While the fast music was played the mealworms seemed to move much faster than when the slow music was playing.   We believe this is because the slow music is quieter and doesn't produce as many vibrations (which mealworms can sense) as the fast music did.

 

Independent Variables: Volume of music, distance of speakers to mealworms, genre of music. 

Dependent Variables: Reaction of mealworms.