A controlled experiment?

Question

Describe a controlled experiment you could perform to determine whether ants are more attracted to butter or honey.

Answer 1

A control experiment that you could do is to show whether ants are first attracted to butter and honey.

So you have an control experiment with ant + butter, then ant + honey.  Then your proper experiment with ant exposed to butter AND honey.

Answer 2

I'd suggest having a control -- a neutral substance to test if ants are attracted to food or just any substance that you place near them.  The control substance should be something like water, or petroleum jelly (or lanolin). This is important because you should expect that ants will not go towards the control substance.  Therefore, if you see many ants moving towards the control, they might be attracted to any substance, whether or not its food.  If you see no ants moving towards the control, you can be certain that any ants that move towards the honey or butter are attracted to them because they are food, and not because they are a new substance they are exposed to.

To set up the experiment you will need enclosed arenas (the bigger the better).  You could use Tupperware tubs or something and place the ants in the middle between two test substances.  You should test two substance at once -- give the ants a choice!  The treatments will include 1) +control +honey, 2) +control +butter, 3) +honey +butter, and 4) +control +control (optional).

Good luck.

Answer 3

First you make two groups.

Group A and B each have 100 ants.

-You put a butter in a jar and let the ant of Group A smell it ( 20 cm from the ants)

-You put some honey in a jar and let the ant of Group B smell it ( 20 cm from the ants)

After 20 minutes, you can make the conclusion.

-If there are more ants in the jar with butter,than you concluse that butter is more attractive than honey to ants.

-If there are more ants in the jar with honey,than you concluse that honey is more attractive than butter to ants.