Experiment question?

Question

If I were to make an experiment in which I was going to test the effect of light on an animal's activity pattern by making an indoor copy of the animal's natural habitat, but not allowing any light to get into it, what would be the independent, dependent, and controlled variables in my experiment? Obviously the indoor exhibit would be my experimental group, and I would compare it to a group of the animals in their natural habitat with sunlight.

Answer 1

the controlled variable is anything you keep the same, so in this case the habitat; ie. tha amount of area the animal has to live in, the amount of foliage there is, food, etc.

the independent variable is the amount of light

the dependent variable is the animal's behaviour.

as for comparing it with animals in the wild, the 'variables' are the same but unrelated - ie. you can't plot them on the same graph save for a comparison.

hope that answers our question!

Answer 2

Considering dependent variables are observed to change in response to the independent variables.

So, independent variables are those that are deliberately manipulated to invoke a change in the dependent variables.

Dependent = animal's growth rate, sleep habits, eating habits, anything that would change in response to the lack of light...or, activity patterns

Independent = the light...in this case, removing light

Controlled = temperature, duration of test, diet, s*x/age of animal, time results are being taken/observed...for the experiment to work and only reflect the results of the chosen experiment (effect of light on activity) you would need everything else to be the same. Therefore, by making a natural habitat indoors, you won't have it exactly replicated to that of the animal's habitat outdoors (temperature/humidity, etc will all be off)...maybe try doing the experiment outdoors, and have the experimental group covered to create darkness. You'll have to really think about this in order to have everything as similar as possible and only have the light exposure the change...it may be quite difficult.