RATS VS.

MICE

By: Anja, Sam, Eme, & Elena

Question:
What is the relationship of problem-solving skills on two different species of rodents?

Rationale: We decided to do this project because we wanted to do a project using animals. We also
wanted to do a challenge for animals. We had rats and mice in the classroom, and they are similar
rodents.

What we know from our research: Rats possibly aren’t smarter than mice.

Sites we used for research:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/rats-arent-smarter-than-mice-and-that-actually-
matters/381430/ rats vs mice
https://www.pestworld.org/pest-guide/rodents/house-mice/ mice
https://www.trulynolen.com/pest-identifier/rats/what-are-rats.asp rats

Our Hypothesis:
Our hypothesis is that rats will beat the mice because we think the rats will smell the cage at the end of
the maze better than the mice.

Materials:
1.) Cardboard
2.) Hot glue
3.) Paper
4.) Markers
5.) Template
6.) Rat cage
7.) Mouse cage
8.) Mouse and Rat Food
9.) 2 rats
10.) 2 mice
11.) Box cutter

Steps of our experiment:

1. Do research about rats and mice
2. Get measurements for cardboard
3. Get lots of cardboard
4. Use a boxcutter to cut out measurements out of cardboard
5. make a cardboard base to put your cardboard pieces on
6. Hot glue your cardboard on the base
7. Hot glue walls
8. Put rats or mice in and time them
9. Write data on piece of paper or on chart
10. Test them over and over

Results
 CHART FOR TIMES
MICE RATS

Guaco Taco Cookies Dusty

1st 2:44 1st 0:23 1st 0:18 1st 0:29
2nd 2:09 2nd 0:48 2nd 1:19 2nd 2:45
3rd 0:08 3rd 0:18 3rd 0:11 3rd ?
4th 1:01 4th 0:40 4th 0:43 4th ?

Conclusion
Looking at our results, it is clear that our hypothesis was wrong. Our hypothesis was that rats will beat the
mice in the maze because we think the rats will smell the cage at the end of the maze better than the
mice. One way we know our hypothesis was wrong is that one of the mice went through the maze in eight
seconds. We think this happened because the mouse had already been in the maze two other times and
was familiar with the maze. Also the mice’s average time was 62.375 and the rats average time was
43.125. Another interesting thing that happened was that one of the rats refused to do the maze. We think
this was because he was stressed out and refused to move. In conclusion, it turns out that the mice are
smarter than rats. If we were to do this again, two things we would change would be to make a trickier
maze and to test more animals.

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