Aim: To find out if ants prefer cheese or sugar

Hypothesis: If the type of food is replaced from cheese to sugar, more ants will move
towards the sugar.
Independent variable: Type of food
Dependent: The number of ants that move towards the food
Controlled:
 The distance of the food from the ants
 The number of ants at the start
 The quantity of food
 The volume of the plastic box
Materials:
 10 ants in a beaker
 20g sugar
 20g cheese
 30L plastic box without lid - 32 cm width x 45 cm depth x 26 cm height
Method:
1. Gather materials
2. Place the 20g of cheese on the far left of the plastic box
3. Place the 10 ants in the middle of the box
4. Wait for 10 minutes
5. Count the number of ants directly on (not near) the cheese and record
6. Collect ants back into beaker & clear the box
7. Place the 20g of sugar on the far left of the plastic box
8. Place the 10 ants in the middle of the box
9. Wait for 10 minutes
10. Count the number of ants directly on (not near) the sugar
Ant experiment set up:
I didn’t have time to perform the experiment, but here are the results from another person:

Bar Graph (I made the bar graph myself):

Analysis:
The purpose of this experiment was to find out whether ants preferred sugar or cheese, and
my hypothesis was that the ants would choose the sugar. The results supported the
hypothesis that ants prefer sugar over cheese. After placing sugar on one side and cheese
on another, 7 ants chose the sugar compared to only 3 ants choosing the cheese. 3 ants did
not choose either food. One limitation of this experiment is the fact that there were very
few ants. 13 ants are only a small sample, and we could improve our experiment by testing
with at least 20 ants. Another limitation of this experiment is the fact that we only tested
once. We could improve our experiment by testing at least 3 times and finding the average
of these results to make the conclusion more accurate. Another limitation of this
experiment is the fact that we got ants from the same nest, and therefore they might have
the same taste as one another. We could improve our experiment by getting ants from 2 or
3 nests, to make sure the sample is as accurate and real as possible.