NAME David

CLASS 7
DATE
PLANARIA LAB REPORT

PROBLEM: If trisected, which piece of a planarian will regenerate first?

HYPOTHESIS: If trisected, then the head will regenerate first.

THEORY:

Planarian are flat worms that can reproduce sexually. How they
produce sexually is they exchange sperm and then they lay there eggs which
are fertilized internally. But they lay there eggs after they are fertilized and
they hatch in 3 weeks. They are hermaphrodites, which mean they have
female and male gonads.


Planaria can also reproduce asexually is they have a piece of them fall
off. This usually happens in bad conditions like if there isnt enough food.
There are two ways that their parts break off. They are called tail dropping
and fragmentation. Tail dropping is when the tail just falls off. Fragmentation
is when they break apart into multiple segments. After the pieces fall off they
grow into a full worm.


Planariav regenerate by neoblasts. neoblasts are unspecialized cells
that can turn into specialized cells. For example a neoblasts can turn into a
digestive system cell. 30% of the Planaria are neoblasts. Neoblasts migrate to
the point of the wound and start to regenerate 15 minutes after the initial cut
is made. Then they start to regenerate. They regenerate by the neoblasts
divide into half one specialized cell and one neoblasts. They do this over and
over until the entire worm is regenerated. They are totipotent. So back to me
hypothiesis the head will grow first, because it:
Moves the most.
Grows the fastest.


In this lab we trisected a Planaria to see which part would regenerate
first. I hypothesized that the anterior would grow first. My data shows that
day-by-day the anterior moves the most and grows the most. Also the mid
section grew a lot but less than the anterior. The mid section also grew more
than the posterior. In my class 50% of the anterior grew first. But in the 7
th

grade only 37% of the anterior grew first. In the other classes the mid section
grew the most. 49% of the midsections in other classes grew first. Only 14% of
the posteriors grew first in the entire 7
th
grade. In conclusion Planaria will
regenerate the anterior first.

Analysis

Because the class data shows that the majority of anterior sections
regenerated first by 1% over the mid sections, I believe my results to be
reliable. Due to careful observations and note taking, I was able to draw
accurate conclusions. For example, the following events occurred within the
nine days; during day one, all of the pieces were moving except the posterior,
which was not moving at all. A day later we noticed that they all grew a
tremendous amount. During day two we noticed that the anterior grew a lot
along with the midsection. But this time the anterior wasnt moving as much
as it did the previous day. The posterior was still the slow Planaria. On day
three they all grew to an equal amount. The Planaria was still growing at a
rapid rate. On day four the Planaria was much bigger. On day 5 the Planaria
was fully grown. Each piece had a anterior, mid section and posterior. It made
it impossible to see which one grew first, effectively proving our hypothesis
correct! The only change I would make to this lab is start the lab on Monday
and look at it everyday of the 5 days. I hypothesized that the anterior would
grow first because it had fewer parts to regenerate. This is true with the
midsection also. I think that the posterior would grow last because it has to
37
49
14
50
43
7
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Anterior Mid Section Posterior
P
e
r
c
e
n
t

r
e
g
e
n
e
r
a
t
e
d


f
i
r
s
t


2014 Regeneration Data
7th Grade
7th Period
regenerate the entire digestive system and the head of the planarian, rather
than the anterior having to only regenerate the midsection and tail.