CENTRAL LUZON STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ, NUEVA ECIJA

LABORATORY ACTIVITY 1:
SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Submitter By:

SUDOY, JAN DARYLL S.

Submitted To:

MRS. ANGELES DELEON

Professor

BIOL 1200- General Zoology (Laboratory)

October 21, 2020

 ACTIVITY 1
SCIENTIFIC METHOD

A. Observations
Solenopsis invicta (Fire Ants) tend to come for left-over food in the student’s kitchen
counter or table, especially when the food left tastes or smells sweet rather than other
foods.

B. Problem
If Fire Ants are attracted to sweet smelly foods, how about Black Garden Ants?
Thus, this experiment will answered how sweet smell affects to Olfaction system (sense
of smell) of Lasius niger (Black Garden Ants)?

C. Hypotheses
Most of the Lasius niger (Black Garden Ants) Olfaction system will respond to the
sweet smell food rather than into other food smell. Sweet attracts the most of the ants,
because sugar is one of the food that ants need to convert into energy because they work
almost every day.

D. Experimentation
 Materials
1. Lasius niger (Black Garden Ants) colony
2. Different kinds of food smell, for this experiment the student-researcher’s uses
liquids: Honey (for sweet smell), Vanilla (for oriental smell), Oyster Sauce (for
fishy smell), and Calamansi Juice (for citrus smell)
3. Plastic bottles formed into a trap
4. Adhesive tape

 Methods
1. Make a trap using the plastic bottles, cut in half, and place the upper part of the
bottle inverted in the bottom part and tape the side for security.
 2. Place the liquids [Honey (for sweet smell), Vanilla (for oriental smell), Oyster
Sauce (for fishy smell), and Ripened Calamansi Juice (for citrus smell)] inside
the bottle and put label.
3. Place the bottles near at the Lasius niger (Black Garden Ants) colony.
4. The time span of the experiment takes 5 hours (from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM).

 Results
Almost of the Lasius niger (Black Garden Ants) in the colony, like the fire ants
also came for the sweet smell liquid, which was honey (sweet), while the some
came for vanilla (oriental), and some went to oyster sauce (fishy) and ripened
calamansi juice (citrusy).

E. Conclusion or Generalization
The pie chart showed below the numerical representation of the data. Where the
Lasius niger (Black Garden Ants) went to the sweet smell (honey) were 231, while in
oriental smell (vanilla) were 8, whereas in fishy smell (oyster sauce) were 3, and in
citrusy smell (ripened calamansi juice) were 3.

Lasius niger (Black Garden Ants) counts in each bottle with different smell
components

Ripened
Calamansi
Vanilla
Oyster
Juice (Citrusy
Sauce
(Oriental
Juice)Smell)
(Fishy
Smell)
0%
3%1%

Honey (Sweet
Smell)
95%

Honey (Sweet Smell) Vanilla (Oriental Smell)

Oyster Sauce (Fishy Smell) Ripened Calamansi Juice (Citrusy Juice)
 Nevertheless, the data proved that the given hypothesis was accurate. Lasius niger
(Black Garden Ants) like the Fire Ants, their Olfaction system (sense of smell) was more
likely to responds in sweet foods.

Answers to Questions

1. What is the importance of Scientific Method?

The importance of scientific method is that it is using standardized method in
investigating and conducting a problem, so it most likely to minimizes bias and prejudice
in the results.

2. What possible errors have you committed in designing and performing the
experiment? Have these errors affected your result?
I think the error I committed in designing and performing the experiment were that I
only use 4 smell components in the experiment, also I only uses liquids as substitute to a
foods. It slightly affected my experiment because the smell choices is only 4 and didn’t
know if the ants may attracted in other food smells too.

3. How and what then should you remember in designing and performing
experiments?
The thing I should remember in designing and performing an experiment is minimize
or as much as possible avoid biases and prejudice. Also in making my observation I
should come up with a precise and accurate observation. In experimenting I should to
replication and treatment for an accurate and precise results.
 DOCUMENTATIONS

Preparation of the bottles with different Placing the bottles near the black garden
liquid taste and smell ants colony

Counting the black garden ants Black Ants in Honey (sweet)

Black Ants in VanillaBlack
(oriental)
Ants in Oyster Sauce (fishy)

Black Ants in Ripened Calamansi Juice

(citrucy)