STEM Investigation Projects - CUBE
| Model Organism |
|---|
| Hydra |
| Water flea |
| Fruit fly |
| Earthworm |
| Snail |
| Mosquito |
| Butterfly |
| Cardamine |
| Phyllanthus |
| Model System |
|---|
| Nail Growth Regeneration |
| Tree Mapping |
Hydra
Hydra is a freshwater animal found in a pond. It is a Cnidarian with the body, tentacles, and foot. What could be its food in pond water?
How can we maintain Hydra in our lab on a table-top? Can we find Hydra from our immediate environment?
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Water Flea
Water flea is a crab-like organism which can be found in any pond water. Can we find water flea from our immediate environment? What could it be eating in Pond? Can you enlist certain organisms, which are commonly found in a pond which can be feed for Water flea?
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Fruit fly
Do Fruitflies sleep, if so when? When are they active? Can the Fruitflies in our surroundings be used to understand problems of sleep in humans? If we start trapping fruit flies from our home or near the canteen, can we find out the resting and active/waking periods of the flies from the number of flies we trap from a place at different times of the day? Can we trap the fruitflies at midnight? Or, would they be sleeping at that time, compared to Mid- day?
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Earthworm
Earthworms are available all around us. They are known for the ability to regenerate, what is regeneration? In order to study the phenomenon of regeneration in the earthworm, we need to trap earthworms from our locality and maintain them in the lab.
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Snail
Snails are found in any garden in rainy season. We need snails (preferably giant African snail also known as Achatina fulica). Can we think of things Snail would like to eat, so that we can have snail as our pet, in school/home? Please enlist some of the things which could be food of snail?
Can we experimentally find out which food stuffs are attractant to snail, and which are not?
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Mosquito
Mosquitoes are present everywhere around us. Can we devise a method to trap them? Please suggest your method in reply section below.
Can we map mosquitoes across seasons? Which season will have a maximum number of mosquitoes and which one will have very less of it? Give your views in the reply section below.
How a mosquito causing dengue or malaria can be identified? Can we also find out in which season dengue or malaria-causing mosquitoes are found maximum so that these diseases can be prevented? What could be design of an experiment to solve this problem?
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Butterfly
Butterflies captivate out attention because of their striking colour patterns. They have been used to connect several disciplines in biology. Following are some broad areas (not exhaustive at all) which have used butterflies as model systems:
- Developmental biology: Development of spots on wings (developmental biology, evolutionary biology), Eye-spots: development and evolutionary significance,
- Anti-predator strategies:
- Mimicry patterns:
- Citizen science https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/65/4/419/255008
While the above-mentioned aspects are only cursory, it tells that butterflies can serve as model organisms just like the fruit fly or yeast. It is exciting that butterflies could tell us a lot more, beyond their bright colours patterns!
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Cardamine
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Phyllanthus
Phyllanthus is a plant which can be found in any garden or roadside pavement. It is around 4-5 cm elongated plant, with branches and compound leaves.Fascinating thing about this plant is, it closes its leaves in the evening and opens it up again in the morning time.
Can you collect this plant from your immediate environment and grow it at your school/home?
Can we check at what time they are opening and closing its leaves?
Can you think factors which could be causing this opening & losing of leaves in Phyllanthus?
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Nail Growth Regeneration
Recently held general election (April-May, 2019 in India) gives an opportunity to collect a massive amount of data on the growth rate of the nail, through voter`s ink mark at the fingertip. The nail bed is known to be biologically highly active. Physiological changes according to age, gender, chronic illness, etc can affect nail growth. In this Citizen Science online project, students/teachers of schools/colleges, as well as general citizens, will be collecting, analyzing & publishing this easily accessible data through collaborative ongoing engagement.
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Tree Mapping
Trees behavior such as fruiting, flowering, sprouting of leaves, changing colour of leaves & flowers take place with every change in season. Can we map the seasons with markers of trees?
Let us have a field visit to map some of the trees found in our immediate locality, observe them and report if they are fruiting, flowering or any other behaviors of them.
For more details visit STEMGames: Link
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If you are interested to know more about the group, you can visit CUBE