Science project

Animal Camouflage

Camouflage occurs everywhere in the natural world, but animal camouflage is an especially interesting phenomenon. In this amazing world, animal camouflage is carried out in many ways: in color patterns, modifications in their exoskeletons, variations in their skins and outer coverings; even mimicking objects in order to outfox their prey and to survive. Since living things live in differing environments or habitats, they adapt and survive by attempting to blend into these environments and are less of a target for their predators, namely their enemies. For example, katydids live in green, leafy trees. They have adapted by having a green body shaped like a leaf, very hard to detect. Chameleons have the ability to change their colors so that they blend into their habitats and thereby become invisible. Soldiers who have fought in jungle areas have been provided with clothes that blend in with the trees, shrubbery and wild life so that they become invisible. Survival is the goal.

On the information level, this project will acquaint students with basic knowledge on the processes of adaptation and camouflage in animals and how these processes have served a variety of living organisms both plants and animals in their quest for survival.This project should demonstrate how effective the camouflage game is. Can we hide and not be found?

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Subject

Science Life Science

Problem:

How effective is camouflage in ensuring the survival of living things

Materials:

Pipe cleaners
Toothpicks
Colored buttons
Colored construction paper
White paper
Magic markers
Scissors
Tape and plastic bags

Procedure:

Gather all the materials that you will need for this project.
Select two classmates or friends who will serve as your investigators.
Copy the Data Chart provided so that you can readily record all of the information.
Use the construction paper to make leaves, worms, and butterflies. Use all of the colored buttons, color all of the pipe cleaners and tooth picks to create “organisms in hiding”. Match them to the surroundings outside of your house. All of these will be your camouflages which you will place in the yard and which will blend in with the surroundings. Make certain to count the number of each so that you will be able to note how many your investigators retrieved and how many they missed.
Prepare your investigators. Give them instructions to search the yard for objects that do not belong there and provide them with plastic bags in which to store their findings.
Upon their return, it is time to count and tall what they have collected and records the information in the data chart.
Analyze the results. What do you conclude? Did you succeed in hiding, in camouflaging a large number of objects? Did the objects that were not found match their surroundings in color?
Write up your experiment. Include your research and bibliography. If you were to improve on this project, what would you do differently?

Data Chart

Objects used as camouflage	Number of Hidden Objects	Number of Found Objects	Observations: Color Matches?
Pipe cleaners
Tooth Picks
Buttons
Leaf cut outs
Other cut outs

Author: Muriel Gerhard

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Science project

Animal Camouflage

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Animal Camouflage

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