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Rose Color Preference in Japanese Beetles
Submitted by: Karen M.
Recommended Grade Level(s):
Appropriate for: Grade 8
Time Requirements:
Activity Time: 90 minutes
Teaching Topics & Concepts:
• Life Science/Biology
• Insect Behavior
Objective:
• Students will conduct a scientific investigation.
• Students will observe insect behavior.
• Students will determine rose color preference for Japanese beetles, Popillia japonica.
Standards:
Science as inquiry: All students should develop abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry.
• Identify questions that can be answered through scientific investigations
• Design and conduct a scientific investigation
• Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze, and interpret data
• Develop descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models using evidence
• Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations
• Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and predictions
• Communicate scientific procedures and explanations
• Use mathematics in all aspects of scientific inquiry
Overview:
Japanese beetles are the "thorn in the side" of rose gardeners everywhere. As a child, part of my allowance was earned by
picking the beetles off of my mother's rose bushes. I observed that some rose bushes seemed to have higher populations of
beetles than others and thus sustained more damage. I often wondered why the beetles seemed to prefer one bush over another.
This experiment will help to determine if color is the variable that caused the differences I observed.
Materials:
• 6 Japanese beetles, Popillia japonica
• 6 plastic shoe box size containers with lids
• 6 four inch cuttings (including at least one open bloom) from the same yellow rose bush
• 6 four inch cuttings (including at least one open bloom) from the same red rose bush
• Stopwatch
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