The lab aims to examine the survival of prey and predators in terms of beans and students’ mouthparts. The hypothesis is that green beans, due to their small size, would survive and predators using their hands as mouthparts would also survive. To conduct the lab, we gather seven different types of beans, including split pea, kidney bean, large white bean, black bean, pinto bean, small white bean, and red bean. Each type of bean should consist of 100 units. All the beans are then dumped on the lawn for the predators to collect. Fifteen students are chosen and evenly distributed into five groups based on their mouthparts: knife, fork, spoon, hand, and clothespin. These mouthparts are the only part of the predator that can come in contact with the ground. Each predator is given a cup as a stomach to hold the prey.
The prey gathered and only their mouthparts may pick up the beans. The beans must then be placed into their stomachs. The predators had 5 seconds to simultaneously pick up as many prey as they can. At the end of 5 seconds, each predator counts the number of beans. The predators are then ranked according to the number of prey they picked up. The result of the first generation shows that there are 0 knife survivors, 2 fork survivors, 3 spoon survivors, 2 hand survivors, and 1 clothespin survivor. Among the prey, split pea has the most survivors with a count of 72, while large white beans have the least survivors. We repeated the same steps for the preparation of the 2nd and 3rd generations. The results for both the 2nd and 3rd generations show that spoon and hand predators have the most survivors. Split pea continues to have the most survivors, while large white bean remains with the least survivors.
The results confirmed my hypotheses. The hand and spoon predator demonstrated greater efficiency compared to others, allowing them to survive. The split peas, being smaller than other beans, had a higher likelihood of survival. The actual number of remaining prey on the lawn differed from our calculations. This could be due to some beans being destroyed or scattered outside of the lawn. Additionally, it is possible that we miscounted the number of beans at the beginning.
