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Zoology Science Fair Project

Scent and Fear

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Scent and Fear | Science Fair Projects | STEM Projects
In this experiment, mice are placed in a maze and timed to see if the scent of a cat affects their speed. The results show that the smell of cat urine had no effect on the mice's speed.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that the scent of a cat will cause a mouse to be slower in finding its food.

Method & Materials

You will make a maze using cardboard, glue, and masking tape, and place a sunflower seed at the end. Then, you will drop the mice one at a time into the maze and time how long it takes them to find the food.
You will need 10 white mice, a packet of sunflower seed, cardboard or old carton boxes, scissors, masking tape, glue, a stopwatch, a meter-length ruler, and a cloth soaked in cat urine.

Results

The results of the experiment showed that the smell of the cat's urine did not have any effect on how quickly the mice were able to complete the maze.

Why do this project?

This science project is interesting because it tests the traditional belief that cats can scare away mice.

Also Consider

To further explore this topic, it might be interesting to observe whether the sound of a cat (instead of its scent) will produce different results. Another variation could be to use wild mice instead of domesticated ones.

Full project details

You can find additional information and details for this science fair project here. Have fun exploring!

Related video

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