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Zoology Science Fair Project

Mice and Bad-Taste Memory

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Mice and Bad-Taste Memory | Science Fair Projects | STEM Projects
What happens when mice eat food that tastes bad and then get it again days later? This project tests how long a bad taste stays in a mouse's memory. You set up two cages with four mice each. On day one you add lithium chloride (a bitter-tasting chemical) to the food in cage one. Cage two gets plain food. At the end of the day you weigh the leftover food to see how much each group ate. On day two both cages get plain food. On day three you add lithium chloride to cage one again. If the mice remember the bad taste they should eat even less than on day one.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that the mice will not be able to tell the difference between food with and without Lithium Chloride.

Method & Materials

You will put four mice in each of two cages, weigh out equal amounts of food for both groups, and add lithium chloride to the food for one cage. At the end of the day, weigh how much food is left to see how much was eaten.
You will need two cages, four mice, food, and lithium chloride.

Results

The results show that the mice remember the bad tasting food with lithium chloride, as they ate less of it on the third day compared to the first. This suggests that mice have a memory for bad tastes.

Why do this project?

This science project is interesting because it shows that mice have a memory for bad tastes, which is something that was not known before.

Also Consider

Variations to consider include testing different amounts of lithium chloride, or testing different types of food.

Full project details

Additional information and source material for this project are available below.

Related video

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