Mr. Posgais Biology Ii Class Lab Essays - Web Colors,

Mr. Posgai's Biology Ii Class Lab Abstract Mr. Posgai's Biology II class often pondered the thought of insects' attraction to certain colors on flowers. Well, on September 14, 1999, we decided to experiment and figure out which colors on flowers were more dominant over others. Our Biology class divided up into groups of two and three people. Each group took a different colored piece of poster board. One person in each group applied Tangle Trap to the twelve by nine inch area and stapled each board to a piece of lattice. We then took the lattice outside, about fifty feet from the school building and left it outdoors for about forty-eight hours. When we retrieved our lattice, we counted the number of insects on each board and proved our hypothesis, that insects prefer yellow flowers and white flowers over the other colors, to be true. Introduction During the week of September 13, through September 17, Mr. Posgai's Biology II class carried out an interesting experiment involving insects and their color attractions. Pollination is vital to insect and flower reproduction. Birds and insects drift from flower to flower, selecting the appropriate ?flavor? of their choice to carry on their necessary task of nature. With the way nature works, this process sounds to be simple; however, it is much more complicated and in a sense, more unbelievable than you could ever imagine. A bird or insect flies or walks up into the flower to reach the pollen. As time moves o, that same bird and/or insect will move on to something else and carry the pollen with it. The pollen being transferred like this is a major factor in the flower reproduction system. My class came up with the hypothesis that the insects would be most attracted to the colors of yellow and white. Our hypothesis was proved to be true when we brought in the lattice containing all of the individual colored poster board pieces. The results were not surprising to us, as white had gathered eighty three insects and yellow gathering eighty. These colors together almost are more than the rest of the colors' insect amount combined. Materials and Methods -9 Different color poster boards: red, blue, yellow, white, purple, green, black, orange, and hot pink -Tangle Trap -Putty knife -Pencil -Ruler -Lattice -2 sticks Everyone in the class first divided up into groups of three and four people. Each group chose a 14? by 11? piece of poster board of a different color. They took the ruler and marked off with the pencil, approximately a one inch border for handling. With the putty knife at hand, they applied the Tangle Trap to the middle of the board, being careful not to let it get on their hands or clothing. Handling the piece of poster board by the one inch border on the sides, each group carefully took their board and stapled it to the lattice. The lattice was then placed outside (being held up by the two sticks) with all nine different colored poster boards stapled on it, with each piece having a 12? by 9? available trapping space. After about forty-eight hours, they retrieved the lattice and each group took back their assigned color and counted the number of insects on it. Discussion/Conclusion After retrieving our lattice board from outside, and carefully counting over and over, for reassurance, the total amount of insects on each piece of poster board, and the different types, our class came to the final conclusion that yellow, white, and red were the more dominant colors in this particular experiment. Although, this did not exactly match our hypothesis, the results were close. Also, you must take in to consideration when reading this conclusion that we only made one trial. During a normal experiment, there should be more than one test. Afterall, if is hard to determine the facts of nature with multiple experiments, let alone just one. There could also be many other factors which affected our results. An example would be that not everyone calculated exactly a one inch border from the sides of their poster board. Some people may have put the Tangle Trap on their board thicker than others, which would lead to more or less insects sticking to their particular poster board. Another factor may be that the group who was in charge of the purple poster board had to color a plain white piece. Meaning that the board may not be completely purple, and the insects may be attracted to the white spots showing through the colored board.

Physical attractiveness Essays

Physical attractiveness Essays Physical attractiveness Essay Physical attractiveness Essay The sample was composed of 40 students from the University of Warwick, 20 males and 20 females, between 18 and 24 years of age. Equal numbers of male and female participants were used to counter the effects gender may place on perception of physical attractiveness. The subjects participated in the study on a voluntary basis and were an opportunity sample.  Materials  Two consent forms including a brief about the experiment and the participants role within it was provided for the couples being rated and the independent judges, (see appendix A and B.) Separate colour photographs were taken from the neck up of each member of ten long term heterosexual couples using a digital camera. Long term was defined as courting for 6months or over. These couples were told their photograph would be rated for physical attractiveness by independent judges and that the results would be recorded for a psychological investigation, anonymously and confidentially.  Each photograph was printed on a separate sheet of paper and divided into two groups according to sex (see appendix C.) Paper and pens were used for the subjects to record their ranking order of physical attractiveness for the male and female groups. Microsoft excel was used to format these results (see appendix D.)  SPSS (version 10) software was used to calculate the data set.  Design  The enquiry was a correlation study, exploring the relationship between the two variables of physical attractiveness of an individual and the physical attractiveness of their partner. Spearmans rho statistical test was used to calculate the data set because the study was a correlation design and the data was ordinal. However, my results cannot necessarily be accounted for using different cultures, as Anderson et al (1992) found that attractive characteristics varies from culture to culture. Limitations and Modifications Although my results matched my experimental hypothesis, the experiment had many limitations. Firstly, I was not able to control who advertised themselves in the newspaper and therefore the advertisements may not be representative of the general population. Only a certain type of person would put an advertisement into a newspaper. They may be shy or have a personal difference that stops them from going out. It is also possible that they have personality traits that are not typical of the average person. It could be argued that people who advertise in lonely-hearts advertisements could be argued as abnormal. Most people are able to and meet their partners out on social occasions or at their local sports club but those who are writing into the newspapers must be unable to find somebody in theses situations and therefore could possibly be abnormal. Secondly, people may emphasise certain traits, underestimate others and tell lies or not the full truth. This limits the validity of any conclusions that are drawn from the possibly unreliable results. Also, there is the fact that my pre-determined lists are subjective as they are opinion and therefore someone repeating the experiment may deduce completely different information from the same examples when there were no specific references to youth/looks and wealth/finance. This reduces the ecological validity of my experiment even further. As with most experiments, Cultural variations have to also be taken into account. This could be due to the extent to which countries are developed and the differing cultural priorities. For example in some cultures it is a priority for women to get married and have children, whereas for the men it is to provide food for their family. It is now becoming increasingly more common for the womens role to be more providing and for the mens role to be involved with the children. My results draw attention to the fact that women who have youth/good looks and men that are successful/wealthy (and good looking also) are thought to be the most attractive. These results are apparent in the media and aspects of every day life. For example, photos of women on mens magazines are almost always of women who are youthful and stereotypically good looking. Also, mens magazines often contain content that will offer advice on becoming more successful, and therefore more attractive. Also, many adverts aimed at men signify status symbols and therefore support my findings. One explanation for my results may be because of an evolutionary effect; over time men have become more attracted to good looking women as they will be likely to successfully give birth to children and women have become more attracted to men offering resources as they will be more likely to provide for them and their offspring meaning a higher chance of survival. By doing this, healthy genes can be passed on through the generations and the race can continue to survive. This explanation is supported by Darwins theory of evolution. However, men and women may be influenced by the media, peer pressure or other things that make them try and act or appear more attractive. There is a range of further research that could be carried out to gain a further insight into the nature of these findings. For example, the experiment could be repeated using homosexual ads, and see what resources homosexuals offer and compare those findings to these ones. I could also compare results with findings from samples of an older generation past breeding age so that the findings would be irrelevant to evolution. Additionally, a cross culture investigation would be an interesting investigation to be done. One could study how people in different cultures attract their partners and even compare between more economically developed and less economically developed countries.