investigating simple animal responses

- a choice chamber is a container with different compartments, in which you can create different environmental conditions. it can be used to investigate how animals, such as woodlice or maggots, respond to conditions like light intensity or humidity in the laboratory, here's how you can use a choice chamber: construct a choice chamber using; a petri dish, a divider, fine mesh and a petri dish lid. to investigate the effect of light intensity on woodlouse movement, cover one half of the lid (including the sides) with black paper. this will make one side of the chamber dark. put damp filter paper in both sides of the base to make humidity constant throughout the chamber. place 10 woodlice on the mesh in the centre of the chamber and position the lid on the mesh so it's lined up with the base below. after 10 minutes, take off the lid and record the number of woodlice on each side of the chamber. try to minimise the amount of time the lid is off, so the environmental conditions created aren't disturbed. repeat the experiment after gently moving the woodlice back into the centre. you should have found that most woodlice end up on the dark side of the choice chamber (a tactic response to light). to investigate humidity, place some damp filter paper in one side of the base and a desiccating (drying) agent in the other side. don't cover the lid with paper. put the lid on and leave the chamber for ten minutes for the environmental conditions to stabilise before carrying out steps 3-5 above. you can also investigate simple animal responses using a maze. for example, a paper maze can be used to investigate turning behavior in woodlice and whether its affected by light intensity.