Discussion:
Lab Report
A. Background Information
The background information of this laboratory report would include information about the slug and the substances that were used in the experiment.
1. You should included the following information on the slug.
a. Classification of the organism, including kingdom, phylum, class, order, family and scientific name, if possible.
b. General characteristics of that phylum
c. Related organisms.
d. Characteristics specific to the slug, habitats, adaptations, foods it eats, survival mechanisms.
e. Drawings of the slug with labels. Description of labels, with an emphasis on structures that assist in detecting and obtaining food in the environment (nervous, digestion, movement).
2. You should include the following information on the substances used in the experiment, if possible. You would have to decide what ingredients you wanted to use in the experiment. The laboratory has some substances, but you may want to use other foods or other substances that you may have in your home.
a. Common ingredients in the substance.
b. Common uses of the substances
c. Chemical characteristics of the substances, is the substance acidic, basic, harmful, food is it a food source?
B. Purpose
This part of the experiment simply states what you are trying to prove in the experiment. It is usually only one statement.
C. Hypothesis
These are statements that tell what you think will happen in the experiment. Remember that the hypothesis has inductive reasoning from the initial information you gathered in the background information, and then predict what would happen with the knowledge. For
example, since vinegar is acidic and acids are usually harmful to organisms (inductive), I predict that the slug would not want to be in its presence and would be repelled by it. (prediction-deductive reasoning).
You have a ten-part hypothesis to this experiment, since you are testing ten substances with the snail. Your laboratory exercise also has a chart that requires you to make separate hypotheses for each substance that you are using. Make sure all are included in some way in this section.