To find out whether maggots respond in proportion to light intensity.

Equipment

Stopwatch

Boss and Clamp

Light with 100 watt bulb

Three Maggots

Graph Paper

Compass

Plan

To test this theory I am going to time how long it takes a maggot to travel 5 centimetres varying the intensity of the light. To make sure that my test is fair I will only have one variable and that is the height of the light source from the maggots. This will produce different light intensities. My constant will be the distance the maggot has to travel and the distance the clamp stand which holds the light is away from the maggot. To make sure my results are accurate and to try and lower the chance of an anomaly occurring I will do each different light intensity p3 times using three different maggots. I will use three different maggots because each maggot may have a different fitness level or one may be faster then another, and using three different maggots will stop this. I will have ten different light intensities. I will start with the lamp 5 cm away from the maggots, then move it up by 5 cm perform the experiment and higher it another 5cm to 15 cm I will continue this till I reach 25 cm. I think that if I only had a difference of 1cm then I would not see a big enough difference in the time taken because I haven't changed the light intensity by a considerable amount.

Maggots are very unhygienic and so I shall wear throw away gloves when handling them to stop the risk of infection, I will also do my experiment on a wooden tray so that germs are not left on the workbench, and after I have finished my experiment I will wash my hands.

Flowchart of experiment

Light Intensity 1/d²

Time taken (s) Exp. 1

Time Taken (s) Exp. 2

Time taken (s) Exp. 3

Average

/5² = 0.04

3.86

44.00

45.13

34.33

/10² = 0.01

5.13

45.84

-

30.49

/15² = 0.004

4.29

27.19

37.35

26.27

/20² = 0.0025

1.53

30.00

31.33

23.29

/25² = 0.0016

8.06

23.05

30.21

23.77