ABSTRACT Pill bugs live in an outside environment where they are able to get the necessary amount of energy from organic matter. This environment is where water and organic matter is plentiful. In there natural habitat, pill bugs are found in dark, damp places. Living in moist places is important for pill bugs so they can take in enough water, and if water is not available, they group together to prevent water loss. Pill bugs most often live in dark places because they have a negative photo taxis. Darker places also tend to be cooler and damper. Each experiment connected to how the pill bugs would behave in a certain environment. We were able to test these experiments in a laboratory way to see if the natural environments were also true. …show more content…

Obtain a stop watch and remove the barrier. Then record the amount of pillbugs on the light and dark chambers after every 30 seconds. We recorded our results every 30 seconds for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes are over, take the cover off the dark chamber and make sure you have all 10 pillbugs still and then place the clear chamber covers to ensure that the bugs won’t escape whilst you get the second experiment ready. Remember to document in your lab book which is the independent and dependent variable for each of your experiments, this will make it easier to graph them later on. The next test is to see if the animals find a damp environment more appealing than a dry one. This is done by damping a white circular disk of paper with water and placing it in one of the chambers. When doing this, make sure that all 10 pillbugs are on one side so you will not be placing the damp paper on top of a pillbug. Just like the previous experiment, place five pillbugs on each side of the chamber and block the doorway. When the timer is ready, open up the entry way and time for 10 minutes, recording the number of pillbugs on each side every 30 seconds. When the 10 minutes has elapsed, carefully rally the pillbugs to the dry chamber and remove the damp paper and cover the chambers with the clear cover again. For the third experiment we tested if the pillbugs would prefer a sheltered environment as oppose to an open one.