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Ants and the City: Can urban green spaces help preserve native ant populations?

 Please **see the subpages (listed on the navigation bar to your left)** titled specific aims and protocol to assess the feasibility of this project for your needs. All of the information needed to conduct this project is available within this website! __Project Summary__: A **life and environmental science inquiry project** centered on urban ecology. This project fits into a wide range of academic subjects at all grade levels and uses ants as a readily available subject of research. This project can be **conducted in almost any setting** - urban, rural, in the smallest of green spaces, to sidewalks and concrete. The research can be done almost entirely by students once they have had explicit instruction on experimental protocol, data collection techniques and analysis.

__Age Group__: This project can be easily modified for **K-12** students! Below are relevant standards from the Massachusetts Science and Technology Frameworks chosen from the K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and High School level life science standards.

__Massachusetts Science and Technology Frameworks Standards and Essential Questions __ - learn to use a microscope to ID - deciduous trees versus conifers - wildflowers and weeds - distinguish between ant species based on morphology: color, size, and anatomical structures, such as size, antennal segments, mandibular teeth or none, defense mechanism (acidopores, slits, or stingers)
 * Based on physical characteristics, classify plants & organisms -- morphospecies **

- How are the ants interacting with others of their own species and colony? - How are the ants interacting with other ants of a different species? - How are the ants interacting with ants of the same species and a different colony? - How are ants using the non-living materials in their environment to help ensure survival for themselves/their colony? - observe the variety of organisms in gardens, forests, prairies, and urban lots
 * View organisms in their environment **
 * Describe how organisms meet their needs by using behavior to respond to their environment **

- What other organisms rely on ants to get something that they need to survive? - How do ants affect all other living things? - How do ants meet their needs for survival? Food, shelter, etc. - What would happen to other organisms in their ecosystem if they suddenly disappeared?
 * Examples of how organisms change their environment to ensure survival -- and how this effects ecosystem **

- Egg, Larvae, Pupae, adult
 * Major stages of the life cycle **

- Where is the energy that the ants rely on coming from? - The ants rely on plants and dead organisms - Where are the plants getting the energy that ants rely on? - Plants harness and store energy from the sun through the process of photosynthesis - How do leafcutter ants and fungi rely on each other to survive?
 * Examples of how organisms interact and contribute to ecosystems **
 * Food chain - energy from the sun is used by plants, transfered to consumers and decomposers **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Explain the relationship between producers, consumers, decomposers in food web **

- How do ants use dead organisms to survive? - What would happen to these dead organisms if ants and other organisms like ants did not break the dead organic matter up? - How do ants help other organisms in an ecosystem meet their nutrient requirements? - What are the chemical and physical processes that ants perform on dead organisms? - How do the chemical and physical processes that ants perform on dead organisms different than what humans are capable of doing?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Explain how plants and animals are broken down by other living things and how this process contributes to the whole system **

- How do anatomical structures and behavior of different species of ants help them survive in their respective environments? - Why might it be beneficial for ants that live in the side walk in urban areas to be very small? - Why might carpenter ants need large mandibles?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Recognize diversity within species, linked to environmental factors and genetic variation **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Recognize biological evolution accounts for diversity of species through gradual processes over many generations **

- How would an ecosystem change if all of the bees in an area disappeared? How would ants be affected? - How might weathering and erosion change the ants' environment overtime? - How might a change in climate affect ants' life cycle, behaviors, and survival? - How are humans changing ants' habitat currently? How might they change it in the future? - For older students: this can become a discussion of human interaction with the environment, changing policies and practices in regards to environmental preservation, changing human population densities in urban and rural areas, pressures to develop affordable housing for the population influx into urban areas, predicting patterns of human settlement in urban and rural areas.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Explain how ecosystems change over time, geological influences, human impact, other species **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">- **How would an ecosystem change if all of the plants were cut down? How might ants have to change their behavior to adapt and survive?