Baby Turtle Science Fair Project (Please Help)

[deleted-106451]

I am looking for a Science Fair project that involves baby turtles. I have 1 baby Musk Turtle, I might get some more, I have a science fair project due on November 1, So i need some ideas to get me started (I don't like doing Science Fairs at the last moment), so if you know or have any ideas, or you have any tips, please comment .
This is the turtle I have.

Baby Musk Turtle

[theborg]

Hello KiwwiNinja,

Thanks for the question. That's a neat turtle you have there. I'm by no means an expert on aquatic animals, but just off hand how about an experiment along these lines:

Does color influence a Baby Musk Turtle's food choice? I'm sure this question could be refined and you'd have to come up with your own hypothosis to prove. However, I think this could be easily tested with the resources you have on hand and expanded if you gained a few extra turtles. To start, you could baseline your turtle(s) feeding habits using commercially available pellets and then introduce the same pellets colored with oderless, tastless food coloring. I would pick colors not really found in natural food sources. So as not to accidently starve one of your turtles, when you introduce the colored food, I would present it along side the "normal" looking food and see if there is a preference for one over the other. With multiple turtles, you can test several color combinations at the same time...or even determine if there is "personnal tast" among turtles (i.e. turtle #1 loves red colored food, but will not eat blue, but the opposite is true for turtle #2...etc...)

I'm sure some other experts could help refine this idea or provide other better ones. I look forward to hear what you decide.

[deleted-106451]

In Reply to theborg,

Thank you for the Help:) But Hello is not spelled hellow:).



-KiwwiNinja

[donnahardy2]

Hi KiwwNinja,

That’s a great picture of your baby turtle!

Theborg has give you a really good suggestion for a project. Do you know if turtles have color vision?

You could also build a simple maze and see how well your turtle can learn to go through the maze to find food.

Here’s some more really important information on this topic. Since turtles are vertebrate animals, there are special rules for using turtles in science fair projects. Here is the information from the Science Buddies Website. You will need to get approval to do your project. Read the rules carefully and ask your teacher for more details about how to contact your local scientific review committee:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... mals.shtml

Remember that baby turtles grow. Make sure that you will have enough space to provide good living conditions for all of your turtles.

Here are the basic steps for doing a science project. You need to start at the beginning and do as much background reading as possible. Before you begin your experience, you need to have a question that can be answered by a carefully controlled experiment.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml


Good luck!

Donna Hardy

[deleted-106451]

Thank you donnahardy2,

I like your tips, Yes I do have a nice big tank so my turtles have a healthy and happy life, I know alote about turtles and I have a heater, filter, real plant not fake, nice stones land and water, basking area, shade, a nice lamp just for reptiles, food and more I Love turtles, as you can see, I also take them out everyday for a nice "walk"

[deleted-71536]

Hi KiwwiNinja,

What a cute turtle! You have already gotten some great suggestions from theborg and Donna Hardy.

If you have multiple baby turtles, you could do a project measuring their growth rates at different water temperatures. For example, you could keep 3 baby turtles in 3 different tanks (9 turtles total), with each tank maintained at a different water temperature (warm, cold, intermediate). You could measure carapace (shell) length every 2-3 days on all of the turtles, to see whether their growth rates are different in the different water temperatures. Remember to control your other variables, including food amount and type.

Please post again once you have decided on the project you will do, so we can continue to help you along the way!

Good luck,
Heather