Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My project: What is the affect of music on a mouses ability to complete a maze?

Procedure:
1. Obtain material: Maze, food (for mice), mice, timer, classical album, country album, heavy metal and/or rap album
2. Place one mouse – who hasn’t been subjected to any music – in the maze. Time how long it takes him/her to complete it. Record results.
3. Subject another mouse to classical music for one hour.
4. Place mouse in maze. Time how long it take him/her to complete it. Record results.
5. Repeat steps 3-4 with the other mice & music genres.
6. Run multiple trials.

I need the following questions answered:
1. If it is seen that music does affect mice, is there a way to use this information in society?
2. Are these behaviors in the mice seen in humans also? How do the results affect us?
3. Is there a way to make my experiment more complex?
4. Are there any issues that currently arise in an experiment like this?
5. How many mice should I be getting?

THANK YOU!!

Hi,

It's great that you are starting on your science project early. However, since you are just getting started, I am going to recommend that you reconsider your project question. The problem is that you project idea, while very interesting, will be very challenging to do because it is very difficult to measure the effect of music on anything. In a science project, you will want to keep all parameters controlled, except for your independent variable and you want to have results that are quantitative. This will be difficult with mice and music. Here is a list of other project ideas from the Science Buddies website that includes a list of project questions to avoid:

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

Your questions are the type that will be answered by doing more background reading. And, from the questions, I think that your teacher is looking for a project that has significance for society and for you. If you are really interesting in doing a project with mice and mazes, please try to think of a difference way to motivate your mice. Perhaps you could do a learning project or food preference project.

Also, you should be aware that if you do a science project on vertebrate animals, you will need approval in advance from your local Scientific Review Committee before you start. This process will be a lot of work.

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

Here's a maze project from the Science Buddies website that involves a slime mold maze.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p060.shtml

If you have not already done so, I recommend that you look over the list of hundreds of other project ideas and try out the Topic Selection Wizard.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... l?From=Tab

I hope this reply is helpful. Please post back and let us know if you still need more help.

Donna Hardy

Hi avigale23,

The first question that popped into my head was do you have access to mice facilities (ie a research laboratory)? Even if you went to the pet store to buy mice, you will need a lot of mice to do a project like this. And like donnahardy2 said, it's not a very feasible project, as it will be challenging to obtain results and compare data.

Hope that helps!

-Sam