Science experiment
What do bugs under your feet look like?
They probably look like ants or small moving things that can be very dangerous can make you sick or probably itchy
but the only way to see these bugs would be through a microscope.
Materials
- Empty 1 L or 2 L plastic soda bottle (1)
- Empty jar with a tight lid
- 1/4″ mesh hardware cloth or aluminum window screen (15×15 cm piece)
- Scissors
- Masking tape or duct tape
- Rubbing alcohol (ethyl), available at drug stores
- Lamp with a 13 W compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb
- Resealable plastic bag
- Soil samples from around your home
- Magnifying lens (10x)
Procedure
Step 1
to make a Berlese funnel is to grab a empty 1 or 2 liter soda bottle only need one of them the way you make the funnel is to cut the top of the soda bottle about 1’3rd Hight the top part will be used for the funnel and will be inverted and inserted into the bottom part of the bottle.
Step 2
Pour the rubbing alcohol into the jar about 1-2cm depth
Step 3
invert the top of the jar with alcohol into the bottom part of the soda jar
Step 4
invert the top part of the bottle and cut a piece of the hardware cloth and place inside the bottom half of the bottle. Create enough space wide enough for the funnel A) you can use tape to make sure that the edges are secure enough for the cloth to stay in place B) if you are using a window screen, make sure you are making a basket or pit right in the middle so that it is deep enough to hold all of the soil and will give the animals enough room to go down. make sure you are cutting numerous slits into the screen first so that bigger animals can go through the funnel.
Step 5
Make sure you have a handful of soil and leaves from different areas around your home. To make a good sample there are things in the bottle that contain organic they must be moist and not too wet.
- Scoop the top layer of the soil with your hands into a plastic bag make sure to included the leaf’s too
- If you have any cuts or bruises or to make sure you are safe you will need to wear rubber or latex gloves.
- Make sure to label all of the samples make sure to included all of the dates the sample were taken
- Now you will need to use the Berlese funnel for one sample at a time to gather micro-invertebrates a quicker way to take all of the samples is to make more funnels remember one funnel per sample.
Step 6
Put the soil and sample and including the leaf litter on top of the mesh wire into the funnel. You don’t want to add too much dirt into your jar along with the alcohol. Now hold the funnel over a trash can and shake lightly until you do not see any more dirt or bugs on the mesh cloth.
Step 7
Now be careful and set the funnel on top of the jar which is filled with rubbing alcohol. Check that the lid is completely tight on the bottom of the bottle and make sure it won’t tip over of your funnel.
the funnel should be close to the opening of the jar with alcohol but should not be touching the liquid
Step 8
Keep the funnel in a warm quiet and leave It there where it won’t be disturbed.
Step 9
Now you have to set a lamp about 13 watts over the funnel, keep the light 13 cm away from the funnel. If you do not want the leaves or soil to getting to hot or to catch on fire your setup should
look like the one on this picture
Step 10
Let the Berlese funnel sit for at least 24 h before you look at your samples. It takes some time for the lamp to heat up the soil sample and for the organisms to move down the funnel.
Step 11
Once your soil sample got dried by the heat of the lamp, carefully take the Berlese funnel apart and remove the top of the bottle. Take the jar with alcohol out of the bottom part of the bottle and have a look at your samples. You should be able to see most of the soil organisms with your naked eye but to take a closer look, use a magnifying lens (10x) or loupe. How many different micro-invertebrates or micro-arthropods can you see in each of your samples? Do they look very different? Note: If you do not see any micro-invertebrates after 5 days, discard your soil sample and start the procedure with another sample. Every soil is different and some samples work better than others.
Final step
Count the number of micro-arthropods and other fauna in each sample. Record your results in a data table:
| Sample location | Number of-fauna | Other interesting observations. |
| Vegetable garden | ||
| lawn | ||
| pathway |
what the 2 bottles looks like before putting under the lamp for heat.
what happens here is that the soil is wet and by using the lamp it will dry out the soil and maybe do something else to the soil
what it will look like after when all the soil is dried up and not really a wet texture. maybe something else may happen.
my hypothesis looks like it is wrong because I don’t think that soil can replicate what bugs under your feet can look like but because there wasn’t any contact with the human skin so this can say that what bugs under your feet can look like to see what it looks like would have to be trough google images or someone who has bugs under their feet and this is what bugs under your feet should look