McKinley Point Academy

By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. ~Proverbs 24:3-4

• May. 19, 2008 - Tadpoles to Frogs Saga

So we are doing Apologia's Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day.  In lesson 4 on aquatic herps, it has an experiment you can do with tadpoles.  Day 1: May 6 We were visiting someone's house and the kids found a bunch of tadpoles so we brought them home for our experiment. We put 5 tadpoles in one small habitat container and the other 5 in another habitat container.  We boiled some lettuce and are feeding it to them. Day 4: May 9 We started our experiment and drew pictures of their size.  Each day, we shown a bright light on one container for 2 hours to warm the water.  Some had little leg buds. Day 7: May 12 Well it worked, those warm water tadpoles started growing like crazy and soon got full back legs, complete with toes.  Colder water ones still just have buds.  We put a rock in each container for them to climb onto. Day 8: May 13 Two in the warm water now have front legs!  Some of the ones in the cold water now have a bend in their back legs.  I buy some frozen bloodworms for the froglets to eat.  They don't eat any that I can tell. Day 10: May 15 Three froglets in the warm water are climbing out of the water and clinging to the sides of the container.  Then disaster strikes that evening.  We find one froglet floating dead.  We remove him. Day 11: May 16 Another dead froglet this morning.  We are now attached to these guys and the deaths are too much.  We skip school and make a mad dash to the pet store.  We buy a frog friendly container with a gentle slope.  We buy small crickets for them to eat.  The froglets love their new home because they can sit in the water and poke their heads out to breathe.  There are also little rocks to hide under.  We add two crickets.  We put all the tadpoles into one habitat container and turn the other into a cricket house for the extra crickets. Day 13: May 18 We keep moving froglets to the frog home.  We now have 4 crickets, a dead fly, some bloodworms, and some lettuce in there with the froglets  The crickets are as big as the froglets.  What are the froglets eating? Day 14: May 19 We have just 2 tadpoles left in the tadpole habitat and 7 froglets, 4 crickets, some bloodworms, a dead fly, and some lettuce.  We are trying to capture some gnats.  That hasn't worked yet.  We heard you can buy wingless fruit flies at the pet store.  Going to try doing that tonight. So what are they eating?  Who is going to die first?  I put some potato in there for the crickets.  If I starve them will they be so weak the frogs can eat them?  The frogs are interested.  We saw them having a stare down.  Meanwhile, the crickets are getting bigger. Stay tuned.... One of our tadpole habitats.  The other has a purple lid.  That is leaf lettuce floating in there. He is a little out-of-focus but that is a froglet on the rock and 3 tadpoles in the water. This guy is ready to be moved to the new frog habitat! Our frog friendly habitat on the left, tadpoles in the middle, and crickets on the right.  The light is still useful for spotting these guys. Current update: I tried to count the frogs - could only find 5.  Did 2 become dinner for the others??  There is also two suspicious white balls.  Could they be cricket eggs?  If so, maybe the frogs can eat the hatchings.  That would work...

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