Ant Picnic
Any grade level
2-3 hours
Biology / Ecology
Welcome to Ant Picnic
About this lesson
Are ants always ruining your picnic? Have you ever noticed that some ants are drawn to your potato chips more than your candy? Their snack choices will tell scientists something about the food that’s available to them in nature. Although diet preferences and needs for humans are well documented, we are still learning about the diet preferences of ants in different parts of the world. What ants eat at different times of the year and in different places around the world tells us what might be missing in their environment and how climate change could impact ant populations.
Since 2011 the Rob Dunn Lab at North Carolina State University has been asking the question, “Which ant species live where?” and citizen scientists have been answering by collecting ants with cookies in their backyards and schoolyards and mailing them to the lab. Now we are asking another question about those ants: What do ants prefer to eat around the world?
In this activity, students learn about the major food groups and explore the diet preferences of ants by participating in a real science project. Students will set out prescribed ant food baits, collect the baits, count the ants present at each bait, and share the data with a scientist. The data students collect will contribute to a large database with data from students from all around the world who are doing the same experiment. Scientists use these data to explore regional and global trends in ant food preferences so they can learn about more complex things like the environment and climate change.
There are several additional lesson modules that will work well in combination with this activity. For instance, the Ant Picnic Data Analysis Activity allows students to explore their ant picnic data further, ask (and answer) their own scientific questions and compare their data with ant picnic data collected around the world. In the Ant ID Activity students learn how to identify ants, including ants they have collected as part of their Ant Picnic. These and more activities can be found at discoverants.com/educational-resources
Curriculum alignment
NC Essential Standards
- 8.L.3.1
Explain how factors such as food, water, shelter and space affect populations in an ecosystem. - 8.L.5.1
Summarize how food provides the energy and the molecules required for building materials, growth and survival of all organisms (to include plants). Bio.4.1.1
Compare the structures and functions of the major biological molecules (carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids) as related to the survival of living organisms.
see additional possible curriculum alignment at bottom of page
Materials list
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Amino Acids: Pure L-Glutamine powder (20% solution)
Sugar Water (20% solution)
Salt Water (1% solution)
Water (tap water is ok)
Cotton balls (5 per group)
5 containers for mixing solutions (e.g., glass jars, flasks, etc.)
Measuring spoons or scale
Pecan Sandies cookies (or a similar shortbread cookie)
Student Data Sheet (one per student) + Answer Key
“Experiment in Progress” signs (one for each experiment site)
Sandwich Ziploc bags (6 per group)
White 3×5 index cards (6 per group)
Pencil for data recording and labeling
Directions
Step 1
Warm up exercise (approx. 5 min) as students arrive to class (directions can be written on the board or projected so that students can complete task while teacher takes roll or completes other administrative tasks):
- Take out a blank sheet of paper and pen/pencil.
- Make a list of everything you have eaten over the past 48 hours.
- To the best of your abilities, categorize these food items by type, e.g., meat, poultry, vegetable, starch, etc.
After 5 minutes have elapsed, you can engage students in a discussion of different food types and varying qualities of each type. You can refer to a food pyramid if no nutrition program is available for students to reference.
Artwork by Magdalena Sorger
Step 2
Prepare baits:
- Put 3 1/2 tablespoons (50 g) of pure L-Glutamine powder in 250 mL of water (Note that the powder will not dissolve in the water, you’ll need to just mix it before soaking the cotton ball!)
- Put 3 1/2 tablespoons (50 g) of sugar in 250 ml of water (You might need to heat up the solution!)
- Put 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 g) of salt in 250 ml of water
- Quarter some Pecan Sandies, you’ll need one quarter per bait station. If you're using a different shortbread cookie use approx. 1 square inch.
- No special preparation is required for extra virgin olive oil and water.
DO NOT add any additional food types to your Ant Picnic experiment! This would change the experimental protocol and we wouldn’t be able to compare your results to everyone else’s. If your students are interested in testing other food types, please refer to extension activities.
Optional: Discuss the importance of a control in a scientific experiment. (more details in Ant Picnic Lesson Download)
Artwork by Emilia Rubæk Holm & Magdalena Sorger © Natural History Museum of Denmark
Step 3
Put students into small groups (3-6 students) – each group can conduct one experiment (i.e. place 6 baits). If materials are scarce or class size is small, it is also an option to set up one experiment as a whole class. All following directions are per group.
Label 6 index cards with the bait type names (amino acids, cookie, oil, salt, sugar, water). Also add the date and a unique identifier per group (e.g., group name, number or symbol).
Artwork by D.M. Sorger
Step 4
Soak one cotton ball in each of the 5 solutions and prepare to bring the soaked cotton balls outside to your experiment site. Also bring a quartered Pecan Sandie cookie (or about 1 square inch of a shortbread cookie) and prepare to crush it at your experiment site. Warning: Students who are allergic to nuts should not manage the Pecan Sandies!
Put your 6 index cards down at your experiment site and place a cotton ball soaked in the corresponding solution and a crushed cookie onto each index card. Arrange them 1-2 inches apart from each other. This can be done in a circle or a group (avoid putting them in a row so that all baits are close together).
Record the start time and information about the site and weather conditions on the data sheet. Place the “Experiment in Progress” sign at your experiment site.
Artwork by Emilia Rubæk Holm © Natural History Museum of Denmark
Step 5
Wait at least one hour. During this time return to the classroom and engage your students in class discussion using the discussion questions (see worksheet) as a guide. If you have additional time, consider doing the Spirit Ant Activity (or one of the other teaching modules you can find at discoverants.com/educational-resources).
Artwork by Emilia Rubæk Holm © Natural History Museum of Denmark
Step 6
After one hour return to your bait stations, bring 6 zip-lock bags and record the end time on the worksheet.
Carefully walk up to your bait stations (so you don’t scare any ants off) and BEFORE picking up any index cards, count the number of ants you see. Record the numbers for each bait type on your worksheet (if there are too many ants you can estimate the numbers).
It is possible that some or all of your baits will have no ants at all. This is also a result of this experiment so go ahead and record your data. We still want to know about it, even if all your numbers are zeros. But please, note that even if you don’t see any ants at first, they may be small and light-colored or they may be UNDER the index card. Pick up each index card as if there were ants and put it in a zip-lock bag as explained in the next step. When you return to the classroom examine it carefully to confirm that there were really no ants at the bait.
Artwork by Emilia Rubæk Holm © Natural History Museum of Denmark
Step 7
Take a picture of your experiment. The ants at each bait type and your labels of each index card should be clearly visible. You can also take individual pictures of each bait card. Please take a picture of EVERY bait card, even if there are no ants.
Artwork by Emilia Rubæk Holm & Magdalena Sorger © Natural History Museum of Denmark
Step 8
Quickly place each index card including the cotton ball and any ants into one bag.
This might be difficult because ants gathered at the bait might escape as you pick up the card. (Do not combine all index cards into one bag!) Warning: Students who are allergic to ants should not complete this task in the rare likelihood that they will be stung or bitten!
Artwork by Emilia Rubæk Holm © Natural History Museum of Denmark
Step 9
Bring the zip-lock bags into the classroom and count how many ants are in each bag (do this through the bag, do not open it!). Counting is done three times for each bag and then averaged. Record values on the worksheet. Once the ants are counted they can be released back to where they were collected. If the number of ants is higher than students can comfortably count while the ants are moving around, place the zip-lock bag in the freezer overnight and count the ants the next day; high numbers can be estimated by dividing the bag into quadrants.
If you are running out of time, you can freeze all zip-lock bags overnight and have students count their ants during the next class period.
Artwork by Emilia Rubæk Holm © Natural History Museum of Denmark
Step 10
Enter the data online here. This step should be done either by the teacher or with extensive teacher supervision to ensure everything is being entered correctly.
Your data has now been sent to the scientist and will be incorporated into the large data set of students around the world doing Ant Picnic.
Artwork by Emilia Rubæk Holm © Natural History Museum of Denmark
Are you ready for Ant Picnic?
Take the quiz to find out!
Teachers, you can self-check if you have everything you need for Ant Picnic. You can then provide the student version of the quiz to ensure your students are ready – and use it as a grade!
Before you start (some helpful hints)
Before you start this activity, we suggest to do a general introduction to ants. For instance, you can do the Spirit Ant Activity before starting Ant Picnic and allow students to present their work to one another during the hour-long wait time when the food baits are set up outside. An even more general introduction to ants can be found at discoverants.com/whyants
The ant picnic experiment will work best on a warm day with no rain and no or minimal wind. If it is windy, you will need to secure the index cards (with a small rock or skewer) so they don’t get blown away.
The baits need to be left out for at least one hour – if you only have a shorter class period, you can consider having one class period set out the baits and a later class period pick them up and count the ants. Final data can be shared with the earlier class period the following day. Additionally, ants can be frozen and counted during a later class period.
If you are doing this experiment in a nut-free school, you can use a nut-free shortbread cookie as your cookie bait.
Please, do not add any additional food types to your ant picnic. We will not be able to use your experimental data if you don’t follow the protocol meticulously. See extension activities for additional options if you are interested in testing different food baits.
Please review the extension activities section. You can make the experiment more challenging by having students set up their experiments in a green and a paved space and compare the results. We also provide an option for a more general data comparison if the Ant Picnic Data Analysis Activity cannot be completed.
Are you a Girl Scout?
Opportunities for Extension
Compare green and paved sites — Set up your Ant Picnic experiment in both a green location (grassy or woody) and a paved location (sidewalk or parking lot) at the same time. Record each site as a separate experiment following the directions above. When you are done, you can compare the number of ants that arrived at these different site types as well as the food preferences of the ants. This adds an extra level to the experiment, which will challenge more advanced students.
Test more food types — If you would like to compare other food types in addition to the standard Ant Picnic baits, you can do that in a separate experiment. Please, set this up on a different day or in an area at least 50 yards away from your regular Ant Picnic experimental site. If you would like to share your data from your own unique experiment, please enter it in the comments section when you submit your Ant Picnic data, we would love to hear what kind of foods you tried and how the ants liked it!
Ant picnic data exploration — If you do not have time to complete the Ant Picnic Data Analysis Activity or consider these analyses too advanced for your students, please use these activity sheets for a more basic ant picnic data exploration and discussion. Students can share and compare their data in class and draw conclusions about the reasons why ants were more prevalent in some areas over others or why certain bait types were preferred.
Thank you for participating in Ant Picnic
Ant Picnic downloads at a glance
If you’re not doing the lesson, just the experiment:
About the science
We want to learn more about what ants eat in different environments: in your backyard, on your school’s playground, at the park. How fast do they come to sugar, how fast do they come to a cookie you drop or how fast do they come to all these food sources around us.
The results you collect will be incorporated into the biggest study of global patterns in preferred resources and activity within a single group of organisms.
The effect of ant resource preferences are felt every time you go on a picnic or let your sandwich lie around for too long. In some places the ants arrive quickly to eat your leftovers, in other places they don’t.
Ants eat different kinds of foods with different speeds and we want to know what environmental variables govern this resource preference.
The next goal of this project is to understand, in light of differences from place to place (how much rain there is, how hot it is, how much food we leave out and how many buildings there are) what determines how fast ants come to different kinds of food. (Photo credit © untamedscience.com)
We have big predictions about what this should look like globally. We think that in the tropics, ants get to all the food faster than anywhere else. We think that in the desert the ants are probably faster to get to water. But we don’t actually know this anywhere in the world yet. (Image: CODAP screenshot of all Ant Picnic sites so far)
What we especially don’t know is how what ants do in the wild of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park or Peru or Copenhagen compares to what happens in your backyard. (Photo credit © Natural History Museum of Denmark)
his is where the data you are collecting comes in; you will help us to see what’s really going on at your picnic. Ants at a cookie bait in Peru. (Photo credit © untamedscience.com)
Join students and scientists around the world who have sampled for Ant Picnic; ranging from students in Peru to the Crown Princess Mary of Denmark. (Photo credit © untamedscience.com)
About the Scientist
Dr. Magdalena Sorger is a postdoctoral researcher at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science. She’s an evolutionary ecologist interested in the diversity, distribution, and behavior of ants and other insects. More on her website theantlife.com
Other Ant Activities
Download Ant ID Activity (PDF)
Other Resources
Ants and citizen science
Project Kenan Fellows
Pictured (from left to right): Dr. Magdalena Sorger, Michelle Hafey, Paige Derouin, Dr. DeAnna Beasley and Maggie McKinley.
About the SciArt
Students Discover SciArt is created by Buzz Hoot Roar, the amazing team that brings science to life in their graphics-driven science blog.
About the Artist
Caitlin Atteberry is a graphic designer based in Raleigh, NC. Find Caitlin’s other work conveniently at caitlinatteberry.com.
Other possible curriculum alignment
Next Generation Science Standards
- MS-LS1-7
Within individual organisms, food moves through a series of chemical reactions in which it is broken down and rearranged to form new molecules, to support growth, or to release energy. - MS-LS2-1
Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem. [Emphasis on cause and effect relationships between resources and growth of individual organisms and the numbers of organisms in ecosystems during periods of abundant and scarce resources.]
Common Core Math Content
- 8.SP.A.4
Understand that patterns of association can also be seen in bivariate categorical data by displaying frequencies and relative frequencies in a two-way table. Construct and interpret a two-way table summarizing data on two categorical variables collected from the same subjects. Use relative frequencies calculated for rows or columns to describe possible association between the two variables.
