Arizona State University Chemical Energy and Lizard Push Ups Worksheet

Chemical energy and lizard pushups–Calculating the cost (in crickets) of a lizard showing off to defend its territory from other males and to attract females. You will need the “Lizard Push-up” video for this lab

Assumptions we will make for this lab:

There are 121 dietary Calories (kilocalories) in 100 grams of crickets

• The crickets (that the lizard we see in the video eats) weigh 0.5 grams each

It takes 0.1 dietary Calories of energy for the lizard to do one push-ups

The lizard in the video spends a total of 30 minutes of each day doing push-ups

• During his 30 minutes of push-ups, he does them at the same rate that you see in the video
• The lizard does these displays every day for 30 days during the breeding season
• The question you need to answer is: How many crickets did the lizard need to eat to fuel his 30 days of push-up displays?
• To find out how many total push-ups the lizard did during the breeding season, count how many push-ups he did in the video and how long it took him to do them. You now have a push-up count per unit time that you can use to figure out how many push-ups the lizard would do per day and how many he would do in 30 days. (For example, if he did one push-up per minute, then he would be able to do 30 push-ups in 30 minutes. At 30 minutes per day, he would do 900 push-ups in 30 days.)
• Calculate how many dietary Calories he spent doing all those push-ups. (Continuing our example, 900 push-ups x 0.1 calories = 90 dietary Calories) Note – you can leave your answers in dietary Calories, no need for conversion.
• Calculate how many dietary Calories there are in a cricket.
• Calculate how many crickets he would have to have eaten to fuel all those push-ups.

Data you need to show in lab report: 

Your raw data of the number of push-ups in the video and the time they took

• Show how you calculated your final answer, including all the steps (showing your work is the only way I can give you partial credit if you make a silly math error along the way
• Lab 5 Writeup Instructions
• You should write a full lab report that includes: an “Introduction”, a “Materials and Methods”, “Results”, “Discussion” sections. This lab report should be a minimum of 300 words. Only the submission of a single Word document is required for this lab report. Please ensure that your document is either a .doc OR .docx file to ensure that we can easily access your file from both a PC and Mac computer. 
• Introduction
• What is the role of lizard push-ups in sexual reproduction? Why are scientists interested in studying them?

Materials and Methods

In paragraph format and in past tense, describe the materials you needed and the methods you used to complete this lab. Similar to past modules, we understand this is an online lab so this section is a little difficult, but remember, someone (who is not in this class) should be able to complete the lab based on what you write here so what should you include?

Results

• Table of raw data of the number of pushups in the video and the time they took
• All the steps of the calculation of the number of crickets needed to fuel 30 days of push-up displays, including:

How many calories were spent doing push-ups

How many calories there are in a cricket

Total number of crickets required for 30 days of push-ups.

Discussion

Discuss, in detail, some of the possible reproductive costs associated with lizard push-ups.

General

Utilize correct grammar, punctuation and content.