Essay/Term paper: Crickets

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Medicine

Insects have been a
nuisance to man since the beginning of time, up
until the present. One of the plagues that struck
Egypt was swarms of crickets, and locusts, which
destroyed crops, and ate entire fields. Swarms of
Crickets can cover up to 210 km. There have
been cases of up to 100,000,000,000 insects in a
swarm (one hundred billion). In these huge
masses, they can completely destroy the land and
everything on a farm. I chose to do this experiment
because when I am at camp I am constantly
woken up by the loud chirping of these annoying
insects. There are three types of crickets: Mole
Crickets, Field Crickets, and House Crickets. The
Mole Cricket"s body is designed for digging
subterranean tunnels. This Cricket"s body is well
adapted to digging. The Mole Cricket usually lives
in hot dry areas, and are extremely harmful to
plants such as barley, and flax The Field Cricket
has had a history in ancient China. This cricket"s
beautiful song was held in particularly high esteem.
These crickets were often kept in exquisitely
ornamented cages made of sandalwood, ivory or
jade. The Most common cricket is the house
cricket. The house cricket"s body is more slender
than that of the field cricket. It is also generally
lighter in color. This crickets appears in abundance
in central Europe, such as cellars, houses,
bakeries, and so on. Procedure Problem: How do
I make a cricket deterrent that is environmentally
friendly? Hypothesis: If I use a deterrent that has a
strong odor, then it will deter the crickets from that
area. 2 I started my experiment by first buying 60
crickets. The crickets were stored in bags until
they were ready to be used. I purchased a clear
plastic box with holes in the top for breathing. I
made a divider out of cardboard and secured it in
the center of the box, making four equal sections.
One section was the control, and in the others I
put a deterrent. Two tests were made that were
thrown out because they were irrelevant. In the
first case, the crickets were not deterred at all by
any of the substances. The test was done outside,
and the crickets seemed to simply move their
position depending on the location of the sun. The
crickets seemed only deterred by the sun. They all
moved to wherever the shadow of the sun seemed
the darkest. I concluded that crickets are
deterred, to some extent, by sunlight. The other
test seemed erroneous because all of the crickets
died very quickly. In this test, the crickets all died
within 15 minutes, in whichever substance they
went in first. There was too much of liquid in each
section. These observations helped me in making
an accurate experiment. The rest of my
experiments were done inside my house, where
there is not direct sunlight. In my first test I used
onion powder, garlic powder, lime juice and water
as the control. I thought that the onion powder
would work well because it has a strong odor, that
would deter the crickets, and the powder would
work better than a whole onion. I figured that the
garlic powder would work for basically the same
reasons as the onion, but probably a little bit
better, because it has a stronger smell. I thought
that the lime juice would work well because it is
quite acidic, and would also kill any crickets that
went to it. The one cricket that was not deterred
by the lime juice in this test was dead. I used
water as the control in my experiment because it
has no odor to deter the crickets, and is not
acidic, so it would not kill the crickets. 3 In my
second test I used powdered tide, fertilizer,
dishwasher soap, and water for the control. I
thought the Tide would work well because of its
color, although it does not have a strong odor, and
it is not acidic. I thought the house plant food
would work well, because it had a strong smell,
and it contained boric acid, making it acidic. The
house plant food worked the best in this test,
because it has two characteristics that would deter
the crickets. In the third test I used baking soda,
vinegar, Comet powder, and water as the control.
I thought that the baking soda would work
because of its color. The baking soda was the
worst deterrent used. The Comet worked very
well, but not quite as well as the vinegar, because
it did not have the strong smell that the vinegar did.
In the final test I took the best deterrents from all
of the tests, the lime juice, the house plant food,
and the vinegar, and again the water for the
control. For this test the crickets were left in the
container for a longer time. Although some of the
crickets moved from time to time, they stayed
away from the vinegar all of the time, and mostly
stayed in the section that had the lime juice. The
lime juice did not work as well as the other
substances, because it does not have as strong a
smell. The most effective deterrent was the
vinegar, and if a large swarm of crickets were
attacking his crops, it would probably be the best
defense, but in more average circumstances, the
house plant food would work better. The house
plant food would work as a fairly effective
deterrent, but not smell up the crops, and would
certainly not harm them as vinegar might, it might
even help the crops. I also found that the crickets
were deterred by sunlight, so the most likely time
that a swarm would appear would be during the
night. 4 I accepted my hypothesis. The vinegar
was the best deterrent and had the strongest smell.
The house plant food also had an odor and
worked quite well. The only exceptions to this
were that the garlic and onion powder did not
work well as deterrents, probably because they
did not have a very strong or ofensive smell.
Bibliography 1. "Cricket," Microsoft ® Encarta.
©1994 Microsoft Corporation. © 1994 Funk &
Wagnalls Corporation. 2. "Cricket," Grolier
Encyclopedia of Knowledge. © 1993 Grolier
Incorporated. pages 73-74 3. "Cricket," The
New Book of Knowledge. © 1990 Grolier
Incorporated. pages 168-170 Cricket