Jake

Introduction =Question=
 * The Effect of Humidity On Bird Eating Habits**
 * When I saw the experiment conducted in The Cornell Lab Of Ornithology- Bird Sleuth- packet,"Does temperature affect the number of birds in our schoolyard?" I was intrigued to find if other aspects of weather affect bird behavior as well. Temperature seemed to have a definite effect on the number of bird feeder visits during the winter, with more birds showing up when it was colder, and less when it began to heat up. However, I'm not certain this pattern will be the same with humidity. Humidity has to do with the amount of moisture in the air; a low humidity does not exclusively mean a lower temperature.
 * Does humidity affect the amount of seed eaten by birds?

Hypothesis

 * I hypothesize that more seed will be eaten when the humidity is at a higher percentage. High levels of water vapor in the air make it harder for birds to flap their wings, increasing the likelihood of them staying in one certain place for an extended period of time. However, if the humidity reaches 100%, I believe that birds, anticipating a storm, will seek shelter rather than visit a bird feeder.

Variables

 * IV: The average humidity for each day throughout the duration of my experiment
 * DV: The amount of seed eaten from my feeder.
 * CV: The feeder will be in the same place and be filled up with the same amount of seed each day.

Procedure
=Materials=
 * 1) At 10:20 am, fill bird feeder outside of Henry's room with 3000 ml of bird food.
 * 2) Every hour, check the humidity.
 * 3) At 3:15, check the bird feeder to see how much seed was eaten.
 * 4) Take the hourly humidity measurements, and average them; creating an "average humidity" for the day.
 * 5) Repeat steps 1-4 every day, for 5 days.
 * 6) Graph gathered data, with the humidity as the //x//-axis, and amount of seed eaten as the //y//-axis.
 * "Wagner's Southern Regional Blend" brand bird seed.
 * One bird feeder.
 * One humidity measuring device.

Conclusion

 * My hypothesis was not supported by my data. I found no correlation between the humidity percentile, and the eating habits of birds. Thus, the hypothesis is null. Unfortunately, there was not a wide variety of humidities during the period of my experimentation (75%-93%). However, the Milliliters of seed eaten ranged from 100 to 1000 (even though 4/5 of the data was between 600 and 1000), which is quite a large margin. If you take out the point with the lowest amount of seed eaten, and the point with the highest humidity, the remaining points seem to have a negative correlation. It could be that these two data points were somehow affected by an unknown, unanticipated variable that did not affect the other 3 days. However, this may not have happened, and there may simply be no correlation between humidity, and the eating habits of birds.
 * I would've liked to record a greater number of data points, but due to early dismissals and running out of seed, I was only able to obtain accurate measurements for five days. If I were to conduct this experiment again, I would stop measuring data at 12:30 pm, eliminating the trouble with early dismissals, and the generally hectic ending to the school day.