Work Log

Date: 31 Mar. 2017

Goal: Knowing the general difference between male and
female hamster
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
I had found that female hamsters are smellier than
males and usually much bigger than the male hamsters.
Also, female hamsters are smellier than males according
to courtship behavior and only female hamsters that have
nipples. The back end of the male tends to be elongated
and rounder in appearance in comparison to the female
(especially noticeable in Chinese hamsters). Hamsters
routine is sleep at noon so, if we wake it up during noon, it
will bite us and dont listen to us. We have to make a maze
wall very tall to avoid hamster to jump across to wall. My
goal is completed and I think that I should discuss with my
group about changing the animal species.
Source:
https://hamsterdiaries.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/are-boy-hamsters-better-than-female-hamster
s/

Date: 18 Apr. 2017

Goal: Knowing the general difference between male and
female Guinea pig
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
 Guinea pigs are active up to 20 hours a day and only
sleep for short periods at a time. It has very sensitive ears
and remember sounds with ease. Also, Guinea pigs feel a
little shy at times, so they like having places to hide. A
good idea for guinea pig owners is to cut some holes in a
cardboard box and leave that in the cage. Male guinea
pigs are generally larger than females, have smaller
nipples, and can have stinky butts. While sexing guinea
pigs, handle your pet guinea pigs very gently and quietly.
Cavies are easily scared and will squeal and struggle
when frightened (which doesn't help in trying to determine
their gender). My goal is not really complete, next class
period I will find more about this goal.
Source: http://guineapigaloo.com/guinea-pig-facts-for-kids/

Date: 24 Apr. 2017

Goal: Knowing how to write a Research Proposal and
what maze should be look like
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
Now I understand how to write a literature review
completely. While writing a Literature Review, 5 Cs can
help you to frame it. 5 Cs is stand for Cite, Compare,
Contrast, Critique, and Connection. It will help to think
about many information that should be include in literature
review such as the literature that related to our research
question, the major areas of debate on the topic, and what
this work had add a new perspective from the literature.
Furthermore, the maze for Guinea Pig shouldnt be very
complicated as a maze for human and has lots of space
for Guinea Pig to walk through.

Date: 25 Apr 17
Goal: Finished the maze decide
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
I found that Guinea Pig is very large than I thought,
Guinea Pigs size is 20 25 cm in height and 8-10 cm in
width. This maze have to be a bit complicated. We design
the maze to contain many deadlock because we will
compare the male and female intelligent by record the
number of times that Guinea Pig walk back and faced the
deadlock more than once. We had choose one of the best
material for making the maze which is box paper. Also, we
have to keep our eyes on Guinea Pig all the time while the
experiment process and check the maze strongness
before let Guinea Pig run in the maze to ensure that
Guinea Pig will be safe.

Date: 28 Apr 17
Goal: Knowing how to write Literature Review Maze
Methodology
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
 I get to know that for my maze design, I should give
the information about how can I come up with this maze
and based on which scientific experiment. The maze that
will be use should be classical maze or the normal maze
that we known (in square or rectangle shape, not circle or
other shape). Also, give how different between your maze
and the maze from the scientific experiment and the
reason why its different such as to make it better or to
make the maze suit your experiment. Moreover, to write
the procedure, I must write as specific as I can (think
about a person that didnt know anything come to read it
and can do this experiment perfectly).

Date: 3 May 17
Goal: Knowing more about hamsters general informations
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
Since the school not gonna buy us a guinea pigs
anymore, we changes to go back to use hamsters for the
experiment. They are chunky-bodied, thick-furred,
short-tailed rodents with cheek pouches and are secretive
burrowers and hoarders. Being nocturnal creatures, they
usually sleep during the day and play and explore at night.
They also have no detectable body odor and inexpensive
to buy and outside of cage cleaning and proper food are
relatively maintenance free. These adorable rodents are
subject to very few health problems and diseases. Since
they sleep during the day, they are active at night when
most people are home.

Date: 5 May 17
Goal: Knowing the spatial memory of hamster
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
I had found that hamsters have fairly good spatial
memories and can remember changes in daylight for
several weeks. Anecdotal evidence indicates that
hamsters can remember familiar humans for months or
even years. Although it is difficult to quantify exactly how
long hamsters can store memories, research indicates that
spatial memory is an important part of their food foraging.
When placed in a maze, they remember which branches
had food and tend to explore those first even after several
weeks. Hamsters use changes in the length of days to cue
breeding, and researchers discovered that they can
remember daylight changes for two to three weeks.
Sudden disruptions of their circadian rhythms by changing
light patterns affect their memories.

Date: 8 May 17
Goal: Knowing the sexual dimorphism in hamsters
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
 According to the EFTEM cytochemistry and sexual
dimorphism of secretory granules in hamster male and
female submandibular glands experiment, osmium
tetroxide post fixation of the acinar cells of the male
hamster submandibular gland, secretory granules
exhibited the characteristic bipartite substructure with the
electron lucid rim and the denser central core. The
ultrathin sections were counterstained with uranyl acetate
and lead citrate. In females, the reverse was seen, with
the larger central portion of granules being electron lucent
and the crescent being electron-dense rim with
counterstaining (Keiichi, Michiya, & Norikazu, 2011).

Date: 9 May 17
Goal: Knowing more sexual dimorphism in hamsters
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
This is found in the newborn tyrosine gland too. The
Hamster Salivary Gland Sexual Dimorphism. 1. Protein
Histochemical Study experiment indicates that the
secretory cell elements were slightly more reactive than
the reasonably stained ductal mechanisms. According to
our observation in their reaction across their sex, there are
no differences. At 8 days, variations in histochemical
reactions between the male and female submandibular
gland were initially exhibited. The strong, homogeneous,
secretory cell response in male was more pronounced and
revealed less divergence in staining intensity from cell to
cell than in female. Staining differences between the
sexes were even more obvious in the ductal cells
(Kronman, 1963).

Date: 16 May 17
Goal: Knowing how to make hamster get used to human
touch
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
Once your hamster has gotten used to your smell,
you can try offering a small bit of a treat. This will entice
the hamster to come closer to your hand. Put the treat in
your palm, and hold out your hand palm up. The hamster
will have to climb onto your hand to get the treat. Let him
do this a few times until he's used to jumping into your
hand. If the hamster starts to eat the treat in your hand,
you can try to gently pet the hamster with your other hand.
More than likely, the hamster will be so busy with the treat,
he won't notice you're petting him. Once the hamster is
comfortable with you, you can try cupping your hands
around him, once he's in your palm, and carefully
removing him from the cage. He may urinate on your
hands the first few times, but it's from fear. He'll eventually
relax and get used to you.
Date: 17 May 17
Goal: Knowing if a hamster is stressed
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
When hamster become stressed the symptoms that
displayed is similar to other mammals. They can become
irritable and aggressive or the reverse, depressed and
less active. They may also develop diarrhea and
consequently lose weight, drink more water, and become
listless. Therefore, if our hamsters dont show any of this
sign, we will then start to train it genteelly and not over
load to avoid them to feel stress. Also, we have to keep
checking that both of it are not showing any sign that was
mention above.

Date: 18 May 17
Goal: For the hamster to get familiar with us (Based on
what I have study in class)
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
After bought the hamster, we will put it in the cage
and leaves it alone for 2-3 days so hamster get familiar
with the cage. After get familiar we will feed the food from
hand. We will start to feed the hamster with banana from
our hands (1 cm thick) (unconditional stimulus) while a
person who feed the hamster keep calling hamster name
(Hamham(female) and Taro(male)) (Conditional stimulus).
Then, the hamster will respond by moving toward the food
(unconditional response). As those steps are repeated
many times, the hamster will start to learn that when
someone is calling the hamsters name, they will be likely
to get feed. As a result, a conditional response is
developed which is that the hamster will move towards a
person at the time the hamsters names are called.
Therefore, the hamsters name will be called at the time
that the experiment will begin. Banana will be only used
for the experiment and during training for familiar with
human.

Date: 23 May 17
Goal: Collect all data
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
For the data collection, we are going to run the
experiment for 5 times for each hamster, male and female.
We are going to time the time taken by the hamster to get
out from the maze. Also, we are going to record the videos
for each trial to compare and observe the routes that the
hamster passes. When comparing the routes passed, we
need to consider which trials that the hamster goes
through the dead-end way. If in the first trial, hamster ran
into the dead-end route and in the second round it doesnt
run into the dead end, we cannot assume that hamster
already learn and remember that this is the way to dead
end route. We also need to consider the result from the
third round. If the hamster run into the dead-end route in
third round, we can consider that the second round is
lucky that it did not run into the dead end not because it
can remember the route. But if the hamster can pass the
dead-end route and finish the maze faster than the
previous 2 route, we can consider that hamster can really
remember the way to finish line.

Date: 24 May 17
Goal: Finish data analysis 1 and 2
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
In data analysis, I have to describe the hamsters
movement during the experiment and the pattern that it
used. In the first trial, the hamster starts with walking
around the first part of the maze 3 times then walk to the
second part of the maze. It takes The hamster around 6
minutes and 30 second to complete the maze however,
the hamster had repeat the same route more than 5 times
for each dead end. The hamster had faced all the
dead-end in this trial but walk close to the exit just 3 times.
The way the hamster walks is keep repeating the same
way more than 2 times before go to the other part of the
maze. The hamster looks very confuse because this is her
first time. The hamster almost reaches the exit many times
during the trial but The hamster just stop and turn back to
the previous route first. The part that the hamster repeat
the most is the starting point of the maze. The hamster
had used 8 minutes to finish the maze.
In the second trial, the hamster walks around the first
part of the maze for 2 times then walk to the second part
of the maze. The hamster keep running between part 1
and part 2 of the maze. After the hamster runs the maze
for 7 minutes, the hamster almost reach the exit but the
hamster faced the dead-end in front of the exit first and
design to turn back to the start and stop running and stay
there for 2 minutes. Consequently, the hamster continue
to move a little bit for nearly 3 minute, the hamster almost
reach the exit but the hamster just turn back to the start
again. The hamster just keep walking around the start and
cannot finish the maze this time.

Date: 25 May 17
Goal: Finish data analysis 3, 4, and 5
Reflection Paragraph (5-7 Sentences):
In the third trial, the hamster runs very fast after the
hamster reach the ground of the maze and run directly
near the exit. Nevertheless, the hamster suddenly go back
to the start again and begin to run slower. The hamster
may though that it is a wrong way even though it is a
correct way. After that, the hamster starts to run the maze
again with the different way compare to the previous one
but the hamster had faced more dead-end and go back to
the start again. The hamster walks around the start 1 time
before sit silently around the start. The hamster keep
moving little by little but still cannot complete the maze
until the end. With This, the hamster may get tired due to
the lots of energy lost in the first and second trial.
In the fourth trial, The hamster starts with slow
movement at the beginning but on the right track. The
hamster went to explore the part that the hamster went to
in the first trial but not the second and third trial and then
suddenly turn back to the previous route. The hamster get
loss a little at the middle of the maze but it finally get back
to the correct route, maybe the hamster starts to recognize
that it is a wrong way. In consequence, the hamster found
the exit just in 2 minutes and make a new record.
Therefore, this is the fastest trial that this hamster makes.
In the fifth trial, The hamster just keep sitting at the
starting point for 5 minutes then start to move slowly. After
that, the hamster had faced the dead-end 4 time but still
on the right track and finally arrive at the exit in 7 minute.
The trial 5 had used more time than the trial 4, the reason
is that the hamster may already get tired due to the
number of time that the hamster had run the maze. Also,
trial 4 and trial 5 are better than trial 2 and trial 3 maybe
because hamsters usually sleep during the day and active
at night. Trial 2 and trial 3 start between 4 and 5 oclock.
Trial 4 and trial 5 start between 5 and 6 oclock and it is
almost the time for hamsters to be active.