Guinea Pig or Rabbit Habitat and Exercise Trail

Engineering Design Challenge

Challenge
Congratulations! Dr. Bolden is looking to upgrade our animal
living spaces in the Science Lab. Your team of engineers has been
hired to research, design, and build a new habitat and exercise
trail for the guinea pig or rabbit to be on display this summer. You
will be using your knowledge of animals, animal habitats, and the
different regions of Georgia to help you design a habitat and
exercise trail that our guinea pig and/or rabbit could live in.
Remember this habitat should provide all of the basic needs to
keep the animal happy and healthy. The team that creates the
best design will be chosen to construct our new animal living
spaces. In addition, create a corresponding poster that provides
viewers a true understanding of the animal by offering
fundamental and interesting facts in a succinct manner.
Materials
Student Choice

Criteria
As you create your design, you need to make sure the following
are true for the habitat cage and exercise trail.

1. The habitat provides a way for the guinea pig or rabbit to

access its living and/or hiding place, food and water, and
exercise trail.
2. The habitat and exercise trail is secure and the animal
cant escape.
3. The habitat is the least expensive to build based on the
total cost of all the materials.

Constraints
1. Information must be gathered from at least three reliable,
scientific resources. Two resources must be electronic
resources (remind students of the websites used during the
initial research opportunity in the media center or
classroom).
2. Posters, at minimum, must include:
a. the common name of the animal and the genus,
species
b. two pictures of the animal (no hand drawn pictures)
c. world map showing home range of animal (map
template provided by teacher)
d. three adaptations (2 physical and 1 behavioral) that
help the animal survive
 e. identification of animal as herbivore, carnivore or
omnivore
f. fact sheet outlining the animals body covering, body
temperature, reproduction type (egg/live birth) and
breathing system
g. five additional interesting facts about the animal
h. bibliography of resources attached to the back of the
poster with student name

Controls

Variables

Introduction
Who here has a pet? What type of pet do you have? (Write a list of
student pets on the board.) Let's group these animals into
different categories. (Have the class work in pairs or small groups
to divide the list into different categories. After a few minutes,
have the groups share their categories with the class. Example
categories: big animals vs. small animals, animals that live inside
vs. outside, etc.) How did you decide on your categories? Did you
find things that some of the animals had in common? It is
important to be able to classify objects into categories so we can
study and understand all the patterns of similarities and
differences between different living and nonliving things in the
world.

Scientists have developed categories to separate different

animals as well. They do this in a similar to what we just did by
finding physical characteristics that are unique to certain groups.
Of course, there are other ways to classify animals. We could have
separated the animals into groups by their behavior or how they
get their food. For example, some animals are known as predators
and others as prey. Have you heard of those before? A predator is
an animal that hunts other animals to eat, such as a fox. Prey is
the animal that is hunted and eaten, such as a rabbit.

Another way to classify animals is by what type of food they eat.

Different animals eat different things. An herbivore is an animal
that only eats plants. A carnivore is an animal that only eats meat
or other animals. Would a meat-eating animal be a predator or
prey? (Answer: A predator.) What about an animal that eats both
plants and meat? We call these animals omnivores.
An omnivore is an animal that eats both plants and other animals.
(For example: Skunks are omnivores; they eat insects [bees,
grasshoppers, larvae], bird eggs, baby birds, amphibians, as well
as fruit and berries.) Which type of animal are you?

Now, why would an engineer care about animals? Engineers work

with animals in many different ways. Some engineers study
specific animals in great detail and then imitate them to design a
technology for use by humans. For example, chemical engineers
look at sharks and how they defend themselves from bacteria in
the ocean to create new antibiotics to keep humans healthy. The
tuna inspired a new sea-going vessel that takes less energy to
move. The wings of an airplane were originally designed after the
wings of a bird. We call this biomimicry.

One way that engineers study how animals interact in an

ecosystem is by creating a model of it. A biodome is a model that
is designed to represent a particular environment and the
community of organisms that live there. When constructing a
biodome, engineers must be very careful with interactions
between animal predators and prey. Why?

Nature exists through a delicate balance of predators and prey.

Animals and plants are interdependent on other species to ensure
their existence. A change in one population has an effect on all
the other populations in the food chain. For example,
grasshoppers eat grass, frogs eat grasshoppers, and snakes eat
frogs. If there were so many grasshoppers that there was not
enough grass for them to all eat, some grasshoppers might starve
and die. A reduction in the grasshopper population would mean
that less grass would be eaten. A smaller grasshopper population
would also mean that there was less food for the frogs, and that
some of the frogs might die. With fewer frogs the grasshopper
population may increase. It may not be good to put animals in the
biodome that are eaten to extinction by the other animals.
Engineers incorporate predators and prey into their biodomes to
provide the necessary environment and foods for animals and
plant to survive in balance. Today, we are going to learn a little
more about animal classification and animal interactions. This will
help us think like engineers who are working to design or protect
a specific environment.

Vocabulary
biodome: A human-made, closed environment containing plants
and animals existing in equilibrium.

biome: An area with a certain set of ecological characteristics,

including a specific climate, plants and animals living in it.

ecosystem: A functional unit consisting of all the living organisms

(plants, animals and microbes) in a given area, and all the
nonliving physical and chemical factors of their environment,
linked together through nutrient cycling and energy flow.

environment: The surroundings in which an organism lives,

including air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans,
and their interrelationships.

equilibrium: A stable condition of being in balance.

habitat: The natural home of a plant or animal.

Engineering Connection
Engineers adapt designs for housing, cities and many types of
buildings to specific environments and ecosystems. They use their
environment, knowledge of the biosphere and the concept of
ecosystems to inform their designs and shape the human-built
environment. Engineers and scientists use biodomes to study
ecosystems and model how living and nonliving things interact in
those natural environments. They also collaborate to use this
information to predict the availability of water for communities.

Background
A habitat can be described as the immediate environment in
which a living organism (an animal or plant), exists. Animal
habitats may include living organisms and nonliving objects and
can vary greatly in size, temperature, rainfall and surrounding
landforms across species. Animals make their homes in a variety
of places including deserts, swamps and wetlands, forests,
oceans, mountains, polar-regions, coral reefs and grasslands.
Amazingly, many animals still make their home in the area their
species first evolved millions of years ago since they have
adapted to specific climates or require a particular diet that exists
only in certain areas. Regardless of where animals make their
homes, they live amongst other animals and interact with one
another establishing an ecosystem. Animal habitats are often
affected by human interference, including pollution and
deforestation.
Animals slowly change over generations affecting the way they
look and behave. These changes reflect the process of evolution
and are a response to a change in the surroundings and survival
strategies of the animal. Animals in an ecosystem compete for
water, food and space. Those animals that develop behavioral
and physical adaptations over time become stronger, reproduce
and are more successful in their environment. Animals have
developed adaptations over time in an effort to improve the way
they move, the way in which they obtain and eat their food and
ultimately the way they survive in their climate and their natural
environment.

Investigative Questions
1. How can you keep the guinea pig or rabbit safe in the
enclosure?
2. Is your design or modification sturdy?

Post Activity Questions

1. What evidence do you have that your structure meets the
needs of the guinea pig or rabbit?
2. What materials did you use? Tell what materials and how
many you used of each one.

3. What problems did you need to solve and how did you solve
them?

4. What inspired your design?

5. How and why did you modify your prototype? and determine
which design was the most effective in meeting the
challenge.