Working Together: Investigating the Formation of Ant Trails

This unit provides students with opportunities to engage with different modelling approaches as they investigate the complex phenomenon of ant trail formation. Students learn how ants communicate using pheromones and explore the variables effecting food collecting efficiency using several computational modelling tools. 

Develop and use models to explain how factors related to pheromone communication effect the efficiency of ants’ food collection from the environment to the nest.  

This unit has a creativity and critical thinking focus:

• Constructing, evaluating, revising and using different models

• Observing and exploring real-life ant trail formation

• Engaging with several computational modelling tools to make sense of the phenomenon

Web and Print

• Detailed description of the ant communication unit available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-020-09869-x 

Others

• NetLogo open-acccess software available at: http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ 

• SageModeler open-access software available at: https://sagemodeler.concord.org/app/ 

English Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FYuSQG9seHIGLrFmbEVMSEFJo04Lqy2DBulMwH8Odxo/edit?usp=sharing 

Hindi Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/18Dts5PzqugrioEK1p_przaziGmE0a-HMCvn1V2KP_Is/edit?usp=drive_link 

Gujarati Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KUCAD6kblq_zyFUTgqbT8VhvcJ-839InOtuCZfp0yeU/edit?usp=drive_link 

Kannada Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VoXMCMgg1gRes1i9CoMBbpM0YWRHLD9BtQjcZb5sACs/edit?usp=drive_link