Research at recess

For millennia, naturalists and thinkers across the globe have peered into beehives and wondered: What the hell are those things doing in there? Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, and after him Roman poet Virgil, both wrote extensively of their fascination with the lives and habits of bees. These days, with mysterious illnesses wiping out entire hives and jeopardizing the viability of some commercial crops, serious research projects probe honeybee pathogens and behavior. And now, to centuries of cataloged knowledge of bee behavior and biology, a group of British schoolchildren have added their insights in a linkurl:paper;http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2010.1056 published in a recent issue of the Royal Society's __Biology Letters__.

Image: Alvesgaspar via Wikimedia commons

Twenty five 8-10-year-olds, under the guidance of University College London neuroscientist Beau Lotto, found that bees can learn complex rules to solve puzzles, and that individual bees have personal preferences, suggesting the insects may possess some form of personality. As bold as those claims might be, the concept for the study itself was even more radical.Lotto, who is known for melding the worlds of science and art, helped the children -- students of Blackawton Primary School in Devon, UK -- devise a hypothesis, design and conduct the experiments, then write the paper, complete with their own, hand-drawn figures (in colored pencil). Using an old country church in the southwest of England as their laboratory, the children tested whether or not they could train buff-tailed bumblebees (__Bombus terrestris__) to learn the orientation of "flowers" containing sugary or salty water based on the pattern of colored light surrounding containers of the liquids. They found that it was possible and that the bees were using spatial and color cues to decide which "flower" to feed upon. The scientific community is hailing their findings as valuable contributions to the study of bee behavior. "The field of insect colour and pattern vision is generally poorly understood and the findings reported by the schoolchildren represent a genuine advance in the field," the Royal Society said in a statement.The idea to have school children design and conduct a complete scientific study started when Lotto wanted to do a primary school assembly about doing science. He discussed the idea with Blackawton headmaster David Strudwick, who says that the key thing "was the idea of science as a game," remarking that Lotto has "the best job in the world, because he just plays games all day." This idea grew into a plan to challenge expectations of what science is -- both in the minds of the schoolchildren themselves, but also fellow scientists. "Science is about getting it wrong so that you can get it right," says Jo Lunt, a science teacher at the school.Lotto applied for funding, but was refused on the grounds that the "cost to benefit ratio" was too low and skepticism from the reviewers that children would be able to design the experiments properly. This simply strengthened Lotto's resolve, so he funded it out of his own studio:

F1000 Member Amy Barrios, linkurl:evaluating;http://f1000.com/7345956?key=vp8v08k27pbrg1f the paper for Faculty of 1000, writes that the study is a "fabulous example of amateur scientists making an important contribution."Most practicing scientists might find it hard to relate to Lotto. It's difficult imagining anyone worried about faculty committees or where the next grant is coming from taking on such an unconventional project. This is especially true in today's era of big science, where even the most basic equipment is not within a hobbyist's budget. Lotto was fortunate in that this project was cheap to run -- some wood and plastic, a little sugar solution, and a few lights were all the equipment he and his pint-size collaborators required.Lotto, like any parent, recognizes that children are "burning with curiosity" and anything that reverses the common perception of science being dry and boring must surely be worthwhile. Lotto says that the underlying aim of his work is to get people to think of good science as "a way of being," to use science as a vehicle to get the kids to think of themselves as learners, and to become active in the "process of making sense of how they make sense of the world."

And the paper? There are no references -- Lotto says this was deliberate, not simply because the scientific literature is not understandable to primary school children, but also because "the true motivation" for any scientific study must be one's own curiosity, inspired by observations of the real world. Also missing are statistical analyses. And the paper is certainly written in an usual style. But there are undoubtedly real scientific findings here, not least that these children learned that "science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no one has ever done before," as they write in the paper's abstract. Barrios writes: "Although many of us discovered the second point years ago, the novelty and impact of this work cannot be disputed."
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Science, rah rah;http://www.the-scientist.com/2009/09/1/22/1/
[September 2009]*linkurl:Bee calamity clarified;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55919/
[24th August 2009]*linkurl:Citizens and the art of maintaining science;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54523/
[4th April 2008]