What Sea Stars Prefer to Eat

Peabody Charter School
Teacher: Jamie Whiting
Scientists: Juliann Aukema, Marissa Baskett, and Brad McRae

Introduction:

Hello! We're Miss Whiting's class and we're going to tell you about what starfish eat.

Question:

What do sea star like to eat?

Hypothesis:

Our prediction is that the sea stars will go for the easier, smaller prey.

Did you know sea stars turn their stomachs inside out when they eat? Or that they use their "tube feet" to pry open shells? Sea stars are predators and invertebrates.

Methods:

We set up our experiment by using four different tanks. Tank number one had 6 small mussels and 6 large to see which size the sea stars prefer. Tank number two had 6 small snails and 6 smaller again to see which they prefer. Tank number three had 6 snails and 6 mussels to see which they prefer. Tank four has 6 mussels and 6 snails and no sea stars to see if the mussels die from natural causes.

Results:

We used a table and a chart to record our results.

Conclusion:

As a conclusion from our experiments we think that sea stars would prefer mussels over snails. And we also think that they like small animals over big. Also we think the reason that the sea star ate the smaller animal was because it was easier to catch and the sea star ate the mussels because there was more meat.