Read the Bambi Versus Corn handout and make a design for an experiment to determine the best possible treatment to prevent deer from eating the corn plants. The design must:

• identify and control for confounding variables
• follow the principles of good experimental design
• clearly identify what data is being gathered; what is the specific measurement being used to determine the efficacy

For this assignment, I want you to re-write the problem using your own words, then give a detailed description of your experiment. A drawing or diagram may help in making your design clear.

Bambi vs. Corn The typical garden-variety deer (Odocoileus spp.) can be a serious problem even beyond the garden. Deer are thought to cause more damage to agricultural products than any other species of wildlife. In 1993 over $30 million worth of corn was lost to deer just in the 10 largest corn-producing states. In late June and early July corn reaches the silking-tasseling stage of growth. Cornfields are at particular risk during the silking/tasseling stage because[(a) the corn is very tasty, and (b) damage during this period seriously reduces yield. It might be possible for farmers to minimize the amount of damage to crops by using visual and/or acoustic frightening devices during the silking/tasseling stage of corn growth. These devices range from (a) less than distressing to (b) terror inducing. (a) ( b ) One possible visual device might be a young girl with a barking dog, or possibly a scarecrow, both shown at left above. Deer might mistake such a creature for a terrifying human and hastily run from any cornfield having such a creature therein. It is also possible that deer (and presumably rational humans) might be repelled by sufficiently alarming post-Beatles quasi-music presented by more than sufficiently alarming pre- human alleged musicians, shown at right above 4Perhaps a noise-making machine that would mimic animal communication signals such as alarm calls might be effective. (An alarm call warns others of possible danger.) These devices typically consist of an infrared detection system that activates an audio component that transmits recorded alarm calls. Researchers have studied the effects of such devices on birds, but little is known of their effect on mammals. If effective with deer, bio-acoustic alternatives would meet with public approval and in addition could be used in both rural and urban settings. Deer are most active at dusk and dawn, and are frequent feeders at night. They tend to stay close to wooded areas for safety; farms in Iowa are frequently interspersed with wooded areas. You are to design an experiment to collect data that would allow you to test the hypothesis that sound devices and/or scarecrows can reduce deer predation on corn. For purposes of this experiment every right-thinking Iowa farmer has volunteered his acreage for use as test plots; you have complete freedom to choose cornfields for treatment and control plots. Not only that, every right-thinking Iowa parent has volunteered their teenagers' boom boxes (in hopes that you are conducting a multi-year experiment.) These boom boxes came in various brands, with the Aiwa CD player (model CDC-X217) being the most popular. Infra-red animal-activated alarm and distress call systems have been acquired from FEDS