AQA Level 2 Project

I completed an AQA Level 2 Higher Project Qualification from November 2020 until April 2021, researching habituation in slime mould organisms. This included:

• Working with international experts in the field

• Meeting regularly with my mentor

• Planning and conducting my own series of experiments with Physarum polycephalum

• Keeping detailed records of my progress

• Updating and expanding my website to be submitted as an artefact

• Writing a 500-word thesis analysing my research

• Giving a 25-minute presentation to summarise and explain my project and research

I was awarded an A* in May 2021.

My chosen project title was "To what extent does drying affect slime moulds' habituation to salt and if so, how?".

My scientific investigation aimed to discover what effect drying has on slime moulds' habituation to salt. To do so, I habituated the slime moulds to salt and then left them to dry out and turn into a sclerotium form. I stored the sclerotia for varying lengths of time, depending on this calculation:

length of storage time = time taken for habituation x trial number

I then woke up each sclerotium by adding a drop of water to them. This enabled me to expose them to the same conditions as the habituation process, to test whether becoming a sclerotium had any effect on their habituation to salt.