Now that you’ve come up with some ideas about what you need to know to answer Bill’s questions, you’re ready to start some research on what the earthworm currently does for the soil and what parts of its body enable it to help the soil. Once you know a little more about how the earthworm works and how it helps the soil, you can start thinking about what improvements you’d like to make to it.

Preliminary Research: What do earthworms do now to help the soil?

Your next step will be to research some basic questions about earthworms. In addition to the questions you’ve already come up with to help you learn more about the worm, I put together a list of questions to help get your research started. You should be sure to answer at least these questions, but feel free to answer any additional questions of your own as well.

Questions about how the earthworm helps the soil:

1. How do earthworms benefit the soil? (You may want to think about it this way: why would farmers be happy to have earthworms in their soil?)
2. What functions (activities) do earthworms perform that result in these benefits? That is, what do earthworms do all day that results in better soil? (Note: Your answers to questions 1 and 2 may overlap.)
3. What body parts help earthworms perform these activities?
4. How do these body parts enable earthworms to perform those activities?

I’ve attached a research template to help you organize your work, and I have included an example within it.

How should we improve the worm?

Once you have done your research on how the worm works and how it benefits the soil, you should work with your team to develop a list of possible changes that could make a big difference in improving the soil. Following are some questions to help you think through your ideas.

Questions to help you think about how to improve the earthworm:

1. Look at what you know the earthworm already does to help make the soil more fertile. How could the earthworm do those things better—or faster, or bigger, or stronger—to help even more?
2. What activities would earthworms need to perform to provide these benefits?
3. What body parts or body systems would you change to enable earthworms to perform these activities?

I’ve provided a template to record all of your ideas on how to improve the earthworm and have included a few examples.

I would like you to submit completed research templates from all individual researchers, and then one completed template from each team with possible improvements to the earthworm. We will use this list as a starting point for doing more in-depth research to answer Mr. Clarks' questions, so I will be looking for solutions that are not only inventive, but also based in facts about soil and Lumbricus terrestris.

Sincerely,

Jamie Matthews, PhD

'I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.' -- Franklin D. Roosevelt