Habitats- Malformed Frogs - Episode 310



Why does our pond have funny-looking frogs?
We’re Susie and Katie, and we love to hunt for frogs. We’ve got a pond in our backyard where lots of frogs live. This year, we noticed a lot of the frogs in our pond had missing legs, or sometimes, extra legs! That got us wondering: What’s causing the malformations at our frog pond?

How would you investigate this question?
To figure out how frogs develop malformations, make yourself familiar with the life cycle of a frog. What sorts of information should you gather about the malformed frogs’ pond? Decide whether to focus your investigation on the frogs, or on the environment where they live, or both. How can the clues you gather by observing the frogs and their habitat explain why the animals are malformed? Write your ideas in your notebook, and discuss them with your classmates. Go to Malformed Frogs to see what Katie and Susie did, and what they learned about malformed frogs.