This activity guides the analysis of a published scientific figure from a study that tested how individual fish responded to an artificial model of a fish school.

Schooling is a social behavior that differs among threespine stickleback fish in different habitats. To test whether schooling behavior is inherited or learned, individual stickleback fish were raised without their parents and then placed near an artificial model of a school. Panel A of the figure shows the design for the model, which consisted of eight model fish attached to a rotating wheel. Panel B shows the average time that individual marine or freshwater stickleback fish spent schooling with the model. The “Educator Materials” document includes a captioned figure, background information, graph interpretation, and discussion questions. The “Student Handout” includes a captioned figure and background information.

The video below shows the experiment in action.