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Year 10 Scientific investigation. Your own scientific research. Every student in Year 10 throughout NSW has to undertake a first hand investigation in Science. This means they have to do some research on something that interests them.
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Your own scientific research • Every student in Year 10 throughout NSW has to undertake a first hand investigation in Science. • This means they have to do some research on something that interests them. • This can be almost anything that you are interested in and you can get measurements from in your experiment.
Some ideas • What factors affect how far a kicked ball can go? • How fast can a solar panel car go in the Sun? • What design of paper plane is best for long flight? • What factors affect the waves at the beach? • What fertiliser is the best for pot plants? • What paper towel is the most cost effective in soaking up water? • What does an energy drink do to your reflexes?
The details • You will have to use your netbook or computer to complete this assignment • You will need to use photos or video • You will need to find references on the internet and provide a hyperlink to these sites • Your experiment must allow you to collect data that you put into Excel or another similar program • You must then graph the data in TWO different ways that show any trends or patterns distinctly.
Format • Your experiment needs to be talked over with your teacher. They need to ensure you can get good data you can use. • All of your write up should be done on your netbook or another computer. Remember if your netbook is not working you can borrow one.
Send the TWO previous slides to the Student Shared drive 25thFebruary 2011 You will need to • Go to the school website. • Click on Sharepoint • Click on Student Shared • Go to the Science folder • Then Year 10 • Open the assignments and revision folder • You will see your class listed. Upload your file to your own class by the 9.00am of the due date.
Completing the investigation • Once you have submitted your planning sheet you can start on your investigation. • You firstly need to do some research on your topic. • Use the internet to locate some websites that are helpful in designing your experiment and learning more about your topic. • You can also use books and magazines. Science books and magazines are great resources. • Make sure that the site you get information from is not a site set up by people with closed minds. Sites like the Discovery Channel, ABC, Britannica, Wikipedia and How stuff works are good websites to start with. • Magazines like New Scientist and Australasian Science are great reads. • You will save lots of time if you can HYPERLINK to the web sites you read through.
Hyperlinks • To add a hyperlink watch this video • Add Hyperlinks to ALL of the references you use in this assignment • You must use at least THREE references
References • There are TWO reference slides you may fill in • Many of you will only fill in one slide – probably the one detailing the online references you have viewed. This is fine. • If you have looked up a magazine or book you can fill in the second slide. • Don’t worry of you leave ONE of the TWO slides blank. The maximum marks you can get for the whole section is 5 marks • You need to have THREE references. You can have three internet references or three magazine references or any combination of the two.
Experimental record • You now need to write up the experiment properly • You will need to include your aim and hypothesis even though they were on the planning sheet. • With your reading of references you may have changed your ideas • Then you need to include a well written method showing how the experiment will be undertaken • You need to show that you are only changing one variable at a time.
Method • This is a very important part of your experimental record • You need to use the correct tense. Instead of saying “I put the seeds in cow manure” write “The seeds were put into cow manure” • Write down every step of the experiment so that someone else could do exactly the same experiment • Use measurements instead of words. “Water with 20ml of water every second day” instead of “Water with enough water to wet the soil” • Ensure that you only test what you are trying to test for. This means you have to control your variables.
Variables • Dependent Variable - The thing you measured. • Independent Variable –The thing you changed. • Controlled Variables –All the things you kept the same to make it a fair test.
Visual experimental record You need to be able to show that you undertook the experiment properly by including some video or photos of your experiment. If your experiment involves movement use the video camera in your netbook or phone. (You can bluetooth the phone video into your netbook) Keep the video down to 1 minute maximum. If you are growing plants or observing something over a long period a series of photos is a better record. Make sure you include dates.
Embedding video Here is another tutorial. This one is on embedding video into Powerpoint
Results • Using a spreadsheet program like Excel. • Click here to see how to use Excel to make a table and then produce a graph. • You have to make TWO graphs so pick two types that help show your data well. A scatter graph and a 3D graph is a good start. • Copy the Excel spreadsheet into your presentation. • Put the graphs into their own slide
Discussion The discussion is a very important part of any experimental record. In the discussion you have to • Explain any patterns you have observed • Discuss any problems in the experiment • Propose any remedies for the problems in the experiment • Evaluate your experiment in terms of how the data fits in with results from the reading you have done before the experiment
Conclusion A conclusion answers the Aim – the first part of the experimental record. If the Aim was “to determine how pressure affects how far a soccerball can be kicked”then the conclusion should answer what effect pressure has. It could be something like“Too low and too high a pressure reduces the distance a soccerball can be kicked. The optimum pressure for kicking a soccerball is 100psi.” Don’t make the conclusion too long – one or two sentences is good.
When your are finished The assignment is due in Week 2 of Term 2. The due date is 2nd May. To complete your assignment remove all the white instruction slides (like this one) from your Powerpoint and upload the assignment to the STUDENT SHARED DRIVE. The correct folder to upload it to is the same folder that you uploaded your planning sheet to. NOTE – DO NOT UPLOAD YOUR ASSIGNMENT EARLY WITHOUT TELLING YOUR TEACHER. Do it a only couple of days beforehand. You can always hand the assignment in on a flash drive at any time.
