Scientific Method Review

Scientific Method Review

Good Science Questions Good science questions usually come in a specific form. For instance: How does________affect_______? How does_______compare to _____? How does______determine_____? You just need to fill in the blank.

Good Science Questions Cont. Make sure the questions can’t be answered with a simple yes or no answer. For example, suppose you chose footprints as your topic. Some questions could be: How are footprints made? How do you match a foot to the footprint it made? Can you tell how fast someone is walking from his/her footprints?

Good Science Questions Cont. Now looking at the example list of questions, ask yourself, “Can I measure something to help answer one of these questions?”

Good Science Questions Cont. Looking at the list of footprint questions, only the last one has something you can easily measure: WALKING SPEED. This question looks promising, so you can explore it further. How would you use the question form to make the question a good science question?

Good Question Format How does the speed someone walks affect the space between their footprints?

Hypothesis A hypothesis is just a guess at the answer to your question. All you need to do is take your question and make it into an answer. • Examples: • I think_____will affect______. Or 2. I think _____will not affect______. 3. I believe _________will determine_________. Or 4. I believe____________will not determine___________. Example: I think the speed someone walks will determine the space between their footprints.

Variables: Independent • Independent Variable: what you change in the experiment. You’re in charge of how it changes, and it doesn’t depend on anything else. • Hint: It is usually the same thing that’s in the first blank of your question • Ex: How does the speed someone walks affect the space between their footprints?

Variable: Independent Variable Cont. • Now that you know what you’re going to change, you need to decide how you’re going to change it. • How fast will you walk? • How many different speeds will you walk? • How will you measure the speed?

Variables: Dependent Dependent Variable: what you are going to measure (It depends on what happens to your independent variable; in other words, when you change your independent variable, your dependent variable will change too.) Hint: this is the same thing that’s in the second blank of the question Example: How does the speed someone walks affect the space between their footprints? How will you measure this?

Variables: Controls • Controls: other factors that might affect the distance between footprints; controls are variables that will not change during the experiment. • Examples of controls: person doing the walking, the type of shoe he or she is wearing, the surface he or she is walking on

Design Your Experiment • Materials –what you are going to use for the experiment • Procedures- instructions to carry out experiment DON’T FORGET TO DO EXPERIMENT AT LEAST 3 TIMES TO GET ACCURATE RESULTS (TRIALS)

Do the Math • Now that you’ve done your experiment, you’ve got a bunch of numbers….DATA….. • You have to now turn those numbers into something you can use to answer your question • Average your trials (Ex. for each walking speed) • Visualize your data using a graph

Analyze Your Data • At this point, you’ve got results, but what does it all mean? • Do you see any patterns? • How did the dependent variable (distance between the footsteps) change as you varied the independent variable (walking speed)?

Draw a Conclusion • Now it’s time to answer your question. • What does the data tell you? • Is your hypothesis supported or not? (Remember a hypothesis is never right or wrong.) • It needs to be explained based on your experimentations and the data collected and any other factors that might have had an influence.

Write Your Report: What Does That Look Like • Title Page: • Name, Grade, date, school, teacher’s name • Acknowledgements • Table of Contents • Abstract; • A couple of sentences that say what your project is about and what you found out • Review of Literature: • Research of topic • Purpose • The problem restated (The purpose of this experiment is to find out how does the speed someone walks affect the space between their footprints.) • Hypothesis • Procedures • Materials • Results/Data • Graphs, tables • Conclusion

Scientific Method Review