What is Science?

1. What is Science? Explanations of how and why things occur Collection of knowledge about the natural world

2. How do we know what we know?

3. How does one determine if anything is true? • It was on TV. • Everyone else believes it. • I can’t prove it is false, so it must be true. • I choose the answer that best fits my moral, religious or ideological view. • Things are true only if they are observable by me.

4. Bermuda Triangle • The "Bermuda or Triangle”, (BT) is an area located off the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States, which is noted for a high incidence of unexplained losses of ships, small boats, and aircraft.

5. Which of the following statements is true? • There are electromagnetic anomalies at the BT, causing navigational equipment to malfunction. • Aliens have a presence in the BT. • The Gulf current in the BT causes an increased number of sudden storms causing the losses. • The incidence of ship and aircraft losses is the same in the BT as it is for other heavily visited areas.

6. What is the Scientific Method? • A structured way of investigating and evaluating the natural world. • Steps: • Observation/Question • Gather Information • Hypothesis • Experiment • Collect Data • Analyze Data • Draw a Conclusion

7. Observations: A description of what you see. • The tree is tall • The floor is blue • My foot is 9 inches long • The surface is bumpy These are all considered observations

8. Types of Observations • Qualitative: Using your 5 senses to describe what you see. • Quantitative: Using a measurement to describe something you see.

9. Other types of observations For example: • You are walking home from school and you notice earthworms are crawling all over the sidewalk • How would a scientist go about figuring out if there is a reason for this?

10. Hypothesis • Your hypothesis is a question or problem that would help to explain why the earthworms come up to the sidewalk after a rain. • Your hypothesis will give you ideas about how you could observe, test and collect data.

11. Experiment • Based on your hypothesis you will set up an experiment. • An experiment does not need to have beakers, test tubes and chemicals. • An experiment can be the way you set up different environments to study the earthworms behavior.

12. Variables • Independent: Affects the outcome of the experiment because it is the condition that is changed ex: temp., pH, light, adding a new organism • Dependent: Changes are caused by the independent variable. ex: growth of a plant, death, enzymatic activity • Control: All conditions are kept the same

13. Collect Data • Data is what is collected during the experiment • Data can be collected quantatively or qualitatively. ? What does that mean?

14. Analyze Data • What does your data tell you? • Does it support the hypothesis? • If it does not support your explanation what do you do next?

15. Draw a Conclusion • Is your explanation supported by repeated results? Why can’t you do it once? • What happens if the experiment yields repeated results, how does the scientific community describe it? • Theory-explanation of the natural world that is supported by a large body of scientific evidence obtained from many different observations and investigations

16. Conclusion con’t • What happens when the data does not support your hypothesis?

17. Closure What are the steps scientist need to work with when working with a hypothesis? Tomorrow you will be given a problem to solve using the steps you learned today.