Scientific Method Review

Good Science Questions

• Good science questions usually come in a specific form. For instance:

1.How does________affect_______?2.How does_______compare to _____?3.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?

HypothesisA 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:1. 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.

1. How fast will you walk?2. How many different speeds will you walk?3. 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: 1. Name, Grade, date, school, teacher’s name

• Acknowledgements • Table of Contents • Abstract;

1. A couple of sentences that say what your project is about and what you found out • Review of Literature:

1. Research of topic • Purpose

1. 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

1. Graphs, tables • Conclusion