essential question how are scientific investigations designed and conducted?
TRANSCRIPT
Questions
After you ask a question, you look for an answer. What are some methods you use to answer a question? • Research• Observations• Experimentation
Why ask questions? Give an example for each
reason. • Save lives - how can people be protected
during car accident = seatbelts and airbags
• Save resources - how can resources last longer = recycle,
• Save environment - how can ozone be protected = reduce CFC use
A common misperception of science is that science defines "truth". Science does not define truth, but rather it defines a way of thought. The scientific method is a process in which experiments are used to answer questions.
An “educated” guess of an answer to a question.
Written and carefully followed step-by-step experiment designed to test the hypothesis.
Information collected during the experiment.
Written description of what was noticed during the experiment.
Conclusion
Data
Experiment
I. Scientists use an experiment to search for cause and effect relationships in nature. In other words, they design an experiment so that changes to one item cause something else to vary in a predictable way.
Experiment
II. These changing quantities are called variables. A variable is any factor, trait, or condition that can exist in differing amounts or types. An experiment usually has three kinds of variables: independent, dependent, and constants.
Variables
1. Independent The independent variable is the one that is changed by the scientist.
2. Dependent The scientist focuses his or her observations on the dependent variable to see how it responds to the change made to the independent variable. Trials
Dis
tanc
e in
cm
Independent
Dep
end
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Variables
3. Experiments also have constant variables. Constants: are quantities that a scientist wants to remain the same, and he must observe them as carefully as the dependent variables.
Dep
end
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Independent
Operational Definitions:
A conceptual definition is an element of the scientific research process, in which a specific concept is defined as a measurable occurrence. It basically gives you the meaning of the concept.
Qualitative Observation
Qualitative Observation: characteristics of what is being observed using your senses
Inference: evidence-based guesses. They are the conclusions a person draws about the unsaid based on what is observed.