unit 1 lesson 1 how do scientists investigate questions? copyright © houghton mifflin harcourt...

Unit 1 Lesson 1 How Do Scientists Investigate Questions?

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company


Florida Benchmarks


• SC.3.N.1.1 Raise questions about the natural world, investigate them individually and in teams through free exploration and systematic investigations, and generate appropriate explanations based on those explorations.

• SC.3.N.1.6 Infer based on observation.

• SC.3.N.3.1 Recognize that words in science can have different or more specific meanings than their use in everyday language; for example, energy, cell, heat/cold, and evidence.


Florida Benchmarks


• SC.3.N.3.2 Recognize that scientists use models to help understand and explain how things work.

• SC.3.N.3.3 Recognize that all models are approximations of natural phenomena; as such, they do not perfectly account for all observations.


What Is Science?


• Science is a way of looking at the world and thinking about it.

• Scientists ask questions about the world.

• Scientists do investigations to answer their questions.


What Is Science?


• Some science investigations are simple, such as watching animals play.

• Some science investigations take a lot of planning.

• When you ask questions and plan investigations to answer them, you act like a scientist.


What Do You See?


• When you use your senses to notice details, you observe.

• When you infer, you offer an explanation of what you observed.


What Do You See?


• Make observations about the objects in this picture. Then make observations about the objects in your classroom.


Getting Answers!


• Not all questions are science questions.

• Science questions can be answered in many ways.

• Two ways to answer science questions are exploring and investigating.

Exploring

• When you explore, you make observations of the world around you.

• When you explore, you may predict what will happen when you do something.

• When you predict, you use what you know to guess what will happen in the future.



Exploring

• You can use observations to classify, or group, objects.

• For example, you could classify objects by whether they sink or float in water.



Investigating

• In science, an investigation is a planned way of answering science questions.

• When you do an investigation, you may ask cause-and-effect questions.

• In an investigation, you may use models. Models represent real objects but are easier to study.




Investigating Answers


• There are many steps a scientist may take during an investigation.

• Five steps in science investigations are asking a question, hypothesizing, predicting and planning, experimenting, and drawing conclusions.

• Scientists may use some or all steps during an investigation.

Ask a Question

• Many science investigations start with a question. Ask a science question about the things in the picture.



Hypothesize

• A hypothesis is a possible answer to a science question.

• You have to be able to test a hypothesis.



Predict and Plan an Investigation

• Predict what you will observe if your hypothesis is correct.

• Plan an investigation to test your hypothesis.



Experiment

• In science, an experiment is a test you do to gather evidence.

• In an experiment, only one thing should change at a time. The thing that changes is the variable.

• When you do an experiment, you make observations you can use to test your hypothesis.



Draw Conclusions

• After you do your investigation, study your results.

• Draw a conclusion about your results. Ask yourself, “Do the results support my hypothesis?”

• Share your conclusion with others.



unit 1 lesson 1 how do scientists investigate questions? copyright © houghton mifflin harcourt...

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