DO NOW ACTIVITY: What is going on in this cartoon?

THE NATURE OF SCIENCEPART 2

Mr. T. L. Graham

Science Department

John Marshall Metropolitan High School

Chicago Public Schools

Chicago, IL

How do we begin to think like scientists?

Every good scientist has keen observation skills

Observations Involves the five senses

Sight Smell Hearing Touch Taste

After a scientist observes something he asks why something occurring. Why are the fish dying in the

Gulf of Mexico?

Using our observations

Scientist don’t simply observe things and move on.

You must question why something is occurring. This is the first step in

the scientific method/scientific inquiry.

ALL SCIENCE BEGINS WITH A QUESTION!!!

ALL SCIENCE BEGINS WITH A QUESTION

The Scientific method is the process that all scientist undertake once they ask a question.

It is NOT a rigid set of procedures

Interpreting the results

Once a scientist conducts an experiment the next step is to analyze the results.

After a scientist records his/her observations they infer why a phenomena is occurring.

Making inferences is the process of combining your observations with previous knowledge to draw a conclusion.

What do you observe?What can you infer?

What do you observe?What can you infer?

What do you observe?What can you infer?

What about the data?

A scientist has a slew of data that he/she may choose to record

Qualitative data- pertaining to or concerned with quality or qualities. A.k.a. a description of the

observation (the sky is blue) Quantitative data- of or

pertaining to the describing or measuring of quantity. A.k.a assigning a numerical

value to phenomena (the sky was blue for 12 hours)

Let’s look at some data!

What kind of data are we looking at?

How do we know?

Why does the graph get higher in the center?

What did we just do?

Let’s look at some data!

What kind of data are we looking at? How do we know?

Wrapping up your investigation Conducting scientific

procedures allow us to adequately make claims

All claims must be supported by strong evidence

If the procedure that you use is weak or has a lot of inconsistencies you do not have a valid claim.

If you have a strong procedure that endures scrutiny over and over again you may be looking at a law

Group Work

Infer how an environmental scientist might use quantitative data and qualitative data in his/her work? Give examples and justification to the

above question. Do you think one is more valuable than the

other? Why or why not? Have you heard in the media any use of

data by environmental scientist recently? Prepare a short 2-3 minute presentation