What is your Objective? THE PROBLEM

Curiosity????????????????

Observation is a key element here!!!

RESEARCH

• Gather Information

• Get some Background about the topic

THE HYPOTHESIS

• What is a HYPOTHESIS?

• They can never be completely proven…..but one single experiment can disprove it.

IT IS A PREDICTION!! A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR THE OBSERVED SET OF FACTS in the form of a statement.

Time to Experiment!!!

• Plan the design of your Experiment.

• Consider the following………

Is it a Controlled Experiment or Field Experiment??

• Both Types will have Variables that need to be looked at.

• Independent Variable• Dependent Variable• Control group• Constants

DEPENDENT VARIABLE (Responding Variable)

• The One You Measure as a result of the changing Independent variable (the data)

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE (Manipulated Variable)

• The one you will vary to see how it may affect the dependent variable

To do a Fair Test (Controlled Experiment) and Obtain a Valid Conclusion you need to………

• KEEP ALL VARIABLES CONSTANT, EXCEPT FOR THE INDEPENDENT VARIABLE.

• Examples: amount of sunlight, species of plant, amount of water

OTHER FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN

EXPERIMENTING…….

• How many individuals will you test?

• How many trials?

• What outside environmental factors do you need to keep constant?

• Safety precautions.

Conduct the Experiment

• A Experimental Group will be the group with the Independent Variable:

• In this example, the plants receiving the fertilizer.

• A Control Group will be the group without the Independent Variable

• In this example, the plants receiving water only

• A control group is for comparison.

GATHERING DATA

• Make a data table

• Label the sections of your table.

• Always put in the correct units given or being used

# of Days

Height of First Plant

Height of Second Plant

1 5 cm 3cm

2 8cm 7 cm

3 16cm 12 cm

RESULTS

The effect of Gibberelin on plant growth

0

5

10

15

20

Days

Hei

ght

(cm

) Plant withGibberelin

PlantwithoutGibberelin

• Always Title graph and label the X and Y axis.

• What are the Independent and Dependent Variables in this experiment?

• Accept or Reject your Hypothesis (Meaning: was your hypothesis supported?)

• What were the sources of error?

• What patterns did you observe?

WHAT WOULD YOU PUT IN YOUR CONCLUSION?

NOW WHAT????

REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT!!!!!

What else do you have to add to the Scientific Method to make it a Lab

Report???• The Parts of a Lab Report are:• Title• Hypothesis• Problem (Question to test)• Materials• Procedure (Methods used)• Data• Results (Graph)• Discussion and Conclusions