Scientific Method
What method is used to answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments?
Scientific Method
Ryan wanted to grow cucumbers from seeds. He read that using a heating pad to heat up potting soil could help make seeds germinate, or sprout, faster. Ryan wondered whether the temperature of the heating pad would affect how quickly the seeds germinated.
What is the independent variable?
Temperature
Ryan wanted to grow cucumbers from seeds. He read that using a heating pad to heat up potting soil could help make seeds germinate, or sprout, faster. Ryan wondered whether the temperature of the heating pad would affect how quickly the seeds germinated.
What is the dependent variable?
Germination Time
What is a control variable?
Anything purposefully kept the same between experimental and control groups
Research
First Step of the Scientific Method
Jaden gathered eight identical bird feeders. He filled four with sunflower seeds. He filled the remaining four feeders with crushed peanuts. Jaden then placed the bird feeders in his backyard. Over the next five days, he counted the number of woodpeckers that visited each bird feeder each morning.
What is the independent variable?
Different type of food
Jaden gathered eight identical bird feeders. He filled four with sunflower seeds. He filled the remaining four feeders with crushed peanuts. Jaden then placed the bird feeders in his backyard. Over the next five days, he counted the number of woodpeckers that visited each bird feeder each morning.
What is the dependent variable?
Number of woodpeckers who came to the feeder.
Is this qualitative or quantitative data?
The snake is 10 feet long.
Quantitative
The third step in the scientific method is...
forming a hypothesis
What is a hypothesis?
An educated guess
In biology class, Annie learned that ripe fruits produce a gas called ethylene that can cause other fruits to ripen. Annie prepared four paper bags with five unripe avocados in each bag. She added one ripe banana to two of the bags and no bananas to the remaining two bags. After three days, she opened each bag and counted the number of ripe avocados in each bag.
What is the independent variable?
Whether or not there are bananas in the bags
Dillon placed a cardboard sleeve on each of three paper cups. He left three other cups without sleeves. Then, he poured the same amount of coffee into each of the six cups. He measured the temperature of the coffee in each cup every minute for ten minutes.
What is the dependent variable?
temperature
Is this qualitative or quantitative data?
"The fruit smells rotten"
Qualitative
Data that is acquired using your 5 senses is called...
Qualitative Data
Last Step of Scientific Method
Peer Review
Dr. Warren made six filtering straws: three that were five inches long and three that were ten inches long. She prepared six one-liter batches of water, each containing 10,000 Giardia. Then, Dr. Warren passed one batch of water through each straw. After each batch passed through the straw, she used a microscope to count the number of Giardia that remained in a small sample of the water.
What is the independent variable?
Length of the straw
Dr. Alvarado prepared six culture tanks. He filled each tank with the same amount of a mixture of water and nutrients. Then, he added 1,000 live algae cells to each tank and sealed the tank. In three of the tanks, he added C. rotunda cells. In the other three, he added T. cordiformis cells. After five days, Dr. Alvarado measured the amount of oxygen in each culture tank.
What is the dependent variable?
Amount of oxygen in the tank.
What is the group that is not exposed to the independent variable?
Control Group
Data acquired using measuring tools and is represented with numerical values is called...
Quantitative Data
How should a hypothesis be written?
In an If...then format with the If part being the independent variable and the then part related to the dependent variable
Farid noticed that some of the footballs his team used during practice were not fully inflated. He wondered whether fully inflated footballs would travel farther than footballs with a lower air pressure.He fully inflated ten of them to an air pressure of 13 pounds per square inch. He inflated the remaining ten to an air pressure of 10 pounds per square inch. He measured the distance the football traveled and then launched the next ball.
What is the independent variable?
The Air Pressure
Elise divided a large bottle of soda equally among six glasses. Elise added five whole ice cubes to each of the first three glasses while her brother crushed five ice cubes into small pieces before adding them to each of the other three glasses. Ten minutes after all the ice had been added to the glasses, Elise used a thermometer to measure the temperature of the soda in each glass.
Temperature
What group IS exposed to the independent variable?
Experimental Group
Creating graphs is part of which step of the scientific method?
Analyzing Data