Making Conjectures About What May Be True INDUCTIVE REASONING Making Conjectures About What May Be True

Conjecture An educated guess Based on limited evidence About what will ALWAYS be true An example: “The Sun rotates around the Earth.”

Inductive Reasoning The act of gathering information and examples together to form a conjecture A theory, a belief based on the experiences had or data collected May be true always, or true sometimes, or true never

Inductive reasoning An example: Obtuse Ollie visited his Grandmother in rural Nebraska over the last 5 summers on the 4th of July. Each and every July 4 afternoon, it rained. A lot. This downpour drenched (and ruined) his large stockpile of fireworks, thus destroying the amazing display (and disappointing all). Ollie reasoned: “I believe it must always rain on the 4th of July in Nebraska.”

Julia Julia put bread in the toaster. She pressed the lever down to toast her bread. She left to go brush her hair. Julia returns to the toaster an hour later. She sees the bread popped up, but NOT TOASTED! List of possible conjectures: Toaster malfunction Toaster set very light Toaster not plugged in Julia’s little brother is a prankster Julia’s dad was hungry