The Scientific Method: The scientific method is the system that scientists use to answer questions. Observation Hypothesis Experiment Conclusion

Observation: Observation means using one or more of your senses to try and understand or learn about something.

What do you observe about this picture???

Possible Observations: There is one red apple There are eight green apples The apples are wet Anything else????? Something to consider : Are our observations always right???

Hypothesis: These people are pointing at something - What do you think that they are pointing at???? When you observe something - ask a question about it and then make a guess or form a theory about the answer - the theory or guess is called a HYPOTHESIS

So what are the people pointing at? Form a hypothesis: I think that the people are pointing at _______. Write down your own hypothesis and one reason why you made that guess.

Do you think any of these were possible answers? Why or Why not???

Now what??? After you make observations and form a hypothesis it is time to test your hypothesis with an experiment

The Experiment: You have a sunflower seed - you observe that plants grow from seeds - you hypothesize that when you plant your seed - it will grow into a sunflower So let’s experiment!!!

Develop an experiment to test your hypothesis: Plant your seed and see what happens:

What happened to the seed? Week One: What happened to the seed?

What happened to the seed? Week Two: What happened to the seed?

What happened to the seed? Week Three: What happened to the seed?

So the experiment is done: What happened during the experiment?? What was the result of the experiment??

Conclusions: Conclusions are the decisions that we make about what happened during the experiment and about how the result compares with the hypothesis that we made about our problem

So what are your conclusions??? Did what happened to the seed during the experiment match what you thought would happen? What do you think would happen if you did the experiment again? Could you do the experiment differently?

Let’s Review What is the scientific method? What is observation? What is a hypothesis? What is an experiment? What is a conclusion?