The Scientific Method and Experimental Design

Focus Questions What is science? Why is it important to repeat an experiment? Why is it important to have a control in your experiment? Identify the control setup, experimental setup, and dependent and independent variables in a given experiment

What is Science? Science is a process that helps us to understand the world around us. It is a way of knowing things.

What do we call that process? The Scientific Method Make observations Ask a question Create a hypothesis that answers that question Experiment and collect data Analyze data Form a conclusion Repeat the experiment

Vocabulary that you need to know Observation – something you can actually see Quantitative Observation – amounts; numerical Qualitative Observation – descriptive; non-numerical Inference – something that we assume to be true based on what we already know. Science is based on both of these things!

Experimental Design – how we set up experiments Control setup – the portion of the experiment that we keep under “normal” conditions Experimental setup – the portion of the experiment that we are changing in order to get a specified result

The variables in any experiment Independent variable – the part of the experiment that YOU change Dependent variable – the thing in the experiment that is affected by what you change When graphing, the independent variable ALWAYS goes on the x- axis, while the dependent variable goes on the y-axis