What is science?

Important Vocabulary to Know Investigation- a procedure carried out to carefully observe, study, or test something in order to learn more about it Science- the study of the natural world. Science involves making observations and performing investigations Evidence- information collected during a scientific investigation Opinion- a belief or judgement

What All Scientists Do Use investigations to answer questions. Use their five senses to make observations in order to collect information Compare objects and events to find similarities and differences Scientists learn by thinking critically about the results of their investigations

Prove it! Scientists collect evidence during a scientific investigation

Dr. Francesco Redi Where do maggots come from? Common belief was that maggots came from raw meet. Redi thought they came from flies laying eggs Planned and conducted an investigation to find out which was right

Redi’s Investigation Redi set up two jars One jar had raw meat with flies in it The other jar had raw meet with no flies What do you think Redi observed?

Redi’s Conclusion Redi concluded that living insects can only come from other living insects

Drawing Conclusions Conclusions are backed up from the evidence gathered in the investigation The more evidence you have, the more likely your conclusions are correct Don’t jump to conclusions to quickly Dr. Redi repeated his experiment many times before he made his conclusion Think about what you can infer from your observations

Be careful! If we were to observed a group a spiders we might see that spiders use webs to catch food. We could make the conclusion that all spiders use webs to catch food. This conclusion is too general, not all spiders use webs to catch food, some hunt!

Opinion or Evidence? Personal feelings and opinions should not effect investigations or conclusions Do not ignore evidence because you don’t like the outcome

AHHHH Spider!

Observation Inference Opinion

Pass it on! Communication is a key for scientists Scientists need to communicate so that they can share their investigations for others to repeat

Knowledge Grows When scientist communicate, other scientists come up with new questions. This is obvious with the development of video games!

1792 Stephen Gray shows electricity can be carried through a wire 1882 Thomas Edison opens the first electricity generating station 1947 The transistor, needed for radios and computers, is invented 1953 The first computers are sold 1958 William Higinbotham invents the first video game 1971 First coin operated arcade video games in use 1972 The first home video game systems are sold 1977 The first handheld video games are sold 2009 Scientists use super fast video game cards in computers to investigate the structure of molecules

Meet Scientists Astronomers- ask questions about how the universe works They use time and space relationships to investigate Use lots of math!

Meet Scientists Botanist- ask questions about plants Taxonomist- identify types of living things and classify them by how they are related. They put living things in different categories. How can we classify the butterflies below?