Scientific Inquiry Unit 1

I. What is science?  How would you define science?  Put on note page  Share you definition  Our class definition:  A body of knowledge and a way of doing things: we learn about how the world works through intellectual and social activities

II. What is Biology?  “ology” – the study of  “bio” – life  Direct: life study of  Translation: The study of life  Living Environment  Focus on the living portion of the environment  Ecology, cytology, genetics, evolution

III. What is scientific Inquiry?  How would you define scientific inquiry?  Put on note page  Share your definition  Our class definition  Asking questions about the world and finding out an answer or an explanation

IV What is the purpose of scientific inquiry?  To develop explanations of natural phenomena in a continuing and creative process.

V What does scientific inquiry involve? a.Asking questions b.Observing and inferring c.Experimenting d.Collecting and organizing data e.Finding evidence and drawing conclusions f.Repeating the experiment several times g.Peer review Sound familiar??????

h. locating, interpreting, and processing information from a variety of sources i. making judgments about reliability of the source and relevance of information -Hey!?! What make a source reliable?

VI Scientific Explanation a. Built by combining evidence that can be  Observation= Information collected with any of the senses  Tools improve observations  Inference= conclusion based on observation  Assumptions= belief that something is true  Bias= influenced by an assumption that may or may not be correct  Practice activity

b. Scientific explanations are accepted when  Consistent (experimental and observational evidence)  Accurate prediction c. Can change?!?!  tools are changing d. New evidence leads to more question

e. History  Learning about the past helps to provides a better understanding of scientific inquiry  George Eastman  You try. f. Value ethical - just because we can do it should we? Movie trivia

VII Theories a. Well accepted theories are ones that are supported by different kinds of scientific investigations often involving the contributions of individuals from different disciplines.  Defined as an explanation, supported by many observations and or experiments, that can be used to accurately explain related occurrences.

VIII Research/Experimentation a. Hypothesis (prediction) b. Experimentation (procedures) c. Analysis (organizing data) d. Results (conclusion)

Hypothesis aka Prediction  Hypothesis are widely used in science for determining what data to collect and as a guide for interpreting the data  Development of a research plan for testing a hypothesis requires planning to avoid bias  Example: repeated trials, large sample size,

Experimentation  Doing the actual experiment to test (support or refute) your hypothesis i. Independent Variable-Variable I change  You should only have ONE Example: amount of sunlight, amount of water ii. Dependent Variable-Data that you collect, depends on the independent  Is recorded in a table and then graphed

iii. Control established reference point used as a standard of comparison iv. Controlling the experiment keeping everything else the same in an experiment so that there is only ONE independent variable v. Collecting/organizing make a chart or table or drawing

 Activity  Simpson Handout at end of notes due Monday.