The Scientific Method

Consumer Reporting Magazine Helping consumers make smart choices! To Heritage Middle School Students: We here at Consumer Reporting Magazine are doing a special investigative report to determine if certain products live up to their advertising claims. We are asking schools across the nation to help us with this project so that we can collect as much data as possible. As upcoming scientists, your school has been chosen to test the claim made by Bounty Paper Towel. Bounty claims that it is more absorbent than the leading brand (Brawny) and store brand (A & P). Is this claim accurate? It is your job to find out. However, in order to draw a good conclusion you will need to follow the scientific method and perform a carefully controlled experiment. Good Luck! We look forward to seeing the results of your hard work.. Sincerely, Consumer Report Data Collection Division

Step 1: State the Purpose What is the problem we are trying to solve? Write it as a question. THINK : Write an experimental question for Consumer Reporting Magazine. ____________________________________ Will Bounty paper towel hold more water than other leading brands and generic?

Identify your Variables I will change (test): I will measure:  To design your experiment you must identify what you will change (test) and what you will measure.  THINK! - As a group, write your answers in the boxes below. I will NOT change (conditions held constant so it is a fair test): Brand of paper towel How many ml were absorbed (difference) Size of paper towel Source of water Time dunked in water Independent variable dependent variable control variables

Step 2: Make a Hypothesis To make a hypothesis, think about the following : THINK! THINK! – As a group, fill in the hypothesis. If I change _______________, then I think that ______________________,because_______________ Brand of paper towel When I change theWhat will happen to the amount of water each can hold the brand of towel Bounty will hold the most waterthey advertise the most.

Step 3: List the Materials This is list of all the tools you will need to carry out your experiment. THINK! – Look in your lab buckets and make a bulleted list of materials.  ____________________  _____________________  __________  ___tweezers__________ paper towels Water Pipette (dropper) Graduated cylinders

Step 4: Develop a Procedure Develop the steps for your experiment. THINK! – Write a numbered list of steps explaining how you will test each brand of paper towel to see how much water each can hold.  1. Add water to the 100 ml line of cylinder  2. Using a tweezer, dunk a 5 X 5 square of paper towel into cylinder just until it’s covered (for 5 seconds)  3. Pull towel out, let drip for 5 seconds and record how many ml were absorbed  3. Record your data in the data table.  4. Repeat for Brawny and store brand (A & P)-start with 100ml

Step 5: Collect Data Conduct your experiment and record results. THINK! – Use the table below to record your data. What I changed: _______________ What I measured (specify units): ________________________ Trial 1Trial 2Trial 3Average Bounty Brawny Store brand(A & P)

Step 6: Write a Conclusion This is a summary of your results. THINK! – Discuss as a group and write a brief paragraph explaining whether or not your hypothesis was supported (correct) or not supported (incorrect). Make sure to reference the data you collected when writing. If you encountered any problems, please state this as well. Summarize what happened Was your hypothesis rejected or accepted Possible areas of error Areas for improvement and future study (how would you take what you did and expand on it in a future lab) _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _________________________________________

Ex. In this lab, we compared three types of paper towels, Bounty, Brawny and a generic store brand. We wanted to see if Bounty is really the “quicker picker upper” (which absorbs the most) as the ad suggests. Our hypothesis was accepted because based on our class results, Bounty absorbed the most. Areas of possible error include not dunking it until whole towel was covered, not waiting the same amount of time, and not cutting the paper equally (size). I would improve all of these points if I did it again to keep it a controlled experiment. In the future, I may also compare more brands of paper towels and compare it to all Life science classes for a greater population size.

Step 7: Communicate Results THINK! -  Fill in your group’s average under Group 1.  Go to each lab group and record their AVERAGE in the table below.  Afterwards, calculate the class average for each brand of towel. THINK! – What can we tell Consumer Reporting? Paper Towel Grp 1 Grp 2 Grp 3 Grp 4 Grp 5 Grp 6 Class AVG. Bounty Brawny Store brand