I wonder if,……… How to use the scientific process to find answers to what you wonder about

I wonder if, Smiling for 10 minutes would lower my blood pressure listening to my favorite music for 10 minutes would lower my blood pressure Looking at pictures of people I love for 10 minutes would lower my blood pressure If meditating for 10 minutes would lower my blood pressure

I wonder if, Holding hands with someone would lower my blood pressure If singing for 10 minutes would lower my blood pressure If dancing for 10 minutes would lower my blood pressure If painting a picture would lower my blood pressure If eating chocolate would lower my blood pressure

What might you do when you wonder? I google for starters

Why do I google? To find out what is already known.

To get background info I’m asking questions about things that control blood pressure.

What background info do I need? What exactly is blood pressure? What is known about how our body controls blood pressure? What is known about what kinds of things can lower blood pressure? What is known about what things raise our blood pressure.

Background info is linked to what you are wondering about. If I wonder whether meditation will lower blood pressure, then I should google “effects of meditation on blood pressure” I would also need to google “what is meditation, how is it done?”

NOW WHAT? Figure out what you think is the answer to what you are wondering about.

What you think the answer is will be is your HYPOTHESIS

My Hypothesis Written in If, then format If I do meditation for 10 minutes, then my blood pressure will be lower.

Now What? Design an experiment to test your hypothesis.

Does it work?

Designing a Good Experiment Wonder First, Think and get ideas. What should I think about?

Things to think about Need to know what my normal blood pressure is so, I will know if it changes because of meditation (or whatever I am hypothesizing about) How many times should I take my blood pressure to be sure about the normal level?

Things to think about. How many people should I test? How long should I meditate? How many times should I repeat the experiment? Except for meditation, is everything else the same during each experiment?

What are some of the things that need to be the same in each experiment? Depends on what you are wondering about. If you wonder whether eating chocolate will lower BP, then you don’t want any one to eat chocolate before you do background BP test. Need to control eating before test

If you are wondering whether meditating will lower blood pressure, than you don’t want anyone to meditate before you take the normal blood pressure reading. If you mediate first you won’t be able to tell if meditating lowers blood pressure or not.

Other things to think about. If you are wondering whether eating chocolate lowers BP then everyone in the experiment will need to eat the same kind of chocolate and the same amount. Ex. 30 grams of dark chocolate per 100 lb person. A 200 lb person will need to eat 60 grams. Right?

Variables Many of these things we have been thinking about are variables. These are things that vary from person to person and experiment to experiments. We want to control these variables and have as few as possible.

What are the variables?

Independent vs dependent variable meditation Blood pressure

Write down the step by step procedure for the Experiment. Gather blood pressure monitors, pen, data table 5 people in group come to class and sit quietly for 5 min, then take blood pressure. RECORD Sit in quiet place and meditate for 10 min. Take blood pressure again. RECORD Repeat experiment once a day for 3 days.

Do the Experiment After you design the experiment make a data table to collect the data in, then do the experiment.

Sample Data Table

Analyze the data Look at the data for the answer to your question. What do you notice? Make a graph of your data.

Sample graph Does this data support my hypothesis?

Draw a conclusion It’s not a picture you draw. It’s the answer you get to your question from the data you collected in the experiment. Does the data support your hypothesis or not?

Final Step Report your information. For this project you will be writing a research paper.