1. Thinking Like a Scientist

2. “The search for answers”
Science can be defined as
“The search for answers”
Therefore-
If you are going to think like a scientist, you must do two things:

3. 1.) come up with questions that need answers
-can be about anything
-usually come from “real life” experiences
-should be as specific as possible
2.) come up with an organized way of finding
the answers
Answers can often (but not always) be found by conducting an

4. Experiment
 a scientific test designed to give information under carefully controlled conditions

5. Question- what is a “scientific” test?
Answer- one that uses the steps of the

6. The Scientific Method
- “A set of steps that provide an organized way of finding the answer to a scientific question.”

7. Question- what are the steps of the scientific method?
Answer- depends on who you ask…
however,
it should include the following:

8. A. Come up with a question to be answered

9. B. Form a hypothesis what you think will happen
an “educated guess” about
what you think will happen
 almost always phrased as an “if…then” statement (i.e. If I don’t turn in my homework, then I will fail this class)

10. C. Design an experiment to test the hypothesis that includes the following things:
1.) a list of all materials that will be
needed to do the experiment
2.) a list of the variables in the experiment
any part of an experiment that
can be changed.

11. in an experiment, only one variable at a
time should be changed
Why?
So you know which variable caused the change

12. there are several different types of variables:
Manipulated Variable-
- sometimes called an independent variable
- any variable that you can control
Responding Variable-
- sometimes called the dependent variable
- any variable that you cannot control
it is the responding variable that you
measure in an experiment

13. Controlled Variable-
all of the variables that are kept the same
in an experiment
3.) A VERY specific set of steps needed to complete the experiment

14. D. DO the experiment and make observations
and collect data
Observations
any information that can be collected through
the five senses
the more different senses you can use, the
better
Data
any measurement, bit of information, or
observation that a scientist gets from an
experiment
- usually numbers

15. 1.) re-stating the question
E. Draw a conclusion based on your observations
 a decision based on data collected
 should include the following:
1.) re-stating the question
2.) re-stating the hypothesis
3.) describing what happened in the
experiment with data
4.) answering the question “Was my
hypothesis correct?”

16. Example-
In this experiment, I wanted to find out what would happen if I hit Mr. Rhodes. I predicted that if I hit Mr. Rhodes, then he would hit me back. As the data shows, I hit Mr. Rhodes 5 times, and he hit me back all 5 times. Therefore, my hypothesis was correct.

17. The results of an experiment can (but not always) lead to one of the following:
Scientific Law
a statement that describes how something
behaves, but not why.
- CAN BE PROVEN
Theory
- an attempt to explain why something happens
is based on the best evidence currently
available
- CANNOT BE PROVEN