1. Ch. 1 The Nature of Science

2. What Is Science?
The goal of science is to investigate and understand the natural world, to explain events in the natural world and to use those explanations to make useful predictions.

3. What Science IS and IS NOT…
Why does it rain?
Propose an explanation for why it rains without including scientific thinking.

4. Thinking Like a Scientist
Observation
Gathering information
orderly
senses
Data
Inference
Logical interpretation based on prior knowledge or experience.

5. Explaining and Interpreting Evidence
Hypothesis
Proposed scientific explanation for a set of observations.
Logical inference
Prior knowledge
Controlled experiments or gathering more data

6. Science as a Way of Knowing
Ongoing process
Skeptics, open-minded
Science has limits

8. Lab Safety

9. Design Your Own Controlled Experiment
Ask a question
Develop a testable hypothesis
Identify the independent, dependent and controlled variables
Write your procedure
Data tables, graphs
Conclusions
Methods of improvement

10. “Poof!”
Spontaneous Generation- Life could arise from nonliving matter.
Redi’s Experiment:
Jars, Meat, and Maggots (oh my)

11. Variables
A hypothesis should be tested by an experiment in which only one variable is changed at a time. All other variables should be kept unchanged.
Manipulated variable (independent)
x-axis
Responding variable (dependent)
y-axis

12. It’s JUST a theory WRONG!!
In science, the word theory applies to a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations

13. Characteristics of Living Things
Made of units called cells
Reproduce
Are based on the universal genetic code
Grow and develop
Obtain and use materials and energy
Respond to their environment
Maintain a stable internal environment (homeostasis)
As a group, living things change over time

14. Levels of Organization
Molecules
Cells
Groups of Cells
Organism
Population
Community
Ecosystem
Biosphere

15. Metric System

16. Metric Prefixes