Scientific Method and Experiment Information

1. Scientific Method and Experiment Information

2. Scientific Method What is the scientific method? The scientific method is the 'tool' that scientists use to find the answer to questions. The scientific method has 5 steps. Question, Hypothesis, Experiment, Analyze Data, and Form a Conclusion

3. Question Raise a question about an observation that you can answer by performing experiments.

4. Form a Hypothesis Develop a tentative and testable explanation for your question, and use deductive reasoning to predict the expected results of an experiment designed to test the hypothesis.

5. Experiment Perform a controlled experiment that will test your hypothesis.

6. Record and Analyze Data Record the results of your experiment and review the results to see what you have discovered.

7. Draw a Conclusion If the data does not support your hypothesis, then you must reject and/or modify your original hypothesis. Otherwise you will state that the data did support your hypothesis.

8. Experiments A controlled experiment involves changing one factor and observing its effect on another while keeping all other factors constant.

9. Variables Variables are factors that can be changed in an experiment. There are two types of variables: Independent Variable Dependent Variable

10. Independent Variable The Independent Variable is the variable that is changed in an experiment. The Independent variable is what you, the experimenter, changes or enacts in order to do your experiment.

11. Dependent Variable The Dependent variable changes as a result of a change in the independent variable. The dependent variable depends on the outcome of the independent variable.

12. Constants The variables that are not changed in an experiment are called constants.