Environmental Science Scientific Method

Environmental Science and the Scientific Method

Step 1: Identify the problem

-what you want to know?
-Problems are always written in the form of a question.

Multiple Choice

What is the first step?

• identify the problem

• hypothesis

• experiment

Multiple Choice

What was lost in the video (the problem)?

• keys

• cell phone

• wallet

Open Ended

Problems are always written in the form of a _______.

Step 2: Research the Problem 

• Learn what has been done

• Resources include books, journals, magazines, interview, internet and encyclopedias 

• Never copy or plagiarize, always give share where you found the information 

Open Ended

What is one thing your could use to research a problem? (look at the picture if you need an idea, what is she looking at? )

Step 3: Write a hypothesis

• also called an educated guess

• It's what you think will happen in your experiment

• A hypothesis is always based on your research and observations

• Sometimes your experiments will prove your hypothesis wrong 

Open Ended

What is another name for hypothesis?

Multiple Select

Check what a hypothesis is based on. (2 answers)

• research

• observations

• experiment

• books

Step 4: Experiment

• This is where you create an experiment or test

• The experiment test to see if your hypothesis is correct or wrong.

• The steps must be numbered and put in a list.

Multiple Choice

What is the purpose of the experiment?

• what you want to learn?

• an educated guess

• test your experiment

Parts of an Experiment

• Observations: record what happens

• Try the experiment many times (repetition)

• Inferring: why do you think something happened based on what you observed

• Independent Variable: the part of the experiment you change (i change)

• Dependent Variable: the part of the experiment that changes (does change)

  
  

• Control: what you compare the results to

• Sample Size: make sure you have a large sample size 

Multiple Choice

The part of the experiment you change. (i change)

• dependent variable

• independent variable

• control

Multiple Choice

Record what happens is called

• observation

• repetition

• inferring

Multiple Choice

What do you call doing the experiment many times?

• control

• inferring

• repetition

Open Ended

Why do you think the same size should be large? Put what you think the answer is or your hypothesis.

Step 5 Data

• the information you gather from your experiment

• Quantitative Data: charts, tables, graphs 

• Qualitative Data:  illustrations and photographs

Multiple Choice

What kind of data is in the picture?

• Quantitave data: charts, tables, graphs

• Qualitative data: illustrations or photographs

Open Ended

Besides graphs, what is another way you can show data?

Step 6: Conclusion

• This is the summary of your results

• Is your hpothesis correct or wrong?

• Identify any errors with the experiment

• What could you do to make the experiment better?  

Multiple Choice

What is something that happens during the conclusion?

• research about the problem

• summary of your results

• make observations

Open Ended

What is the name of one step of the scientific method?

Poll

How did you like this lesson?

• Loved it

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