Why do Research? To learn more about the world. To learn more about us. To improve our lives and protect the environment. Its Fun!

What is Research? Get an Idea. Define your question. Gather Information. Form a hypothesis. Do an experiment. Look at the results. Draw conclusions. Publish results.

The Idea What interests you? What are you good at? Think about a problem that you may face in everyday life. What do you like doing and how can you make it better?

Formulate your question Think about your idea a bit further. What questions does it bring up? Can the question be answered by doing an experiment? What does salt do to plant growth?

Gather Information What has been done by other people? –Has this question already been answered? If so, is it a solid answer. If not, why not? –Use the library and the internet. –Be careful on the internet – don’t trust any information unless it’s from a good source What are you going to need to answer the question and do the experiment.

Salt and plant growth There is no research already done on the effect of salt on the growth of petunias. The only way to answer our question is to do an experiment! What will we need?

The Hypothesis A short statement about what you think will happen. It’s an educated guess. The hypothesis will be addressed by your experiment. The results may support or oppose the hypothesis. A hypothesis that is supported by a large body of evidence with no opposing evidence becomes a theory.

Keeping Records A ‘process diary’ or ‘log book’ is extremely important. Write down everything. What you did, what you observed, any decisions you made and why. If given your notebook someone else should be able to recreate your experiment.

I don’t need to write anything down. It’s all in my head. Now if I mix these two chemicals together and ….. Weeks pass and Frank still doesn’t put a word on paper. Oh Gosh, I’ve just discovered a cure for Cancer! ARRRGGHHH!

The experiment Has to be safe: –For you –For other people –For the environment Have a well thought out plan: –What are you going to vary. –What are you going to measure. If you can, do a practice run so there are no surprises.

Controls and Variables You don’t want any outside influences messing up your results. Controls eliminate everything except what you are trying to study. You want to reduce it to two variables: –The independent variable, which you change –The dependent variable, which you measure

Controls and Variables Amount of salt in the soil. –Independent variable Height of the plant. –Dependant Variable What are the controls?

Errors and Accuracy Its one thing to have results from your experiment – but how good are they? You need to make some estimate of the accuracy of your results. One of the best ways to get confident results is to repeat the experiment multiple times.

Results Put your results into an easily examinable form. Graphs and tables are excellent. Give a brief description and note any important observations.

Conclusions Was your hypothesis supported? What could you do better next time? Do your results present new questions?

Communicating the results Scientists communicate their results through journals, conferences and letters. Research today is a team effort involving people in universities, companies and government labs all over the world.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Albert Einstein