THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

STEP 1: Ask a Question Must be a testable question. Avoid opinionated words like “ better” when asking a question. The question should allow for completely objective results.

Step 2: Gather Background Knowledge This is not where you write down EVERYTHING that you know on a subject. Only write down pieces of information that will help us make a prediction to the answer for the question we are trying to solve. Often research will be done to complete this step.

Step 3: Hypothesis Predict an answer to the question using an “If, then” statement. The typical format is “ If ( I do this as my independent variable), then ( this will happen to my dependent variable)”

Step 4: Create and perform an experiment This step can look very different from one experiment to the next. It includes: Making a procedure, identifying variables, creating blank data tables

Step 5: Analyze data and make a conclusion Based off of your data, determine if the results were reliable. If they were reliable, make a conclusion on whether or not your hypothesis was correct. It is possible that your results will be inconclusive and you will have to redesign an experiment at this point.

Step 6: Communicate Results Becomes the most important step for high level scientists. Must be able to organize your findings into a professional manner. Ways to communicate include a lab report, a poster presentation, a magazine article, and many more.