For the Instructor  Agriscience Pathway  Standards: Upon completion students will be able to  C13.0 Students understand the scientific method:  C13.1 Understand the steps of the scientific method.  C13.2 Analyze an animal or plant problem and devise a solution based on the scientific method.  C13.3 Use the scientific method to conduct agricultural experiments.

Conquering the scientific method… one hypothesis at a time By: Nikki Schiber

Objective  I will be able to…  -Verbally state the 6 steps of the scientific method  - Use the scientific method to solve a problem

What is the Scientific Method  The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.

Observation  Use of one or more of the senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste) to gather information  It is My observation that I am having a bad hair day.

Hypothesis  Possible explanation for a set of observations or possible answer to a scientific question.  Contains an “If…then…” statement.  If I brush my hair then I won’t have a bad hair day.

Theory  Well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.  A theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing  To become a theory the explanation must be well tested.

Inference  Logical interpretation based on prior knowledge and experience  My hair is out of control, is an inference I noticed when I looked in the mirror this morning.

Data  Evidence; information gathered from observations.  The data showed that brushing your hair reduces the risk of having a bad hair day.

Method Scientific The Of Steps

Step 1: Question  What do you want to learn?  Examples would be:  "What doorknob in school has the most germs ?" or  “What will help me not have a bad hair day?"  “Does the color of a light bulb affect the growth of grass seeds?”

Step 2: Research  Find out as much as you can.  Look for information in books, on the internet, and by talking with teachers to get the most information you can before you start experimenting.

Step 3: Hypothesis  After doing your research, try to predict the answer to the problem. Another term for hypothesis is 'educated guess'. This is usually stated " If I...(do something) then...(this will occur)"  A more scientific example (and one we could use for an SAE project) would be, "If I grow grass seeds under green light bulbs, then they will grow faster than plants growing under red light bulbs."

Step 4: Experiment  The fun Part!  Design a test or procedure to see if your hypothesis is correct.  In our example, you would set up grass seeds under a green light bulb and seeds under a red light and observe each for a couple of weeks. You would also set up grass seeds under regular white light so that you can compare it with the others. If you are doing this for a science fair, you will probably have to write down exactly what you did for your experiment step by step.

Step 5: Analysis  Record what happened during the experiment.  Once your experiment is complete, you collect your measurements and analyze them to see if they support your hypothesis or not.  Also known as “data”

Step 6: Conclusion  Review the data and check to see if your hypothesis was correct.  If the grass under the green light bulb grew faster, then you proved your hypothesis, if not, your hypothesis was wrong. It is not “bad” if your hypothesis was wrong, because you discovered something!

Review What is the second step of the Scientific Method? What do we call the process of obtaining information by using the senses?