What is Science?

Observation of Everything in the Universe Step 1

From the Incredibly Large

To the Incredibly Small

And Everything in Between

Observation requires ALL the senses!

Sometimes your senses are not good enough, so you need HELP Help comes in many shapes

It is not enough to just observe things, you must UNDERSTAND and EXPLAIN what what you observe. you observe.

Step 2 Thinking about Your Observations To do this, you must move must move to Step 2

To understand, you must think about how what you observed relates to: what you know what you know what you learn what you learn what you feel, and what you feel, and everything else you have experienced in your life everything else you have experienced in your life

AS YOU THINK, ASK QUESTIONS Why does this happen? What makes it happen? How can I explain what I observe? Does what I observe make sense compared to what I know? If not, why not? If I change something, will what I observe change? And any other question you can think of.

Learn everything you can about what you observed. This is called Preliminary Research Preliminary Research –Library BooksBooks MagazinesMagazines EncyclopediaEncyclopedia PhotographsPhotographs NewspapersNewspapers Computer resourcesComputer resources This also includes Talking to people, and Talking to people, and Anything else that might help you understand and explain your observations Anything else that might help you understand and explain your observations Step 3

Step 4 Form a HYPOTHESIS

A HYPOTHESIS is AnEDUCATEDGUESS That explains you observations or answers the questions you have about it.

Step 5 TEST YOUR HYPOTHESIS To see if it is right or wrong

This can be done many ways! Make more observations of the same thing to see if it always happens in the same way.Make more observations of the same thing to see if it always happens in the same way. Create experiments – change just one thing and see if what happens is different – then change a different thing and see if what happens is different.Create experiments – change just one thing and see if what happens is different – then change a different thing and see if what happens is different.

Sometimes your experiments will go well and tend to prove your hypothesis. Just as I predicted!

Sometimes, the experiment doesn’t turn out as you expected and you have to start over! Back to the drawing board! Yikes! We really need a new hypothesis!

Step 6 Even if your Hypothesis is supported by your further observation or experiments, you should do even more observations and experiments to be sure you get the same results every time.Even if your Hypothesis is supported by your further observation or experiments, you should do even more observations and experiments to be sure you get the same results every time. If you do, move to step 7If you do, move to step 7

Step 7- Conclusions After you do repeated experiments (trials) and analyzing the results, you reach conclusionsAfter you do repeated experiments (trials) and analyzing the results, you reach conclusions –Do my data support or refute my hypothesis? If they support my hypothesis is there enough support to publish the results? Did I make any mistakes or leave any variables uncontrolled?If they support my hypothesis is there enough support to publish the results? Did I make any mistakes or leave any variables uncontrolled? If they refute my hypothesis, back to the drawing board.If they refute my hypothesis, back to the drawing board.